E L I N O R M A S O N (corresponding to what I call the objective, the subjective, and the pro‐ spective)but argues that prospectivismuses the primary sense of 'ought'. 27. Prichard, "Duty and Ignoranceof Fact," p. 93. 28. Graham, " InDefenseof Objectivismabout MoralObligation," pp. 91‐92. 29. Prichard, "Duty and Ignorance of Fact," p. 94. 3o. Prichard, "Duty and Ignorance of Fact," p. 94. 31. Zimmerman, Living with Uncertainty, pp. 13‐14. 32. Hudson, "Subjectivization in Ethics," p. 224. 33. Lockhart, Moral Uncertainty and Its Consequences. See also Sepielli, "What to Do WhenYou Don't KnowWhat to Do";andBykvist, "How to do Wrong Knowingly and Get Away with It," pp. 35‐36. 34. Graham, " In Defense of Objectivism about Moral Obligation." This strategy is also suggested by Bykvist, "How to do Wrong Knowingly andGet Away with It," pp. 35‐38; Portmore, Commonsense Consequen‐ tialism, pp. 15 ‐16;andDriver,Consequentialism,p. I 25.Smart says that what is right is what would actually produce best consequences ("An Outline ofaSystemofUtilitarianEthics," p.47) andyet that one ought to dowhat would maximize probable benefit [p. 12),but he does n o t defend the divergence in concepts here. 35. For more on this see Mason, "Objectivism and Prospectivism about Rightness," pp. 17‐19. in B. Eggleston and D. Miller (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Utilitarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 199‐219. C H R I S H E A T H W O O D IO Subjective theories of well-being T H E T O P I C O F W E L L B E I N G Classical hedonistic utilitarianism makes the following claims: that our fundamental moralobligation is to make the world asgoodaswe can make it [consequentialism); that the world is made better just when the creatures in it are made better off (welfarism); and that creatures are madebetteroff just in case they receivea greaterbalance of pleasure over pain (hedonism). The third of these claims is essen‐ tially a theory of well-being. Other forms ofutilitarianism make use of different accounts of well-being, but whatever the version of util‐ itarianism, well-being appears in the foundations. Thus a complete examinationof utilitarianism includes a study of well-being. Wecan get at o u r topic in morefamiliar ways aswell, and our topic is of interest independently of the role it plays in utilitarian theory. We can get at o u r topic by taking n o t e of some obvious facts: that some livesgobetter thanothers; that some things that befall us in life aregood, andothersbad; that certain things are harmfulto peopleand others beneficial. Each of these facts involves the concept of well‐ being, or welfare, or ofa life goingwell for the person living i t . Many other familiar expressions ‐ 'quality of life', 'a life worth living', 'the good life', ' in one'sbest interest', 'What's in it for me?' ‐ involve the same notion. We thus make claims about well-being all the time. Suchclaims naturallygive rise to aphilosophical question: What is it that makes a life go well or badly for the person living it? Our question is n o t the perhapsmore familiar question: What sorts of things tend to cause people to be better or worse off? It is interest‐ ing to investigate whether people's lives are made better by, say, Thanks to PaulBowman, Ben Bradley,BenEggleston,EdenLin , DaleMiller,andIason Raibley. I 9 9 2.00 C H R I S H E A T H W O O D winning the lottery, spending less time on the internet, or having children. But these are n o t the sorts of questions that philosophers of well-being ask. If your life would be made better by winning the lottery, this is due to the effects that winning the lottery would have on other features of your life, such ason your ability to pay for college or on the sorts of vacations you could take (and the value of these latter things might similarly lie wholly in their effects). But in the philosophy of well‐being, we are trying to figure ou t what things are in themselves in our interest to have.We are asking, that is, what things are intrinsically good or bad for people, as opposed to what things are merely instrumentally good or bad for people. No r is our question: What things make the world intrinsically better orworse? The philosophicalquestion of welfare is the question of what things are intrinsicallygoodforpeople,andothersubjectsofwelfare.But we also make claims about what things are goodperiod, or good "from the point of view of the Universe."I For example, some people believe that it is good in itself when somethingbeautiful exists, even when no one will ever observe it . Whether or n o t this view is correct, philoso‐ phers of well‐beingare n o t askingabout this kindofvalue. But it is easy to confuseit withwell-being,because the clearest exampleofsomething that makes the worldbetteris someone'8havingthingsgobetterfor him or