 We can distinguish among pleasures between those that are caused by the exercise of our higher faculties and those that are caused by the exercise of our lower faculties. But why should this difference itself affect the pleasurableness of the state in question? If Mill holds a preference or functional conception of pleasure, according to which pleasures are mental states that the subject prefers and other things being equal would prolong, then perhaps he could claim that pleasures categorically preferred by competent judges are more pleasurable pleasures. However, he says that competent judges have this preference for the higher pleasure, “even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent” (U II 5). This suggests that higher pleasures may not be more pleasurable even for competent judges, and in any case it’s not clear that we could infer what was more pleasurable for someone who was not a competent judge from what was more pleasurable for someone who was. So, even if we can distinguish higher and lower pleasures, according to their causes, it remains unclear how the hedonist is to explain how higher pleasures are inherently more pleasurable.