And if we’re to accept
this quantitative definition of the goal, consistency requires
that pleasures be sought in proportion to their pleasantness,
so that a less pleasant consciousness mustn’t be preferred
to a more pleasant one because of some other qualities that
it may have.The distinctions of •quality that Mill and others
urge can be admitted as grounds of preference if, but only if,
they can be resolved into distinctions of •quantity. Practical
reasoning that is commonly called ‘egoistic’, once we have
cleansed it of ambiguities and inconsistencies, tends to fit
this pattern; and it’s only in this more precise form that
it’s worth our while to examine such reasoning closely. So
that’s what we must understand an ‘egoist’ to be—a man
who, when two or more courses of action are open to him,
does his best to discover what amounts of pleasure and pain
are likely to result from each and chooses the one that he
thinks will yield him the greatest surplus of pleasure over
pain.