her.The claim that it is goodwhen things go well for someone is n o t trivial, however.The easiest way to see this isto notice that it mayhave exceptions. It may fail to be a good thing, for example, when wicked people are well-off,perhaps it would bebetter if they were badly off. Finally,our questionisnot:What sort of lifemakesfor amorallygood life? It seems that we can easily imagine someone leading a morally upstanding life that turns out to beof no benefit to her. But even if we became persuaded, through philosophical argument, that this is n o t possible, perhaps because moral virtue is its own reward, it still seems that beingwell-off and beingmoralare distinct phenomena. It hardly needs arguingthat the question of what makes aperson's life go well is important. First, the question is just inherently inter‐ esting, andworth studying in its own right, even if answering it were relevant to no other important questions. It alsohas obviouspractical implications: mos t of us w a n t to get a good life, and knowing what one is might help us get one. Aside from these direct reasons to be interested, our topic is relevant to many of the m o s t important ques‐ tions we aspeople face. Most obviously, it is relevant to our moral Subjective theories of well-being 2 0 1 obligations. This isofcourse true if utilitarianism istrue, but it isno less t r u e otherwise.Foron any plausiblemoral theory, the effects that an a c t would have on the welfare of people and other animals is at least one morally relevant consideration.Utilitarianismstands out in claiming that well‐being is the only basic morally relevant factor. Well-being also matters for politics. When deciding which political systems, institutions, and laws we ought to adopt, one obviously relevant factor is how well people will fare under the possible schemes. Well-being relates also to justice. O n e kind of justice, for instance, involves distributing welfare according to desert. The con‐ cept of well-being is also tied upwith many virtues and vices, moral and non-moral. For example, a considerate person is one who fre‐ quently considers the interests of others, while a selfish person does this insufficiently. A personwho can delay gratification for the sake ofher long-term interests is aprudent person [this iswhy 'prudential value' is yet another synonym for 'well-being'). Welfare is probably also conceptually connected to each of the following phenomena: love, empathy, care, envy, pity, dread, reward, punishment, compas‐ sion, hatred, and malice. Seeing the connections that the concept of welfare has to other concepts can even help us to identify the very concept we mean to be asking about in the first place. SUBJECTIVE V S . OBIECTIVE T H E O R I E S O F W E L L B E I N G The distinction One way to begin answering the question of what makes a person's life go well for him or her is simply to produce a list of things whose presence in our lives seems to make them better. Here is an incom‐ plete list of some possibilities: enjoyment freedom happiness being respected knowledge health achieving one's goals 2 0 2 C H R I S H E AT HWOOD friendship gettingwhat one wan ts beinga goodperson being in love creative activity contemplating important questions aesthetic appreciation excelling atworthwhile activities Most or all of these have opposites that are intuitively bad, but to keep things simpler, wewill focus on the good things. Something interesting about our list above is that all of the items on it are things that mos t people enjoy, and wan t in their lives.They are things we have positive attitudes toward (or, in some cases, they just are positive attitudes). This raises a question that is among the deepest andmos t central to thephilosophicalstudyofwell-being: Are the things on the list above good solely in virtue of the positive attitudes that we have toward them, or do they benefit uswhether or n o t wehave these attitudes toward them.2 AsSocratesmight have p u t the question: Do we wan t these things in our lives because it is good to have them, or is it good to have them in our lives becausewe wan t them?2 This is essentially the question ofwhether well-being is objective or subjective. Subjectivists maintain that something can benefit a person only if he wants i t , likes i t , or cares about i t , or it otherwise connects up in some important way with some positive attitude of his. Objectivists deny this, holding that at least some of the things that make our lives better do so independently of our particular interests, likes,and cares. What do we mean by 'positive attitude'? We mean to include attitudes of favoring something, wanting i t , caring about i t , valuing i t , believing it valuable, liking i t , trying to get i t , having it asagoal, being fond of i t , being for i t , having an interest in