pleasure as that he should. "As between his own happiness and that of others, Utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator." The Utilitarians state, as a fundamental formula, "Each to count for one, and no one for more than one." Utilitarianism demands perfect impartiality in conduct: we must treat each man as one whose claim to enjoy pleasure is equal to our own; and we must aim at the greatest possible amount of pleasure for all human beings or for all sentient creatures.
(2) Utilitarianism also differs from earlier types of Hedonism by introducing a distinction of quality between pleasures. Before J. S. Mill no Hedonist admitted that pleasures can differ in quality. The only differences between pleasures, it was believed, were quantitative. If the amount of pleasure was the same, the value of it was the same. The only way one pleasure could be superior to another was that there should be more of it. The Epicureans had, indeed, distinguished pleasures of the mind from pleasures of the body; but not because the one is better than the other. Rather, pleasures of the mind, being finer and calmer, are more lasting than those of the body, and less likely to lead to painful consequences. Hence they are greater in amount.
But Mill protested that if we are to be true to the facts of life, we must recognise that pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity. "It would be absurd," says Mill, "that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasure should be supposed to depend on quantity alone." Thus, instead of saying,
