The Welfare-Nihilist Arguments Against Judgment Subjectivism 1 Anthony Kelley University of Colorado Boulder anthony.kelley@colorado.edu [Forthcoming in the Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy ] One way to construe subjectivism about well-being is as the view that x is basically good for S if and only if, because, and to the extent that x is valued, under the proper conditions, by S . Dale 2 Dorsey argues for an idealized, judgment-based theory of valuing, one according to which a person values a thing if and only if, because, and to the extent that she would believe, under the proper conditions, that it is basically good for herself. Call subjectivism about well-being 3 coupled with a judgment-based theory of valuing judgment subjectivism . 4 Judgment subjectivism is a remarkable theory, and Dorsey's case for it is compelling. If the theory is true, then what is good for you is wholly determined by what you believe is good 1 I presented earlier versions of this paper at the University of Colorado Boulder on three di erent occasions: as a Graduate Work-in-Progress Talk, as a talk to the undergraduate philosophy club, and as a talk to the participants of the 2017 Colorado Summer Seminar in Philosophy. I am grateful to those audiences for helpful feedback. Early work on the paper was supported by funding from the Centre for Moral and Political Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am grateful for that support. For helpful comments on earlier drafts, I thank Teresa Bruno, Dale Dorsey, Nikki Fortier, Chris Heathwood, Michael Huemer, Eden Lin, Rebecca Mullen, Graham Oddie, and three anonymous referees for this journal. 2 This construal is Dale Dorsey's. See Dorsey 2012, p. 407. One controversial feature of Dorsey's statement of subjectivism is that it requires that a theory link a person's good to her values in order for it to count as subjectivist. It is more common in the well-being literature to deem as subjectivist any theory that links a person's good to her pro-attitudes more generally (and not only to the pro-attitudes that constitute her values). See, for example, Heathwood 2014, p. 205; Lin 2017, p. 354; and Sumner 1996, p. 38. 3 See Dorsey 2012, 2017a, and 2017b. 4 Each theory-subjectivism, a judgment-based theory of valuing, and judgment subjectivism-includes "because," "to the extent that," and "under the proper conditions" clauses. To make the discussion less onerous, I will mostly drop these clauses when discussing these theories. Also, in what follows, all references to welfare value or to what is good (bad) for a person are references to what is basically good (bad) for a person (i.e., good (bad) for the person non-derivatively and as an end). for you. It is somewhat surprising that it has not been the subject of much scrutiny. In this 5 paper, I o er three related arguments against the theory. The arguments are about what judgment subjectivism implies about the well-being of welfare nihilists, people who believe that there aren't any welfare properties or at least that none are instantiated. I maintain that welfare nihilists can be bene ted and harmed. Judgment subjectivism is implausible because it implies otherwise. In section one, I explain judgment subjectivism, and in section two, I present the welfare-nihilist arguments against the theory. In section three, I explain how my objection to the theory is better, in at least one important respect, than a similar objection in the well-being literature. In section four, I respond to some objections. 1. Judgment Subjectivism The central motivation for judgment subjectivism is the alienation constraint, the doctrine that a person cannot be alienated from that which is basically good for her. Sometimes referred to as "internalism about prudential value" or "the resonance constraint," it is commonly understood as the requirement that in order for something to be good for a person, she must have a pro-attitude towards it. A person's pro-attitudes are her non-cognitive attitudes like 6 being pleased, desiring, enjoying, and liking or her evaluative cognitive attitudes like believing 5 Lin 2017 is an important exception. 6 In a canonical expression of the resonance constraint, Railton writes: "It does seem to me to capture an important feature of the concept of intrinsic value to say that what is intrinsically valuable for a person must have a connection with what he would  nd in some degree compelling or attractive, at least if he were rational and aware. It would be an intolerably alienated conception of someone's good to imagine that it might fail in any such way to engage him" (Railton 1986, p. 9). See Rosati 1996 and Dorsey 2017b for arguments in favor of the resonance constraint. See Dorsey 2017b and Sarch 2011 for criticisms of Rosati's arguments. Sarch 2011 also contains an argument against Rosati's preferred formulation of the constraint. 2 that something is of value. The alienation constraint is motivated by cases where it seems at 7 least plausible to say that something isn't good for a person because the person is not at all interested in it. From this starting point, Dorsey arrives at judgment subjectivism in two steps. The  rst step is to argue that, in order to accommodate our intuitions about how a person's good cannot be alien to her-that is, in order to accommodate the alienation constraint-theories of well-being must tie a person's good to the pro-attitudes that constitute her values and not just to any pro-attitude or other. Dorsey claims that a theory that ties a person's good to some pro-attitude that is not a valuing attitude risks alienating a person from her good. The 8 argument for this claim appeals to the case of a recovering addict who desires, but does not value, taking an addictive drug. It would be to adopt an intolerably alienating conception of her good, Dorsey claims, to say that taking the addictive drug is good for her when doing so con icts with her values. 9 The second step is to give a theory of valuing. A judgment-based theory of valuing 10 identi es valuing with belief or judgment (I'll use the two interchangeably). The theory says that S values x if and only if S believes, under the proper conditions, that x is good for S . There are some troubling cases for the theory. There are two that I'll mention here. 7 For the purposes of this paper, I will follow Dorsey (2012) in characterizing evaluative beliefs as pro-attitudes. 