i t , and the like. Philosophers call these 'pro-attitudes'.3 No t all subjective theories of well-being hold that all the attitudes just listed are relevant to well‐ being.A particular subjective theory will oftensingle o u t one of them asthe pro-attitude that is required for a personto bebenefitted. In thenex t section,wewil l survey someof theparticularvarieties of subjective theory; in theremainderof this section,wewil l lookatwhat is perhaps the mos t important reason for preferring the general Subjective theories of well-being 203 subjective approachaswell asacentral reason for preferring anobjec‐ tive theory. In the process of doing this, we wi l l further clarify the distinctionbetweensubjective andobjective theories ofwell-being. Generalconsiderations in support of subjectivism Perhapsthema inreason to think that the subjectiveapproachisright is that there is a strong, widely shared intuition that suggests that the subjective approach is correct. This intuition is expressed in a fre‐ quently quoted passage by the philosopher Peter Railton: 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 m u s t have a connectionwithwhat hewouldfind in somedegree compellingor attractive, at least if hewere rational and aware. It would be an intolerably alienated conceptionof someone'sgood to imagine that it might fail in any suchway to engage him." Many share Railton's intuition. If we do, and if our evaluative intu‐ itionsare aguide to the truthabout value, then this gives us reasonto think that the subjective approach to well-being is the correct one. For Railton's intuit ion seems to be more or less just another way of putting the subjective approach. If this sounds question-begging against the objectivist, a related way for the subjectivist to support her View is to elicit a similar intuition,but about aparticular case. This might seem less question‐ begging. Here is sucha case: Henry readsaphilosophybook that makesanimpressiononhim.Theauthor defends anobjective theory of well-being that includesmany of the items on our sample list above. Henry wants to ge t agood life, and sohe goes about trying to acquire these things. Forexample, to increasehisknowledge‐ one of the basic, intrinsic goods of life, according to the author ‐ Henry reads a textbook on entomology and acquires a vast knowledge of insects. Henry finds,however, that thisnew knowledge,asheputs i t , "doesnothingforme." Hepursuedit only becausethe author recommendedi t ,andhecanmuster no enthusiasmforwhat hehas learned,or for the fact that hehaslearnedit.Hein noway cares that hehasall this newknowledge,andhe neverwi l l care. It has no practical application to anything in his life,and it neverwill. N ow ask yourself: Was Henry benefittedbygaining this v a s t knowl‐ edge of entomology? The subjectivist expects that your judgment wil l 204 CHR I S H E AT H W O O D bethat, no,Henrywas no t benefitted.If so, this supports subjectivism over objectivism about well-being. For objectivists who affirm the intrinsic value of knowledge are committed to saying that Henrywas in fact benefittedby gaining this knowledge. Objectivists who do n o t include knowledge on their list avoid this particular counterexample, but they will postulate other intrinsic goods, such as, say, freedom. The subjectivist will then ask us to imagine a new case: a case of someone who dutifully increases her share of the putative good ‐ perhaps she moves to a state with fewer lawsrestrictingher freedom ‐ but who finds that she just doesn o t care about having this new allegedgood, and that it does n o t get hermy thing else that she cares about, wants, or likes. Because the putative good in question is objective ‐ i.e., it bears no necessary connection to positive attitudes on the part of asubject who has it ‐ it wil l alwaysbe possible for it to leave some people cold. If we share the intuition that suchpeople receive no benefit when they receive the allegedgood,we have acounterexample to the objective theory in question. Some putative goods on the list above are no t objective. Consider happiness, or at least one kindof happiness:beinghappyabout some‐ thing in your life, such asyour job. Beinghappy about your job does bear a necessary connection to a positive attitude of yours, because being happy about your job is one such attitude. Being happy about your job canno t leaveyou cold, since the very attitude ofbeinghappy about your job is an attitude of finding something to some degree compellingor attractive. Thus we cannot construct a case analogous to the case ofHenryabout the putative goodof beinghappy.This will n o t help objectivists, of course, since a theory that claims that the single, fundamentalhumangood is beinghappy is asubjective rather than anobjective theory. Other putative goods on the list above are clearly objective. Knowledge, if