  Despite the implicature of the cliché, it is possible to sink even as one swims. Still, the foregoing does supply hedonists with some potential buoyancy aids. They can claim that one's every basic desire is directed at one's own pleasure, and one's every non-basic desire, directed at something other than pleasure, is had only because one thinks this will or might bring one pleasure. The wide range of ways in which one's desire for non-pleasure could bring one pleasure include: by this desire's itself being an instance of pleasure (e.g., by appeal to a desire-pleasure identity thesis; see Heathwood), by the desire's having the property of pleasurableness (e.g., deploying the thought that pleasure is a higher-order property of every desire), by the desire's causing one pleasure independently of whether its object obtains (e.g., a fan's desire to be a vampire or a hobbit might cause him pleasure even though this desire of his is never fulfilled); or by the desire's causing its object to obtain, where this object is an instance of one's pleasure, or has pleasure as one of its properties, or causes one pleasure. Well and good. But again, it is one thing to tell such motivational hedonist stories and it is another thing to identify any reason to think the stories true.