8 A valuing attitude is an attitude such that if a person takes up that attitude towards an object, then she values it. 9 See Dorsey 2017a, pp. 200-201. 10 More speci cally, Dorsey takes himself to be giving a theory of prudential valuing. According to Dorsey, prudential valuing is the kind of valuing that is self-interested and thereby most plausibly related to well-being. For example, Dorsey distinguishes between the way that he might value a stranger's broken leg being healed and the way he values being a philosopher. He says that he values the former in a nonprudential way and that he values the latter in a di erent, prudential way. See Dorsey 2012, p. 419-422. 3 Suppose that some of my beliefs about what is good for me are in tension with some of my other beliefs about what is good for me. For example, suppose that I believe that being a philosopher is good for me, but I don't believe that the activities that are constitutive of being a philosopher are good for me. Plausibly, if one does not value the activities constitutive of being a philosopher, one does not value being a philosopher. Thus, the judgment-based theory of valuing seems to imply, implausibly, that I both value and do not value being a philosopher. 11 Another problem case is this: suppose that I believe that being a philosopher is good for me, but I have a mistaken view of what being a philosopher is like. Suppose further that if I knew what being a philosopher is really like, I wouldn't believe that being a philosopher is good for me. Perhaps, for example, I believe that being a philosopher is good for me on the basis of the prospects of the fortune and fame I associate with being a philosopher, and that I wouldn't believe that being a philosopher is good for me if it weren't for this mistaken view of what being a philosopher is like. The judgment-based theory of valuing seems to imply, implausibly, that I value being a philosopher when I don't value what it's really like to be a philosopher (philosophy, perhaps regrettably, is not a reliable path to fortune and fame). We can specify the theory in a way that avoids these objections. The theory says that S 's beliefs determine, under the proper conditions , what S values. Dorsey suggests that the proper conditions include a coherence condition. In the case where I believe that being a philosopher 12 is good for me, and I also believe that doing the activities that are constitutive of being a philosopher is not good for me, my beliefs about what is good for me are incoherent. Once my beliefs about what is good for me are rendered coherent, I'll either believe both that being a 11 Ibid., p. 415. 12 Ibid., pp. 415-416. 4 philosopher and that the activities constitutive of being a philosopher are good for me or I won't believe that being a philosopher is good for me at all. What of the case where I believe that being a philosopher is good for me but on the basis of a misunderstanding of what being a philosopher is like? To accommodate this kind of case, Dorsey speci es the theory's proper-conditions clause to include a condition of full consideration. Provided that I wouldn't maintain my belief that being a philosopher is good 13 for me if I had fully considered the relevant ways that being a philosopher is like, then the judgment-based theory of valuing that includes a condition of full consideration would not imply that I value being a philosopher. With these details, we can now state Dorsey's preferred formulation of judgment subjectivism: Dorsey-style Judgment Subjectivism : x is good for S if and only if S would believe, if S 's beliefs about what is good for S were rendered coherent and if S had fully considered all the (relevant) ways that x might be, that x is good for S . The core of judgment subjectivism is a commitment to subjectivism and a judgment-based theory of valuing. Dorsey-style judgment subjectivism is one way to specify the theory's proper-conditions clause in light of the two problem cases just discussed. Dorsey's formulation of the theory is an idealized theory. It doesn't give the person's actual beliefs evaluative authority. Instead, whether x is good for S is determined by the beliefs that S would have if her beliefs were rendered coherent and if she had fully considered all the (relevant) ways that x 13 Dorsey 2017a, p. 209. 5 might be. Other judgment subjectivists may wish to avoid idealization. The welfare-nihilist 14 arguments against judgment subjectivism, however, apply not just to Dorsey's particular formulation of the theory. They apply to any plausible version of the theory. 2. The Welfare-Nihilist Arguments Welfare nihilism is the view that there are no welfare properties or at least that none are instantiated. Judgment subjectivism has some implausible implications about the welfare of welfare nihilists. I'll discuss three: that welfare nihilists cannot be bene ted, that welfare nihilists cannot be harmed, and that for any two welfare nihilists, A and B , the segment of A 's life after A becomes a welfare nihilist is no better or worse for A than the corresponding segment of B 's life, no matter what these life segments are like . 2.1 The first argument Suppose that Felicity is a senior philosophy professor. In graduate school, she took a seminar in the metaphysics of value. She became convinced by various arguments that nothing is good or bad for anyone. After becoming a welfare nihilist, Felicity nonetheless experienced numerous pleasures and the satisfaction of her most enduring desires. She married a lovely and kind 14 Dorsey distinguishes between two ways that idealization might be incorporated into subjectivism. On Dorsey's understanding of subjectivism, the subjectivist says that something is good for a person if and only if she values it. The  rst way that idealization could enter the subjectivist picture would be for the subjectivist to say that it's not the person's actual values that determine what is good for her; instead, it's the values that she would have if she were, say, fully informed and fully rational. Now suppose that the subjectivist does not choose to idealize in this way. There is still a second way that idealization could enter the picture: the subjectivist might say that what it is for a person to value something is for her to have certain pro-attitudes under certain idealized conditions. Dorsey chooses to idealize in the second, but not the  rst way; on his view, it's a person's actual