an intrinsic welfare good, is an objective one because it need n o t connect up in any way with our pro-attitudes. Note that this is true even though knowledge is {at least in part) amental state. Thus it is amistake to understand the objective‐subjective distinc‐ tion asit is used in the philosophy of well-being asinvolvingmerely the distinctionbetweenstatesof theworldandstates ofmind.To bea subjectivist about well-being, it is n o t enough to holdthat well-being is wholly determined by subjective states, or mental states. It has to be the right kindof subjective state ‐ a "pro" or "con" mental state. Subjective theories of well-being 205 Further clarificationofthe distinction It is worth makinga further clarification about subjectivism. Aswe noted earlier, a Socratic way to think of subjectivism about well‐ being is as the view that things are good for people in virtue of the prõattitudes they take toward those things. We also said that the theory that happiness is the good is a subjective theory. Bu t consider someone who, while very happy about many things, never stops to consider her own happiness, and so never takes up any proor con‐ attitudes toward i t . If the Socratic way ofunderstandingsubjectivism is literally correct, then the happiness theory wi l l count as a form of objectivism. For, as this example illustrates, it is possible on this theory for something (namely, being happy) to be good for someone without her taking upany pro-attitudes toward that thing. Oneway to t r y to handle this is to reject the Socratic understand‐ ingof subjectivism ast o o narrow, and to hold that a theory is subjective just in case it implies the following: that something is intrinsically good for someone just in case either [ i j she has a certainpro‐ attitude toward it, or (ii) it itself involves a certain prõattitude of hers toward something. This criterion counts the happiness theory as a subjective theory because, on the happiness theory, the only thing that is intrinsically good for people is athing ‐ their beinghappy about something‐ that itself involves their own pro-attitudes toward something {their being happyabout something just isapro-attitude towardsomething).This wil l be our official understanding of subjectivism about well-being. Correspondingly, objectivism about well-being is the v iew that at least one fundamental, intrinsic human good does not involve any pro-attitudes on the part of the subject. General considerations in support of obiectivism One motivat ion for being anobjectivist about well-being is that it just soundsplausible to say that things likefreedom,respect, knowl‐ edge, health, and love make our lives better. But we have to be careful. Subjectivists can agree wi th this plausible thought, since they know that mos t people havepro-attitudes toward these things, . or at least that these things cause m o s t people to havepro-attitudes (such ashappiness or enjoyment) toward other things. Thus when 206 C H R I S H E A T H W O O D these people get the things on the list above, their liveswi l l bemade better even according to subjectivism. To p u t it another way, sub‐ jectivists hold that the things on this list are typically instrumen‐ tally good for usto have,andhope to fully account for their intuitive value in this way. However,some objectivistswil l continue to insist that the value of at least some such items is intrinsic and attitude‐independent. In support of this, they might offer the following kind of argument against subjectivism. It beginsby imaginingsomeonewho hasbizarre interests, or, perhaps more effectively, base or immoral interests. Thus, john Rawls "imagine[s] someone whose only pleasure is to coun t blades of grass in . . . park squares and well-trimmed lawns."S G.E.Moore compares "the state of mind of adrunkard, when he is intensely pleasedwith breaking crockery" to "that of amanwho is fully realisingall that is exquisite in the tragedy of KingLear."6As an example of a morally corrupt interest, we can imagine a pedophile engagingin the immoral activities hevery muchwants to beengaging in. Finally, Thomas Nagel has us "[s]uppose an intelligent person receives abrain injury that reduces him to the mental condition of a contented infant, and that such desires asremain to himare satisfied byacustodian, sothat heis free fromcare." Nagelclaims that "[s]uch adevelopment would bewidely regardedasasevere misfortune, n o t only for his friends and relations, or for society, but also, andprimar‐ i ly, for the person himself . . .He is the one wepity, though of course hedoes n o t mindhis condition."7 According to the objection, subjective theories are committed to the following: that Rawls's grass-counter can get a great life by doing nothingmore thancountingbladesofgrass allday; that, solongasthe amo u n t of pleasure