Abstract
Many philosophers with hedonistic sympathies (e.g., Mill, Sidgwick, Sumner, Feldman, Crisp, Heathwood, and Bradley) have claimed that well-being is necessarily experiential. Kagan once claimed something slightly different, saying that, although unexperienced bodily events can directly impact a person’s well-being, it is nonetheless true that any change in a person’s well-being must involve a change in her (i.e., either in her mind or in her body). Kagan elaborated by saying that a person’s well-being cannot float freely of her such that it is affected by events that do not affect her (Kagan 1992, 169–189). These two claims—that well-being is necessarily experiential and that changes in well-being must involve changes in the person—are two different ways of specifying the general intuition that a person’s well-being must be strongly tied to her. This general intuition imposes an adequacy constraint on welfare theorizing: To be adequate, a welfare theory cannot allow that someone can be directly benefited by events that are not strongly tied to her. Call this the strong-tie requirement. The strong-tie requirement is easily satisfied by welfare hedonism, but it poses problems for desire-fulfillment welfare theories and objective-list welfare theories. Though a great deal has been written about desire-fulfillment welfare theories in relation to the strong-tie requirement, not as much has been written about objective-list welfare theories in relation to the strong-tie requirement. This paper argues that objective-list welfare theories can satisfy the strong-tie requirement, though probably only if they take a perfectionist form, as opposed to a brute-list form.
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Notes
This is certainly not to say that nothing has been written about OL theories in relation to the strong-tie requirement. This matter has been touched on, either implicitly or explicitly, in at least the following places: Griffin 1986, 7–72; Kagan 1992, 169–189; Adams 1999, 93–101; Griffin 2000, 281–313; Murphy 2001, 118–126; Kagan 2009, 253–272; and Fletcher 2012, 1–26. Though all of these discussions are helpful, none of them is directly focused on the question of whether OL theories can satisfy the strong-tie requirement. This paper, by contrast, is directly focused on this question.
The unrevised version of Feldman’s intrinsic attitudinal hedonism theory of welfare is another example of a view that falls into this first group (Feldman 2004, 66), and the same can be said with regard to the unrevised version of Heathwood’s subjective-desire-satisfactionism theory of welfare (i.e., it too falls into this first group). For Heathwood, the relevant mental states are beliefs to the effect that one is having a desire fulfilled (Heathwood 2006, 547–551).
The revised versions of Heathwood’s subjective-desire-satisfactionism theory of welfare also fall into this second group (Heathwood 2006, 539–563).
Am I being too swift here? Instead of saying that the move of adding Kagan’s claim to the OL theory seems somewhat ad hoc, couldn’t we say that, if OL theorists make this move, then they are just building a legitimate requirement into their theory? I grant that this is a difficult question and, more generally, that it is often hard to tell the difference between an ad hoc add-on to a theory and the building in of a legitimate requirement to a theory. As I have indicated, though, I do think that the move of adding Kagan’s claim to the OL theory seems somewhat ad hoc. Here, in particular, I am thinking that this move seems to be motivated by one thing, and one thing only, namely, the desire to block the objection that OL theories should be rejected because they cannot satisfy the strong-tie requirement. If there were some independent reason for making this move, then the charge that this move is ad hoc would have less (and perhaps no) force—but, alas, there does not seem to be any independent reason available here. Granted, one might think that, if OL theorists take my advice and appeal to perfectionism in order to satisfy the strong-tie requirement, then they will, in a similar way, be doing something that seems somewhat ad hoc. But here it is worth stressing that those OL theorists who appeal to perfectionism are usually not guided by the goal of trying to satisfy the strong-tie requirement. Indeed, these OL theorists are usually guided by independent reasons (i.e., ones having to do with theoretical unity) when they appeal to perfectionism. (For a very brief discussion of why some OL theorists appeal to perfectionism, see the beginning of section 3 of this paper.)
Kagan has recently stated that he no longer accepts the claim that changes in well-being must involve changes in the person (Kagan 2009, 271, n. 3). In his article entitled “Well-Being as Enjoying the Good” (Kagan 2009, 253–272), Kagan advances a view that is somewhat like Adams’s view that well-being consists in, and only in, the enjoyment of the excellent.
Kraut may also seem to be a perfectionist about welfare (Kraut 2007, 131–204). However, I do not think that Kraut belongs in the same camp as Finnis, Murphy, and Brink. One reason I say this is that Kraut’s theory of welfare includes an enjoyment condition (Kraut 2007, 127–128), whereas perfectionist accounts of welfare such as those advanced by Finnis, Murphy, and Brink are pro-attitude independent accounts.
For a discussion of this point about pleasure, see Hurka 2006, 366.
Kagan has recently pointed out that the words “having” and “possessing” are vague words to use in this context (Kagan 2009, 255–256).
It is usually fine if OL theorists speak loosely of having, possessing, or participating in the general goods on the list. It is only in the context of the strong-tie requirement, and perhaps in some other specific contexts, that more precision is needed.
For instance, brute-list OL theorists might try to satisfy the strong-tie requirement by construing the general goods on the list in ways that (if necessary) simply build in either an experience requirement or Kagan’s requirement that any change in a person’s well-being must bring with it a change in that person. For example, in relation to the general good of friendship, brute-list OL theorists might say: “We can construe the general good of friendship in terms of certain dispositions that friends have in relation to each other (e.g., dispositions to spend time together, to confide in each other, and to help each other). Further, we can claim that the only dispositions that are relevant here are those that make an experiential difference in friends’ lives. Given this construal of the general good of friendship, we can deny that you are directly benefited when your friend sticks up for you when you are not there, as, indeed, this event is not, for you, an instance of the general good of friendship.” Though I admit that this move deserves more exploration than I am giving it here, I find myself (at least tentatively) opposed to it, simply because it seems somewhat ad hoc for brute-list OL theorists to allow themselves to build in extra requirements in this way. In short, and mutatis mutandis, what I say above in n. 6 also applies here.
Although beauty may be impersonally good, it clearly cannot be directly good for a person (either in the sense of enhancing a person’s welfare or in the sense of perfecting a person’s human nature) if this person does not perceive it or experience it. Unsurprisingly, then, OL theorists tend not to put beauty as such on their lists. For example, in laying out his OL theory list of general goods, Griffin references the perception of beauty (Griffin 1996, 30); and Finnis is explicit that the general good on the OL theory list is aesthetic experience (Finnis 1980, 87).
Aristotle seems to have thought that one’s perfection can be affected after one’s death (see Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics). Sumner also thinks this (e.g., he says that “posthumous success could make a life a better specimen of its kind”—see Sumner 1996, 126). My view, by contrast, is that, if someone is dead and there is no afterlife, then her human nature cannot be further perfected (or further diminished in terms of its perfection), because all of her capacities have died, in which case none of them can be further exercised or developed or actualized (or further frustrated in terms of their exercise or development or actualization).
I presented an early version of this paper at the Baltimore-Washington Graduate Conference in 2008 (at Johns Hopkins University). Thanks to the participants at that conference for comments that I never forgot, even though I put this paper aside for a long time. More recently, I received helpful comments on this paper from two anonymous referees from Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Thanks to both of them.
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Lauinger, W.A. The Strong-Tie Requirement and Objective-List Theories of Well-Being. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 16, 953–968 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-012-9389-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-012-9389-9