values that determine what is good for her, but her actual values are revealed through what she would believe is good for herself under idealized conditions. See Dorsey 2017a. 6 person with whom she is exceptionally happy. She loves her children, and they love her. She has published widely in philosophy. She has developed her musical talent as an expert pianist. She donates money to the poor, and she has a wide range of hobbies in which she often  nds occasion to indulge. She is well respected, and she has many genuine friendships. At the age of 85, Felicity dies just as she had always hoped that she would: painlessly and surrounded by her loved ones. It is plain that Felicity led a good life. Furthermore, it's not that the goodness of Felicity's life is wholly explained by what occurred in her life before she became a welfare nihilist. The goodness of Felicity's life is explained, at least in part, by states of a airs that obtained after she became a welfare nihilist. Note that we need not agree on which states of 15 a airs are good for Felicity after she became a welfare nihilist, and we need not agree on exactly why they were of bene t to her. I take it that virtually everyone, irrespective of their preferred theory of well-being, would agree that Felicity was bene ted by at least something after she became a welfare nihilist. Dorsey-style judgment subjectivism, however, cannot accommodate this fact. The theory implies that x is good for S only if S would believe, if her beliefs were rendered coherent and if she had fully considered all the (relevant) ways that x might be, that x is good for S . Felicity's beliefs about what is good for herself are consistent because she doesn't believe that anything is good for herself. There is also no di culty in imagining that the full-consideration condition has been met. We can imagine that Felicity remained steadfast in her welfare nihilism 15 For simplicity, I am writing as if states of a airs are the bearers of prudential value, but I want to remain neutral on this controversial issue. Everything I say here could be restated in terms of whichever metaphysical entity one thinks is the bearer of welfare value. 7 even after fully considering every possible state of a airs that might be of bene t to her. Thus, Dorsey-style judgment subjectivism implies, implausibly, that Felicity wasn't bene ted after she became a welfare nihilist. This  rst welfare-nihilist argument, like the other two to follow, are not just a problem for Dorsey-style judgment subjectivism. Dorsey's formulation of the theory is a result of his preferred way of specifying the theory's proper-conditions clause. I will argue in section four that Felicity wouldn't believe that anything is good for herself after she became a welfare nihilist under any plausible speci cation of the theory's proper-conditions clause. My argument there relies on the claim that some natural and plausible ways the judgment subjectivist might try to specify the proper-conditions clause to avoid my objection are inadequate for that task. This fact suggests (but, of course, does not entail) that there is no plausible way at all for the judgment subjectivist to specify the proper-conditions clause in order to avoid my objection. One initial objection to this  rst argument is that I have begged the question against the judgment subjectivist. Only someone who is not a judgment subjectivist, the objector claims, would grant that Felicity is bene ted after she became a welfare nihilist. I suspect, however, that if the judgment subjectivist puts aside his philosophical commitments and re ects on the case as anyone else would, he would agree that Felicity is bene ted after becoming a welfare nihilist. Furthermore, the judgment subjectivist should be concerned to accommodate common-sense intuitions about welfare, and not just the idiosyncratic intuitions of judgment subjectivists. 8 Even if the judgment subjectivist digs in his heels and insists that Felicity is never bene ted after becoming a welfare nihilist, I do not think that my argument begs the question (or if it does, it is not an illicit instance of begging the question). I doubt, for example, that anyone would seriously think that Gettier begs the question (or that his begging the question is illicit) against the justi ed-true-belief theory of knowledge just because he assumes as a premise something that someone who digs in his heels and insists that the theory is true would reject (e.g., that Smith does not know that the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket). 16 The issue of when an argument begs the question (illicitly) is beyond the scope of this paper, but we can at least say this: an expansive view according to which the welfare-nihilist arguments should be rejected on this basis is one that would condemn as fallacious virtually every philosophical argument that attempts to make problems for a theory by identifying its implausible implications. 17 2.2 The second argument Judgment subjectivism is a theory of well-being. Theories of well-being are theories about what is good for a person as well as what is bad for a person. For example, the hedonist claims that pleasurable experiences bene t a person whereas painful experiences harm. Similarly, we would expect a full statement of judgment subjectivism to say something about what is bad for a person. Dorsey does not discuss this element of the theory, so we must  ll in some of the details for ourselves. The most natural suggestion is for the judgment subjectivist to say that x is bad for S if and only if S would believe, under the proper conditions, that x is bad for S . 16 Gettier 1963. 17 I thank an anonymous referee for pressing me on this point. 