Computer Ethics

Well-Being: Part 2

Christopher L. Holland

Saint Louis University

September 10, 2024

Recap

Well-Being

What is noninstrumentally good for a person

Well-Being

Theories of well-being attempt to tell us what makes a person’s life better or worse for them.

Synonyms and terms closely associated with well-being include:

• welfare
• personal-interest
• self-interest
• quality of life

• eudaimonia
• happiness
• flourishing

Key Concepts

Instrumental Value

Something is instrumentally valuable if and only if it is valuable as a means to some other valuable thing.

Final Value (non-instrumental value)

Something is finally valuable if and only if it is valuable as an end.

Prudential/Personal Value

Something is prudentially valuable for someone if and only if it benefits that person.

Theories of Well-being

We can divide theories of well-being into four major types:¹

• hedonism
• desire satisfactionism
• eudaimonism
• objective list theories

Each theory offers a different account of final prudential value.

1. This taxonomy is based on Appendix I of Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons ([1984] 1987). Parfit did not include eudaimonism.

Subjective Theories of Well-being

Hedonism

Pleasure is finally valuable, and pain is finally disvaluable. A person is doing well to the extent that their life is pleasant and poorly to the extent that their life is unpleasant.

Desire Satisfactionism

Also called preferentialism and desire-fulfillment theory. It is finally good for a person to have their desires satisfied, and it is bad for a person to have their desires frustrated. A person is doing well to the extent that their desires are satisfied, and a person is doing poorly to the extent that they are frustrated.

Desires are factive, intentional states that take states of affairs as their objects.

A desire is satisfied when the desired state of affairs obtains and frustrated when it does not. Eden Lin (2022, sec. 3) provides a helpful example.

Suppose I desire that there is life on Mars, and there is. Then my desire is satisfied—even if I never come to believe that the planet is inhabited.

It is important to separate this from the experiential sense of satisfaction—a cool glass of water slakes my thirst. An unrestricted version of the theory treats satisfaction as the sole criterion for prudential value. However, most desire theorists endorse a restricted view. For example, they might add that my desire must be about my life (the success constraint) or that I must believe that my desire has been satisfied (the awareness constraint).

Some well-being theorists who like the basic desire satisfaction framework think that desires are too broad of a category. Some desires are more important than others. Borrowing from philosopher Eleonore Stump, we might think of a web of desires or perhaps an inverted pyramid Stump (2013, 269). She calls the desires at the center the “desires of the heart” (which she links to Ps 37:4: “Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”). A more common term is ‘values’, and the result is a value fulfillment theory of well-being (see Tiberius.2018?).

Subjective Theories of
Well-Being (cont.)

Authentic Happiness Theories

• Developed by L. W. Sumner
  Key text: Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics (1996)
• A person’s life goes well for them to the extent that they are “authentically happy.”
• A person is authentically happy when
  1. their life reflects their own values (e.g., free of indoctrination)
  2. they are properly informed about and satisfied with their life.

Theories of Happiness

(in the contemporary sense)

• Happiness as a psychological state (distinct from eudaimonia or the good life)
• Major theories include
  • Hedonism (about happiness) (Feldman 2004)
  • Life Satisfaction (Sumner 1996)
  • Dispositional/Emotional state theories (Haybron 2008)

Psychic Affirmation Theory of Happiness

To be happy is to respond emotionally to one’s life as if conditions are broadly favorable, with any problems being minor. In general, things are good, with no serious concern required. … To be unhappy is to respond as if one’s problems are major, threatening even the minimal achievement of one’s needs or goals.

— Dan Haybron (2008, 143)

Dimensions of Happiness

 

Attunement

• Peace of mind vs. anxiety.
• Confidence vs. insecurity.
• Uncompression vs. compression.

Engagement

• Exuberance or vitality vs. listlessness.
• Flow vs. boredom or ennui.

Dimensions of Happiness (cont.)

 

Endorsement

• Joy vs. sadness.
• Cheerfulness vs. irritability.

Objective Theories of
Well-being

Objective Theories of Well-being

There are two major types of objective well-being theories:

Objective List Theories

These theories begin with a list of intuitively plausible final goods. Lists vary from theory to theory but often include achievement, friendship, happiness, pleasure, and virtue.