is the same between the tw o cases, it is just as well, in terms of howgood it makes your life, to break crockery while drunk as it is to appreciate great art; that it is, at least considered in itself, agreat good for the pedophile when hemolests children,and that the brain-injuryVictimhas in fact sufferednomisfortune,solong asthe desires that remain to him are well enough satisfied. But, the argument continues, surely claims suchasthese are implausible.One kindof evidence for this maybethat wewould n o t w a n t someonewe love, suchasour o w n child, to livealife likeany of the lives imagined here.We can avoid these putatively implausible claims by including objective elements into our theory of well‐being, such as that Subjective theories of well‐being 207 exposure to great ar t is intrinsically good for people orthat engaging in immoralactivities is intrinsically bad for people. To these objections, some subjectivists [includingRawls himself) "bite the bullet." They think that, onreflection, such lives in fact can be good for the people living them. After all, these activities are just the sorts of activities they w a n t to be doing, and likedoing. This may beeasier to swallowwhenwe remindourselves that accepting sucha claim does n o t commit one to the View that these lives are morally good, or that they manifest excellence, or that they are good in other ways that are distinct from their being beneficial to those living them. One's ultimate View concerning such cases, and concerning the considerations above in support of subjectivism, will help determine where one stands on this mo s t important philosophical question of well-being: whether to accept asubjective or an objective theory. Before discussing specific kinds of subjective theory, it is worth mentioningathird option, onewewi l l n o thave space toexplorehere: a hybrid of subjectivism and objectivism. According to the hybrid theory, well-being consists in receivingthings that (I) the subject has some pro-attitude toward (or that otherwise involvepro-attitudes on the par t of the subject) and that (2)have some value, orspecial status, independentof theseattitudes.One's lifegoes betterno t simplywhen one gets what one wants or likes, but when one is wanting or liking, and getting, the right things. These might include some of the things on ou r list above. It is very muchworth investigating the extent to which the arguments andconsiderations discussedin this essayapply to hybrid theories ofwell‐being.8 V A R I E T I E S OF SUBJECTIVISM On one popular taxonomy, there are three ma in kinds of theory of well-being: hedonism, according to which pleasure or enjoyment is the only thing that ultimatelymakes a lifeworth living; the desire theory, according to whichwhat is ultimately in aperson's interest is getting what he wants, whatever it is; and vobiectiVism,accordingtowhichat least someofwhat intrinsicallymakesour lives better does sowhether or no twe enjoy it orw a n t it.9 208 C H R I S H E A T H W O O D Wehave already discussed objectivism (and it is discussed in greater depth in the ne x t chapter). The desire theory is the paradigmatic version of the subjective approach to well-being. Hedonism is often also classified asasubjective theory, though, aswewi l l see, this issue is somewhat complicated. In what remains, we wi l l introduce and briefly explore hedonism, includinghow to classify i t , and conclude with a lengthier treatment of the desire theory of welfare. Along the way, we wi l l briefly discuss t w o kinds of subjective theory that may or may n o t be covered by the above taxonomy: eudaimonism, the View, often associated with hedonism, that well‐being consists in happiness,and the aim achievement theory, the view, often associ‐ ated with the desire theory, that successfully achieving our aims is what makes our lives gowell. A related subjective theory, which we will n o t have space to discuss, appeals n o t to the subject's desires or aims, but to the subject's values.IO Hedonism Hedonism is among the oldest of philosophical doctrines still dis‐ cussed and defended today, dating back to the Indian philosopher Carvaka around 600 BCE and the Greek philosopher Aristippus around400 BCE.II The notions that suffering is badfor the one suffer‐ ing and enjoyment good for the one getting it are intuitive raw data that any plausible theory of well‐being mu s t accommodate. Hedonism is controversial largely because it claims that nothing else is of fundamental intrinsic significance to howwell ou r lives go. In ordinary language, the te rm 'hedonist' connotes adecadent, self‐ indulgent devotion to the gratification of sensual and gastronomic desires. But it is no part of the philosophical doctrine of hedonism that this is theway to live.Hedonismis n o t the egoistic view that only one's ow