Hedonism is the thesis that pleasure is the only intrinsic benefit and pain the only intrinsic harm an agent’s well-being can receive. However, hedonists differ significantly in their understanding of pleasure and pain, and this causes the agreement above to give the illusory impression that the different hedonistic positions form a tighter family than they actually do. In this paper I consider three variants of hedonism: pleasure as a sensation, pleasure as desirable consciousness, and the adverbial view of pleasure. I try to show that these three variants of hedonism are unpromising. The hydra of hedonism, if it is to continue to thrive, must grow yet another head.
