Explain the difference between quantitative and qualitative hedonism

Hedonism in an ethical context is the belief that (human) happiness consists of pleasure, and unhappiness of pain. Jeremy Bentham advocated a quantitative hedonism in order to assess the moral worth of an action- it being good as far as it promoted pleasure, and bad as far as it promoted pain. The right action is one that maximises pleasure and minimises pain. He developed a hedonic calculus with which to assess actions, consisting of the following variables: intensity, duration, certainty, how soon the  pleasure will occur, how likely the action is to be followed by sensations of the same kind, purity and how many people will be affected. J. S. Mill, Bentham's godson and strongly influenced by him in his ethical thought, took issue with some of the consequences of such a calculus. For example, its egalitarian nature meant that no particular pleasure was worth more than another. This meant that the pleasure a flower-seller received from her weekly bottle of gin would count for the same as the pleasure a visit to the opera by an opera-lover.

Mill disagreed with this assessment and developed an alternative of qualitative hedonism by which there are higher and lower pleasure, the higher being those of the intellect and the lower being those of the body. His argument that 'it is better to be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied' claims that we should place a higher importance on 'higher' pleasures, even if they are more difficult to attain. Thus we should value the pleasure of a visit to the opera, which is intellectually demanding, over the pleasure from a bottle of gin, which is mere bodily pleasure. While both quantitative and qualitative hedonism advocate the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain, then, the latter makes a distinction between kinds of pleasure that the former does not, which will affect which actions are considered right.