 This certainly goes beyond Bentham’s quantitative hedonism. In fact, it is not even clear that Mill’s higher pleasures doctrine is consistent with hedonism. Mill’s position here is hard to pin down, in part because he uses the term ‘pleasure’ sometimes to refer to (a) a certain kind of mental state or sensation and at other times to refer to (b) non-mental items, such as actions, activities, and pursuits that do or can cause pleasurable mental states (consider the way in which someone might say that surfing was her greatest pleasure). We might call (a)-type pleasures subjective pleasures and (b)-type pleasures objective pleasures. What’s unclear is whether Mill’s higher pleasures are subjective pleasures or objective pleasures. His discussion concerns activities that employ our higher faculties. What’s unclear is whether higher pleasures refer to mental states or sensations caused by higher activities or the activities themselves.