Eudaimonism

It is finally good for a person to fulfill (or perfect) their nature. Here, nature fulfillment is sometimes understood in functional terms. A person is doing well to the extent that they are functioning well, and poorly when they are not.

Attitude-independence

Objective theories are attitude-independent theories of well-being.

Attitude-independence

At least one thing that is basically good [i.e., is finally/non-instrumentally valuable] for subjects of welfare is not “pro-attitude-involving,” in the sense of necessarily being either the object of a satisfied positive attitude on the subject’s part or involving the subject’s having a satisfied positive attitude toward something. (Heathwood 2021, 16–17)

Sample Objective List

• Guy Fletcher (brute list)
  Achievement, friendship, happiness, pleasure, self-respect, virtue.
• Mark Murphy (principled list: Natural Law)
  Life, knowledge, aesthetic experience, excellence in work and play, excellence in agency, inner peace, friendship and community, religion, and happiness (meaning success in life plan)
• Martha Nussbaum (principled list: human capabilities)
  (1) Life, (2) Bodily Health, (3) Bodily Integrity, (4) Senses, Imagination, and Thought, (5) Emotions, (6) Practical Reason, (7) Affiliation (incl. social bases of self-respect), (8) Other Species, (9) Play, (10) Control over one’s Environment (political and material)

Eudaimonism

Sometimes called Perfectionism.

• Broadly Aristotelian
• Well-being = flourishing
• Generally,
  • A person is doing well to the extent that they are functioning well or fulfilling their nature
  • A person is doing poorly to the extent that they are functioning poorly or failing to fulfill their nature.

Issues for Objectivism

Brute List

• These theories fail to give us unified theory of well-being.
• People have different intuitions about what to include on the list.

Eudiamonism

• What type of nature fulfillment constitutes well-being? Common human nature? Individual nature?
• Is it OK to change our nature? (E.g., transhumanism)
• Can eudaimonism account for the value of pleasure?

Hybrid Theories

Hybrid Theories of Well-being

• Loving the Good (Adams 1999; Kagan 2009)
  A person is doing well when they enjoy objects of objective merit or worth

• Desire-Perfectionism (Lauinger 2014, 2021) A person is doing when they both (a) exercise/develop their human capacities (eudaimonism) and (b) desire to do so (desire-satisfaction)

• Eudaimonic-Hedonic Hybrids (Haybron, forthcoming)
  Haybron’s version: a person is doing well when they have (a) self-fulfillment and (b) pleasure.

Well-Being as one part of the good life (graphic provided by Dan Haybron)

Sources

Adams, Robert M. 1999. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. Kindle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Feldman, Fred. 2004. Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of Hedonism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fletcher, Guy. 2013. “A Fresh Start for the Objective-List Theory of Well-Being.” Utilitas 25 (2): 206–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820812000453.

———. 2015. “Objective List Theories.” In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being, edited by Guy Fletcher, 148–60. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315682266.

Haybron, Daniel M. 2008. The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well-Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

———. Forthcoming. The Lives We Should Want. May 9, 2023, manuscript. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Heathwood, Chris. 2021. Happiness and Well-Being. Cambridge Elements. Elements in Ethics. Cambridge University Press.

Kagan, Shelly. 2009. “Well-Being as Enjoying the Good: Well-Being as Enjoying the Good.” Philosophical Perspectives 23 (1): 253–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2009.00170.x.

Lauinger, William A. 2014. Well-Being and Theism: Linking Ethics to God. London: Bloomsbury.

———. 2021. “Defending a Hybrid of Objective List and Desire Theories of Well-Being.” In Measuring Well-Being: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities, edited by Matthew T. Lee, Laura D. Kubzansky, and Tyler J. VanderWeele, 229–56. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197512531.003.0009.

Lin, Eden. 2022. “Well-Being, Part 2: Theories of Well-Being.” Philosophy Compass 17 (2): e12813. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12813.

Nussbaum, Martha C. 2000. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. The John Robert Seeley Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Parfit, Derek. (1984) 1987. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stump, Eleonore. 2013. Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering. Kindle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sumner, L. W. 1996. Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.