npleasuresandpains shouldconcernone, andhedonistsoften emphasize the greater reliability,permanence,andfreedomfrompain‐ ful side effects of intellectual, aesthetic, andmoralpleasures. The mos t popular argument, historically speaking, for hedonism about well-being appeals to a theory of humanmotivation knownas psychologicalhedonism."According to psychologicalhedonism, the only thing that anyone ever desires for i ts o w n sake is his own pleasure (ignoring pain here for brevity). Thus, whenever a person desires something other than his o w n pleasure, he desires it as a Subjective theories of well-being 209 means to his o w n pleasure. The argument from psychologicalhedon‐ ism uses this psychological claim as a premise in establishing the conclusion that the only thing that is intrinsically good for someone is his ownpleasure.To move from this premise to this conclusion, the argument requires the additional, often suppressed premise that only what aperson desires for i t s own sake is intrinsically good for him. This argument is almost universally rejected nowadays, even by hedonists.I3 N o t only does the sweepinggeneralizationof psycholog‐ ical hedonism seem too simplistic, the second premise ‐ that only what apersondesires for i t s ownsake is intrinsicallygood for him ‐ is evidently an abandonment of hedonism as the fundamental truth about well-being andamo v e to the desire theory. This raises the question of just what relation pleasure has to our pro-attitudes, and this, in turn, bears on the question of whether hedonismshould count as an objective or asubjective theory. There are t w o main views of the nature of pleasure. On the felt-quality theory, pleasure is a single, uniform sensation or feeling, in the same general category as itch sensations or nauseous feelings (only pleasant!). On the attitudinal theory, pleasure fundamentally is, or involves,anattitude‐ aprõattitude thatwecan takeuptowardother mental states, like itches and nauseous feelings, or states of the world. It would seem that whether hedonismqualifies asanobjectiveor a subjective theory depends on which generalapproachto the nature of pleasure is correct. If a felt-quality theory is true, andpleasure is just one feeling among others, a feeling one may or may no t care about, want, or like, then pleasure, if good, would seem to bean objective good, andhedonismanobjective theory ofwell‐being. But if pleasure is instead a pro-attitude, or essentially involves some pro-attitude, then pleasure, if good, would seem to be a subjective good, and hedonismasubjective theory ofwell‐being. It is important to recog‐ nize that the issuehere is n o t merely one of taxonomy. I f hedonismis anobjective theory, then i t , like other objective theories, is commit‐ ted to the perhaps counterintuitive idea that something some people may find in no way attractive, or that in no way connects to any positive attitudes of theirs, is nonetheless of benefit to them. If hedonism is a subjective theory, it avoids this implication. If hedonism is a subjective theory, due to pleasure's being explain‐ able in terms of somepro‐attitude,does it remainadistinctive theory,

1 2 C H R I S H E A T H W O O D theory, a life on the experience machinewil l be in many ways worse than anordinary life, in whichmany desires about the externalworld are satisfied. The desire theory of welfare thus appears to avoid the experience‐machine objection. Perhaps the earliest discussion of the desire theory of any depth is found in Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics, though it may have been endorsed centuries earlier by Thomas Hobbes and also Baruch Spinoza.22 It gained prominence in the twentieth century with the rise of welfare economics and decision theory, where pref‐ erence theories of well-being or uti l i ty are often simply assumed. Economists may be motivated to assume the theory because it is thought to make well‐being easier to measure than it would be on hedonism, since our desires are thought to berevealed through our choices, especially in free markets. Others have been motivated to accept the desire theory rather than anobjective theory because they believe the former to fit better with a naturalistic worldview. Objective theories that posit more than one basic good also face a problem concerning how to compare goods of very different kinds. Monistic theories like the desire theory avoid this. Today the desire theory is oftenregardedasthe leadingtheory ofwell‐being, especially among utilitarians.23 Another putative attraction of the desire theory is that it very straightforwardly conforms to the intuition, introduced earlier, that what is intrinsically good for a person mu s t besomething he or she finds to some degree compelling or attractive. For to desire some‐ thing, whatever else it is, is surely to find it