A new paradox for well-being subjectivism

Analysis 83 (4):673-682 (2023)
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Abstract

Subjectivists think that our well-being is grounded in our subjective attitudes. Many such views are vulnerable to variations on the ‘paradox of desire’, where theories cannot make determinate judgements about the well-being of agents who take a positive valuing attitude towards their life going badly. However, this paradox does not affect all subjectivist theories; theories grounded on agents’ prudential values can avoid it.This paper suggests a new paradox for subjectivist theories which has a wider scope, and includes such prudential judgement theories. I outline the new paradox and show how two plausible idealisztions (coherence and consideration) will not help. Subjectivists about well-being must either add an additional idealization that can solve the paradox of judgement or explain why such paradoxes do not constitute serious objections to a theory of well-being.

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Ben Davies
University of Sheffield

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References found in this work

Desire satisfactionism and hedonism.Chris Heathwood - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 128 (3):539-563.
The problem of defective desires.Chris Heathwood - 2005 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (4):487 – 504.
Subjectivism and idealization.David Sobel - 2009 - Ethics 119 (2):336-352.
Subjectivism without Desire.Dale Dorsey - 2012 - Philosophical Review 121 (3):407-442.
Well-Being and the Priority of Values.Jason Raibley - 2010 - Social Theory and Practice 36 (4):593-620.

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