9 This additional feature of judgment subjectivism suggests a di erent but related argument against the theory. Suppose that Mallory is a prisoner at a top-secret government compound. She is tortured daily. She has numerous painful experiences and her life is full of the frustration of her most enduring desires. Before her imprisonment, Mallory took a seminar in the metaphysics of value in graduate school. She became convinced by various arguments that nothing is good or bad for anyone. Mallory had many friends that have since lost all respect and a ection for her after learning of her imprisonment for suspected terrorist activity. Upon her capture, Mallory's lovely and kind partner-with whom she was previously exceptionally happy-divorced her. Her children despise her, and she has no opportunity to pursue the various projects that are important to her. She has no hobbies and no genuine friendships. Mallory never again sees the light of day and dies at the hands of her captors. It seems plain that Mallory is harmed after she became a welfare nihilist. After all, it's not as if a person could avoid the harm of being tortured simply by convincing themselves of welfare nihilism. Even if we cannot agree as to exactly what is bad for her after she became a welfare nihilist or exactly why it is bad for her, surely we can all agree, irrespective of our preferred theory of well-being, that Mallory was harmed after she became a welfare nihilist. Dorsey-style judgment subjectivism cannot accommodate this fact. Mallory's beliefs about what is bad for herself are coherent because she doesn't believe that anything is bad for herself, and we can simply imagine that the full consideration condition has been met as well. Furthermore, Mallory would not, under any plausible speci cation of the proper-conditions 10 clause, believe that anything is bad for herself, so this second welfare-nihilist argument, like the others, is a problem for any version of the theory. 18 2.3 The third argument I want to highlight one additional implausible implication of judgment subjectivism. To put the argument roughly: when I re ect on Felicity's life after she became a welfare nihilist, I  nd myself thinking that this period of Felicity's life is going by far better for her than the corresponding period of Mallory's life is going for her. The problem for judgment subjectivism is that it seems unable to accommodate this intuitive thought. As I will explain, the theory implies that Felicity's life after she became a welfare nihilist is of equal welfare value for her as Mallory's life after she became a welfare nihilist is for her. For the discussion that follows, it will be helpful to introduce some terminology for ease of reference. Let's call the period of Felicity's life after she became a welfare nihilist Felicitous and the corresponding period of Mallory's life Maladious . It seems to clear to me that Felicitous is better for Felicity than Maladious is for Mallory. In fact, I have a strong intuition that Felicitous is significantly better for Felicity than Maladious is for Mallory. Perhaps you share this intuition. But the claim we need for the third welfare-nihilist argument is weaker; all we have to say is that Felicitous is at least somewhat better for Felicity than Maladious is for Mallory. Everyone, irrespective of their preferred theory of well-being, should accept this weaker claim. Imagine that you are Felicity in the moment immediately after she 18 In section 4.2, I argue that Felicity wouldn't, under any plausible speci cation of the proper-conditions clause, believe that anything is good for herself. I trust that the reader can take what I say there, make the appropriate changes, and reason in the same fashion to the conclusion that Mallory also would not, under any plausible speci cation of the proper-conditions clause, believe that anything is bad for herself. 11 became a welfare nihilist. Now suppose that you could choose, only taking into account considerations of your own welfare, either Felicitous or Maladious as your future. Surely you should not be indi erent between these two options; Felicitous is preferrable precisely because it is the future that would be better for you. Judgment subjectivism cannot accommodate this simple fact. There are two di erent versions of judgment subjectivism that we have to consider, each corresponding to a di erence with respect to what the theory might say about how we should evaluate the welfare value of one of S 's life segments for S . The judgment subjectivist might say that a life segment is good for a person just in case she believes at some speci ed time and under the proper conditions that it is good for herself. On a di erent approach, the theory would imply that a life segment is good for a person just in case there is a favorable balance of welfare goods to welfare bads accrued during that period of time. Consider the  rst approach. Put aside the proper-conditions clause for the moment, because the strategy I employ in section 4.2 can be used to establish that Felicity would not, under any plausible speci cation of the proper-conditions clause, believe that Felicitous is good for herself and that Mallory would not, under any plausible speci cation of the proper-conditions clause, believe that Maladious is good for herself. What is of interest to us now is the fact that a fully speci ed version of the theory on this  rst approach would have to say when exactly S must believe (under whatever proper conditions the theory speci es) that one of S 's life segments is good for S . The main options are to require that S believe that the life segment is good for herself before the life segment occurs, during the life segment, or after the life segment ends (or some combination of these). Irrespective of the details, on this approach 12 the theory implies that the welfare value of Felicitous for Felicity is 0 provided that we stipulate that Felicity does not, at any time whatsoever , believe that Felicitous is good for herself. Mutatis mutandis with respect to what this version of the theory implies about the welfare value of Maladious for Mallory. Thus, on this  rst approach, Felicitous is no better for Felicity than Maladious is for Mallory. Now consider the second approach. On this version of the theory, a life segment is good for a person just in case there is a favorable balance of welfare goods to welfare bads accrued during that period of time. On this way of evaluating the welfare value of a life segment, a life segment could be good for a person even if she does not believe that it is good for herself. As long as the life segment contains the right balance of welfare goods over welfare bads, then the life segment is good for her. Of course, according to judgment subjectivism, whether a life segment contains items that are welfare goods for S will depend on S 's beliefs about whether those items are good for herself, but on the version of the theory currently under consideration, whether the life segment itself is good for S does not depend on whether S believes that it is good for S . This version of the theory implies that the welfare value of Felicitous for Felicity is 0 because Felicity does not, and would not under any plausible speci cation of the proper-conditions clause, believe that anything is good for herself during that period of time. According to the theory, Felicitous contains no welfare goods at all for Felicity. Mutatis mutandis with respect to what this version of the theory implies about the welfare value of Maladious for Mallory. Thus, irrespective of whether we take the  rst or second approach in 13 explaining the welfare value of one of S 's life segments for S , the theory has the implausible implication that Felicitous is no better for Felicity than Maladious is for Mallory. 