Human beings, of course, desire many things besides happiness—Mill acknowledges this fact as “palpable” (Utilitarianism, X: 234). Insofar as what we desire is taken as evidence of what is desirable, this might seem incompatible with Mill’s second subclaim—that happiness is exhaustive of the desirable. Mill’s strategy for establishing that happiness is the only desirable thing is to show that although there are other things which are desired by human beings, such things are desired only because o