s no content restriction and as a result, weighs all desires equally. The Theory is built on the idea that there is a certain way a person wants the world to be and quality of life is tied very tightly to facts about the world, and this is similar to Mill's vision of how people who have the knowledge of higher and lower pleasures envision the world and quality of life as a result. Mill wrote, "Next to selfishness, the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation." (61) Mental cultivation, therefore, was a prerequisite to people on the whole living good lives. Mill believed that the ability to appreciate higher pleasures should be a birthright. He believed that once a person experienced higher pleasures and therefore true happiness, he gained a sense of duty about how to improve the world towards the goal of allowing ever person to be able to cultivate their higher faculties. Eventually, through the accomplishment of the Utilitarian goals like improving education, readicating disease and poverty, removing structures which prevented people from cultivating their mental lives, the world would have characteristics which would determine quality of life. In this way, Mill's account of well-being is somewhat compliant with that of the desire Theory. However, differences betweent he two serve to undermine the similarity. The distinctions are based upon the Desire Theory's lack of a content restriction of desires. In Mill's account, higher pleasures contribute more to a person's well-being than lower pleasures. The Desire Theory would not see a difference between wanting to feel a cool breeze on a hot day and wanting to write a novel. Desire Theorists would say that both desires are equal and will contribute equally to a person's well-being. Furthermore, a Desire theorist would think that relflection on which desire would promote my greatest happiness would be senseless because no difference would exist. Mill's a...