19 These three implausible implications of the theory-that Felicity isn't bene ted after becoming a welfare nihilist, that Mallory isn't harmed after becoming a welfare nihilist, and that Felicitous is no better for Felicity than Maladious is for Mallory-are devastating. Note that the leading theories of well-being do not have these problems. Hedonism, the desire theory, and objective-list theories can each account, for example, for the fact that Felicity was bene ted after she became a welfare nihilist. The hedonist will appeal to the pleasure that Felicity experienced, the desire theorist will appeal to the satisfaction of her desires, and the objective-list theorist will appeal to the relevant objective welfare goods that Felicity had in her life (e.g., her friendships, the development of her talents, and her achievements). I have been assuming that we should reject the theory because it has the implausible implications that I've indicated. But why should that be? Every extant theory of well-being has some implausible implications. Theory choice is a complicated matter; we need to carefully weigh the virtues and vices of a theory against each other before rejecting it. The worry is that since I haven't assessed all of judgment subjectivism's virtues and vices, I am not entitled to say that the theory should be rejected on the basis of the welfare-nihilist arguments. These are sensible remarks. We certainly shouldn't commit the mistake of prematurely rejecting a theory on the basis of just three implausible implications. But I don't think rejecting 19 This third welfare-nihilist argument may be thought to enjoy a certain advantage over the previous two. The previous arguments depend on absolute welfare claims (e.g., that Felicity was bene ted after she became a welfare nihilist), whereas this argument does not. Instead, it depends on a purely comparative welfare claim. So even if someone is skeptical about absolute welfare claims, they can still believe that this third argument is sound. 14 judgment subjectivism on the basis of the welfare-nihilist arguments is premature. The implausible implications that I attribute to judgment subjectivism are very implausible implications about basic issues that any theory of well-being should get right. Felicity leads a paradigmatically good life, and Mallory leads a paradigmatically bad one. If a theory cannot deliver the correct verdicts in these kinds of cases, then we should jettison that theory for one that can. Nearly every extant theory of well-being can account for our intuitive judgments about Felicity's and Mallory's welfare after they became welfare nihilists except for judgment subjectivism. That's an embarrassment for the theory. 3. Lin's Objection Eden Lin has recently posed an interesting and formidable challenge to judgment subjectivism that is related to the welfare-nihilist arguments. His objection is related because it identi es a 20 class of individuals who do not have beliefs about what is good or bad for themselves but who can nonetheless be bene ted and harmed. Whereas Lin's objection is about newborn babies, mine is about welfare nihilists. In this section, I'll explain Lin's objection and Dorsey's reply. Then I'll show that my objection is superior to Lin's in an important respect: whatever purchase Dorsey's reply has with respect to Lin's objection, a similar reply is a non-starter as a reply to the welfare-nihilist arguments. Lin argues against a theory he calls "Same World Judgment Subjectivism," which he describes as the view that " x is basically good for you at W if and only if at W , you believe that 20 See Lin 2017. 15 x is basically good for you." Lin's challenge comes in two steps. First, note that newborn 21 babies do not have any beliefs about what is good for themselves. As Lin points out, "they like some things and are averse to others, and perhaps they have beliefs. But they surely do not have beliefs to the e ect that X is good for them." Second, note that newborn babies can clearly be 22 harmed and bene ted. As Lin writes, the fact that "a newborn can have a positive level of welfare [...] implies that some things can be basically good for it." Thus, the judgment subjectivist is apparently wrong that in order for something to bene t a subject, she must believe that it is good for herself. A natural response would be to say that judgment subjectivism applies to normal human adults but that some other theory applies to newborn babies. However, Lin argues that "if the view is restricted in this way, we should reject it [because] if the view is true of normal adults even though it is false of newborns, then adult welfare diverges from neonatal welfare in a way that cannot plausibly be explained." Lin asks us to consider a newborn baby who has a 23 high level of welfare. Suppose that hedonism is the correct theory of neonatal welfare. Suppose further that the newborn baby matures over time and develops the capacity to believe that some things are good for herself but that she does not believe that anything is good for herself. Lin describes the problem as follows: If Same World Judgment Subjectivism becomes true of her at this point, then her welfare drops to zero (or lower) at that time-even though she continues to have exactly the same balance of pleasure over pain in virtue of which she was previously high in welfare. This is implausible. If those favorable hedonic 21 Ibid., p. 357. We have seen that the judgment subjectivist need not accept this claim because he might instead prefer an idealized version of the theory. Lin has an objection against idealized versions of the theory too. See ibid., pp. 365-368 22 Ibid., p. 357. Lin points out that even if this isn't true of newborns at this world, it is certainly true of some newborns at some possible worlds. That the theory cannot accommodate our intuitions about the welfare of these merely possible beings is still a problem for the theory. 