to some degree compel‐ ling or attractive. As the theory that mo s t clearly conforms to this intuit ion and as the theory that makes use of what is perhaps the fundamental pro‐attitude, the desire theory is the paradigmatic sub‐ jective theory of well‐being. The simplest version of the desire theory ofwelfare claims that the satisfaction of any of one's actualdesires is intrinsically good for one. This unrestricted, actualist theory is seldom defended. Perhaps the mos t common departure from it counts only the satisfaction of intrinsic desires, or desires for things for their o w n sakes, rather than for what they might lead to.24 When we get what we merely instrumentally want, it is natural to suppose that this is, at best, of mere instrumental value. Subjective theories of well-being 213 Philosophers have considered man y other restrictions, such as restrictions to self‐regarding desires (or desires about oneself),25 global desires (or desires about one's whole life],26 and second-order desires (or desires about one's desires).27 Some of thesew i l l comeup whenwe discuss objections to the desire approach, towhich wenow tu rn . If what's good for us is what we want, then whatever we want is good for us. But surely we sometimes wan t things that t u r n o u t to be no good for us. The mos t common kind of case involves ignorance. For example, I mighthavea desire to eat some food, no t knowingthat it wi l l cause a severe allergic reaction in me, or I might w a n t to see some band perform in concert, n o t knowing that they wi l l perform terribly. The desire theory seems to imply, mistakenly, that satisfy‐ ing these ill‐informeddesires is in my interest. The lesson that many philosophers draw from such cases is that well-being is connected n o t to our actual desires but to our idealized desires.28 These are the desires we would have if we knew all the relevant facts, were appreciating them vividly, were making no mis‐ takes in reasoning, and the like. The idealized‐desire theory of well‐ being can claim that it is no benefit to me to eat the allergenic food or attend the badconcert because I would no t havewanted these things if I knew the relevant facts andwere appreciating themvividly. Some may hold ou t hope that the move to idealized desires can solve other problems aswell. Perhaps it can provide a solution no t only to cases of desires basedonmistakenbeliefs and the like,but to other sorts of putatively defective desire. Recall the earlier cases of the people who desire to count blades of grass, to break crockery while drunk, or to abuse children. Some desire theorists might be tempted to claim that satisfying these desires is of nobenefit because no one Who knew all the relevant facts, was appreciating them viv‐ idly, was making no mistakes in reasoning, e t c . would desire such things. But one has to be careful. This move r un s the risk of turning the desire theory in to anobjective theory ofwell‐being in subjectivist clothing. It is n o t open to idealized-desire theorists to claim that part of what it is to be idealized is to desire the right things, that is, the things it is good to get no ma t t e r your desires. That is closet objecti‐ vism. The conditions of idealization m u s t bestated in value‐neutral terms, andwithout referenceto things thatwere identifiedv ia abelief in their objective welfare value. 2124 C H R I S H E A T H W O O D Returning to the original objection of putatively defective desires, it is actually n o t obvious that it succeeds in the first place.29Consider the case of the allergenic food. I desire to eat i t , n o t knowing that it will make me sick. The objection claims that the actualist desire theory is committed to saying that it is nonetheless in my interest to satisfy this desire. But consider t w o things wemight have in mind whenwe say that it is in my interest to satisfy some desire.Wemight meanthat it is in my interest al l things considered‐ that is, takingall the effects of satisfying the desire into account. Or we might mean merely that it is good in itself ‐ intrinsically good ‐ to satisfy the desire. The objection assumes, plausibly, that it is n o t in my interest al l things considered to satisfy my desire to eat the food. But the actualist desire theory can accommodate this. For if I satisfy my desire to eat the food, thiswil l causemanyof my otheractualdesires ‐ desires n o t to bein pain,desires to playgolf, etc. ‐ to befrustrated. Al l that the actualist desire theory is committed to is the claim that it is goodin itselfformeto satisfymy desire to eat the food. But this claim is n o t implausible. Intuitively, ignoringtheeffects, it is good for meto get to eat this food I very muchwant to eat. Thus, moving to an idealized theory may be less well-motivated than it originally appears. It also brings with