On page 175, West points out what appears to be an important syntactic distinction Mill failed to make explicit: the difference of what is worthy of being desired, and what has the capability of being desired. Eating trash, for example, might have the capability of being desired (if you plug your nose and close your eyes, perhaps) yet that does not necessarily mean it ought to be worthy of being desirable. So when Mill claims, “the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people actually desire it,” (IV, 3) West explains why Mill is not guilty of conflating the two. According to West, “Mill is clearly making a distinction between matters of fact (knowledge) and matters of conduct (practical ends)” (175) and,