23 Ibid., p. 358. 16 conditions were formerly su cient for a high level of welfare, they are surely still su cient for a slightly positive level of welfare. For what could explain why they are suddenly of no bene t at all? 24 The judgment subjectivist is thus forced to accept either that newborn babies cannot be harmed or bene ted or that there is a mysterious divergence between neonatal and normal human adult welfare. Both options seem untenable. In a recent paper, Dorsey replies by digging in his heels and arguing that the divergence is not so mysterious after all. He begins with the common-sense thought that when 25 something is good for a welfare subject, it bears a positively-valenced relation to that subject. He calls this the kinship relation . On his view, the kinship relation is di erent for di erent kinds of subjects. For example, the kinship relation that obtains between a dog and the things that are good for it may be a di erent kind of kinship relation than the kinship relation that obtains between a normal human adult and the things that are good for her. Dorsey argues that for valuers , the kinship relation is constructed by the subject's valuing attitudes; his view is that x bears the kinship relation to a valuer, S , just in case S values x . And, of course, he believes that a judgment-based theory of valuing is true. Thus, on Dorsey's view, the divergence between the welfare of newborn babies and that of normal human adults is explained by the fact that when the former develops the capacity to believe that something is good or bad for itself, the kinship relation that must obtain between that being and the things that are good for it is fundamentally altered. I mention this dispute between Lin and Dorsey not to evaluate Dorsey's response to Lin. Instead, I mention it to illustrate the strength of the welfare-nihilist arguments. In reply to 24 Ibid., p. 360. 25 See Dorsey 2017b. 17 Lin's objection, Dorsey argues that one theory of well-being applies to normal human adults and that another applies to newborn babies on the grounds that when a newborn baby develops the capacity to form beliefs about what is good or bad for itself, it becomes a fundamentally di erent kind of being. Assign to this reply whatever degree of plausibility you believe it deserves. It is plain that a similar reply to the welfare-nihilist arguments is less plausible. It cannot be argued that the explanation as to why one theory of well-being applies to otherwise normal human adults who are welfare nihilists and another applies to normal human adults who are not welfare nihilists is because the latter have the capacity to form beliefs about what is good or bad for themselves whereas the former do not. Welfare nihilists have the capacity to form beliefs about what is good or bad for themselves. Having the capacity to form such 26 beliefs is just a matter of having the capacity to come down, as it were, one way or the other, as to whether something is good or bad for themselves. Welfare nihilists like Felicity and Mallory clearly have this capacity; it's just that when they exercise it, they come to believe that nothing 26 A very natural way to think of the welfare nihilist is as someone who thinks that the concept of welfare is incoherent. If we think of welfare nihilism according to this model, then we might doubt that the welfare nihilist has the capacity to form beliefs about what is good or bad for themselves. Do I, as someone who believes that the concept of a four-sided triangle is incoherent, have the capacity to form beliefs about whether something is a four-sided triangle? I'm inclined to think the answer is "yes," but some readers may have a di erent reaction. For these readers, I submit that we need not understand welfare nihilism according to this model. Instead, we can think of the welfare nihilist as someone who thinks that there are no welfare properties instantiated in this world but that there are some possible worlds where they are. Compare: I am a nihilist about unicorns. I don't think the concept of being a unicorn is incoherent; I simply deny that there are any unicorns. It can hardly be said that I haven't exercised my capacity to form beliefs about unicorns simply because I do not believe that anything is a unicorn. I have indeed exercised the capacity to form beliefs about whether this or that thing is a unicorn. It's just that, in each case, I come down on the question in a particular way. For discussion of these issues as they arise in the context of morality, see Brown 2013 and Kalf 2015. I thank an anonymous referee for raising this concern. 18 is good or bad for themselves. For this reason, whatever purchase Dorsey's reply has with respect to Lin's objection, it is a non-starter as a reply to the welfare-nihilist arguments. 4. Objections and Replies Each of the previous arguments relies on the general thought that some ways that a welfare nihilist's life can go can be better or worse for her than others. Judgment subjectivism is implausible because it implies otherwise. One might wonder, however, whether it's really possible to be a welfare nihilist and whether there are ways to specify the theory that don't have the implausible implications I attribute to it. To make the discussion that follows less onerous, I'll formulate each objection in terms of the case of Felicity. 