The pleasure that attends the satisfaction of a desire is consequential on that satisfaction, not the object of the desire itself.

Green agrees with Butler that psychological egoism (hedonism) is implausible but thinks that people mistakenly accept it because they mistake the pleasure that can be expected to attend the satisfaction of desires for the object of desire. Because the pleasure is consequential on the satisfaction of desire, the object of desire cannot be that pleasure. This point is relevant, Green thinks, to Mill’s alleged evaluative hedonism (PE §§162–69). Green notes that in Mill’s higher pleasures doctrine a