4.1 The first objection You claim that Felicity believes that nothing is good for herself, but I find that difficult to imagine. After all, Felicity pursues various projects and engages in loving relationships, so she must believe that these activities are good for herself. Thus, Felicity cannot be a sincere and consistent welfare nihilist in the way that you suggest. Even if she sincerely believes that welfare nihilism is true, she clearly is not consistent because she makes ordinary, everyday judgments about what is good for herself. I agree with the objector that one possible explanation for Felicity's behavior is that she is not a sincere and consistent welfare nihilist. That would be one coherent way to  ll in the details of the case. If Felicity really did believe, for example, that being married to her husband is good for herself, that fact could explain why she got married. But this is not the only possible 19 explanation. There is another coherent way to  ll in the details of the case that does not require us to say that Felicity believes that something is good for herself. The explanation I have in mind appeals to Felicity's intrinsic desires . An intrinsic desire is a desire for something for its own sake. Contrast intrinsic desires with mere instrumental desires. My desire for money is a mere instrumental desire; I want money because having money can get me other things that I desire. I do not desire to have green slips of paper in my pocket for its own sake. My desire for pleasure, however, is an intrinsic desire; I want pleasure for its own sake. Sometimes an intrinsic desire can also be an instrumental desire. I may want pleasure because it can get me something else that I desire, but my desire for pleasure is still an intrinsic desire as long as I also want it at least partly for its own sake. Also, intrinsic desires do not depend on beliefs about value; you can have an intrinsic desire for pleasure even if you do not believe that pleasure is good for you. 27 Now suppose that Felicity pursues her various projects and engages in loving relationships because she has an intrinsic desire for pleasure and she believes that pursuing her various projects and engaging in loving relationships will result in her experiencing pleasure. Because she is a sincere and consistent welfare nihilist, Felicity does not believe that experiencing pleasure is good for herself, but she wants to experience pleasure nonetheless. When Felicity gets married, for example, we can suppose that she believes that doing so will result in her experiencing pleasure. Using this strategy, we can appeal to Felicity's intrinsic 27 Even the judgment subjectivist would accept that you can have a desire for something without believing that it is good for yourself. Otherwise, a judgment-based theory of valuing would not be much of an alternative to a desiderative theory of valuing. 20 desire for pleasure (coupled with the belief that her behavior will result in her experiencing pleasure) to explain her behavior. The objector might insist that though I have provided a possible explanation of Felicity's behavior that does not require us to say that Felicity believes that something is good for herself, I have not provided a plausible explanation of her behavior. Only an explanation that says that Felicity believes that something is good for herself can  t that bill. Or so the objector claims. I do not know what is supposed to be so implausible about explaining a person's behavior by appealing to her intrinsic desire to experience pleasure. But in order to respond to the current objection, I don't need to argue that the explanation I o ered is plausible; it only needs to cohere with the other details of the case. The fact that Felicity can coherently be described as acting on an intrinsic desire to experience pleasure (coupled with the belief that her behavior will result in her experiencing pleasure) is enough to undermine the objection. After all, Felicity is just a  ctional character in a thought experiment. As long as the story is coherent, we can  ll in the details as we wish. Thus, by appealing to Felicity's intrinsic desire to experience pleasure, we need not accuse Felicity of being an insincere or an inconsistent welfare nihilist in order to make sense of why she pursues her various projects and engages in loving relationships. 28 28 Some hold that S 's desire that p is just the state of its seeming to S that p is good. See Oddie 2005. It might be thought that such a view is in tension with my strategy here; if it turns out that Felicity's intrinsic desire to experience pleasure just is her belief that experiencing pleasure is good for herself, then it could not be argued that appealing to Felicity's intrinsic desire for pleasure helps us explain various facts of her life without appealing to her beliefs about what is good for herself. I do not think this view is in tension with what I say here for two reasons. First, the view is that intrinsic desires are seemings, not that intrinsic desires are beliefs. It might seem to S that p even if S does not believe that p . Second, the view is that intrinsic desires are seemings about value simpliciter , not welfare value. It might seem to S that p is of value simpliciter even if it does not seem to S that p is good for S . Thus, even if we 21 4.2 The second objection Judgment subjectivism is the view that something is good for a person if and only if she would believe, under the proper conditions , that it is good for herself. You claimed earlier, without argument, that Felicity would not, under any plausible specification of the theory's proper-conditions clause, believe that anything is good for herself. But I can think of some plausible ways of specifying the proper-conditions clause such that the resulting theory will not have the implication that you attribute to it. And if I can supply at least one such specification, I will have limited the force of your argument in an important way: your argument, if successful, gives us reason to reject some but not all versions of judgment subjectivism . I did indeed claim earlier that Felicity would not, under any plausible speci cation of the theory's proper-conditions clause, believe that anything is good for herself. I now need to make good on that claim. My strategy is to establish a presumptive case for it by showing how some candidate speci cations of the proper-conditions clause fail to make the theory immune to the welfare-nihilist arguments. 4.2.1 "If she were fully informed and fully rational..." One natural and plausible-sounding strategy is to specify the proper conditions as those of full information and full rationality. The version of judgment subjectivism that would result is as follows: think that Felicity's intrinsic desire to experience pleasure just is the state of it seeming to her that experiencing pleasure is good, that falls short of identifying Felicity's intrinsic desire to experience pleasure with a belief that her experiencing pleasure is good for herself. 22 x is good for S if and only if S would believe, if she were fully informed and fully rational, that x is good for S . 29 To assess this formulation of the theory, we have to say something about what "full information" means here. Would information about what is good for Felicity be included among the information we add to her belief set when we make her fully informed? Suppose that when we add information to Felicity's belief set to make her fully informed, we add information about what is good for her. Then the theory presupposes facts about a person's good independent of her beliefs about what is good for herself. The judgment subjectivist tells us that the fact that something is good for a person consists in her believing, under the proper conditions, that it is good for herself. But then we are told that these proper conditions include knowledge of the fact that it is good for herself. It would seem that we have an instance of a problematic kind of circularity that the judgment subjectivist should not be willing to accept. Suppose instead that when we add information to Felicity's belief set to make her "fully" informed, we do not add information about what is good for her. In that case, there is no guarantee that Felicity will believe that something is good for herself under these conditions. Perhaps this is where the condition of being fully rational comes into play. The 29 There are some reasons to reject specifying the proper-conditions clause as conditions of full information and full rationality. There is a worry that such idealized conditions are objectionably ad hoc. See Enoch 2005 for a statement of this criticism and Sobel 2009 for a reply. There are also concerns that no person could be fully informed and that even if a person could be fully informed, the idealized perspective may lack evaluative authority. See Rosati 1995 for a statement of this criticism. More generally, there is a worry that if a theory of well-being bestows evaluative authority to a person's counterfactual pro-attitudes, then that theory risks violating the resonance constraint. Such a theory might imply, for example, that my fully informed and fully rational self's desire to listen to musak makes listening to musak good for me, even if I strongly dislike listening to musak and don't believe that listening to it is any good for me. For a discussion of a similar alienation worry as it relates to some forms of moral rationalism, see Joyce 2001. 23 hope would be that it would in some sense be irrational for Felicity to be "fully" informed and still fail to believe that anything is good for herself. Suppose that Felicity is "fully" informed and fully rational and that she does not believe that anything is good for herself. Now the version of judgment subjectivism currently under consideration would imply that Felicity is thereby irrational. But why is Felicity irrational for not believing that anything is good for herself? The judgment subjectivist must surely allow that some things are not good for a person. On any version of the theory, it must be rational for a person to believe of some arbitrarily chosen x that it is not good for herself. But if a person can believe this of some arbitrarily chosen x and remain rational, she should surely be able to believe it of every x and remain rational. But suppose that I am wrong about this and that it's really true that Felicity, if "fully" informed, is irrational for believing that nothing is good for herself. Consider a variation of the case. This time, suppose that Felicity has no opinion about welfare (e.g., she isn't a principled welfare nihilist as in the original version of the case) and that she is "fully" informed. Suppose further that by introspection she comes to hold the true belief that she does not believe that anything is good for herself. She studies the well-being literature and becomes convinced of judgment subjectivism. She then combines these two beliefs-her belief that she does not believe that anything is good for herself and her belief that judgment subjectivism is true-and deduces that nothing is good for herself. The judgment subjectivist cannot say that in this version of the case that Felicity is irrational since each step of her reasoning is unassailable by the judgment subjectivist's own lights. We now have before us a di erent version of the case in which Felicity is both "fully" informed and fully rational, yet she still does not believe that 24 anything is good for herself. The upshot is that specifying the proper conditions as those of "full" information and full rationality does not make the theory immune to the welfare-nihilist arguments. We can get di erent versions of judgment subjectivism by tinkering with the theory's proper-conditions clause. But I have shown that the theory is undermined by the welfare-nihilist arguments if we specify those conditions to include a coherence condition, a condition of full consideration, a condition of full information, and a condition of full rationality. There may be other ways to specify the proper-conditions clause in an e ort to make the theory immune to the welfare-nihilist arguments, but we at least have a presumptive case that the arguments are e ective against any plausible formulation of the theory. 5. Conclusion In this paper, I have given three related arguments against judgment subjectivism. Each argument is about how the theory implies something implausible about the welfare of welfare nihilists. The problematic feature of the theory is that it implies that something is good (bad) for a person only if she believes that it is good (bad) for herself. The welfare-nihilist arguments would be devastating against any theory with this implication. For example, Wayne Sumner's happiness theory of well-being is also subject to the welfare-nihilist arguments. On his theory, welfare consists in authentic happiness , which involves a cognitive component (in addition to an a ective one). Sumner describes this cognitive component as "a judgment that, on balance and taking everything into account, your life is going well for you." Welfare nihilists, of 30 course, make no such judgments, so Sumner's theory also has the implausible implications that 30 See Sumner 1996, p. 145. 25 I attribute to the judgment subjectivist. One upshot of this paper is that we should assess theories of well-being, at least in part, in terms of whether they deliver the intuitively correct verdicts about the welfare of welfare nihilists. 26 References Brown, Phil. "The Possibility of Morality." Philosophical Studies . Vol. 163, No. 3 (April 2013): 627-636. Dorsey, Dale."Why Should Welfare 'Fit'?" The Philosophical Quarterly . 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