it new problems. One family of problems concerns the concept and process of idealiza‐ tion.3° Another problem is that it is possible for what I would wan t under idealconditions to be totally uninteresting, or even repugnant, to me asI actually am. But idealized theories of well-being are sup‐ posed to tell uswhat's good for usasweactually are." The second objection that we wil l consider has been called the "scope problem" for desire theories." The following example by Derek Parfit illustrates the problem: Suppose that I meet a stranger who haswhat is believed to be a fatal disease. My sympathy is aroused, and I strongly w a n t this stranger to be cured. We never mee t again. Later, unknown to me, this stranger is cured. On the Unrestricted Desire-Fulfilment Theory, this event is good for me, and makesmy lifegobetter.This is n o t plausible.Weshould reject this theory.33 James Griffin offers adiagnosis: The breadthof the [desire] account, which is its attraction, is also its greatest flaw .. . It allows my utility to bedetermined by things that ...dono t affect my life in any way at all. The trouble is that one's desires spread themselves Subjective theories of well-being 215 sowidely over the world that their objects extend far outside the bound of what, with any plausibility, one could take astouching one's well-being.34 A common response to this problem is thus that the desire theory should berestricted to coun t only desires that are about one's own life, or about oneself.35 According to another proposal, we should count only those desires that are also among ou r aims or goals (thus the aim achievement theory).36 Both of these proposals seem to handle Parfit's case. Parflt's desire that the stranger be cured is n o t about Parfitor his life. No r is it ana imofhis, sincehetakes nosteps to t r y to achieve i t .Thus each theory agrees that Parfit's life ismade no better when the stranger is cured. But these restrictions may exclude too much. Consider the com‐ mon desire that one's t e am win. I do no t mean a team one plays for ‐ desires about suchateammight count asdesires aboutone's own life, and may qualify asaims ‐ but a t eam one roots for from a distance. Such desires are certainly not about oneself, and presumably n o t about one's own life either. And that one's t e am win is n o t typically among one's aims or goals; mos t of us know we have no power over whether our team wins. Thus theories that exclude non-self‐ regarding desires and desires that are no t aims imply, implausibly, that peoplereceivenobenefitwhen their desire that their t e amwin is satisfied. An alternative solution to the scopeproblem takes its cue from the detail that Parfit'sstranger iscuredunbeknownst tohim.Perhaps the proper scope of the desire theory excludes desires the satisfaction of which we are unaware." This theory gets the right result both in Parfit's case and concerning the desire that one's team win. But it is n o t clear that it gets to the heart of the initial worry. Here ishow T. M. Scanlon presents the initialworry: Someone might have adesire about the chemical composition of some star, about whether blue was Napoleon's favorite color, or about whether Julius Caesar was anhonestman.But it wouldbe oddto suggest that the well-being of apersonwho has such desires is affectedby these facts themselves?"3 Scanlon thinks that satisfyingsuch desires is of no benefit evenwhen one is aware that the desires are satisfied. I leave it to the reader to decide whether this is right.Readers may also wish to reconsider the original objection. Some desire theorists maintain that the best reply 216 C H R I S H E A T H W O O D is to "bite the bullet" in the first place, andmaintain that Parfit's life is made better when the stranger is cured, even if only a little b i t . " The third and final problem for desire theories that we wil l con‐ sider is the problem of changing desires. Our desires change over time. When the desires concern what's going on at the t ime of the desire, this may beno problem. Eachnight of the week, Iwan t some‐ thing different for dinner. In this case of changing desires, the desire theory implies that what's good for me is to get the different meal I wan t each evening. But some of our changing desires concern what goes onat asingle time. Suppose I want, for years, to goskydiving on my fortiethbirthday.But asthe day approaches, my interests change, and I become strongly averse to doing this. Probably the mos t common reactionto this case wil lbethat it is in my interest to satisfy my present desire n o t to go skydiving on my fortieth birthday at the expense of frustrating my past desires to go skydiving. (This is assuming that I wi l l n o t later regret n o t having gone skydiving ‐ that I wil l n o t havepersistent desires in the future to have done it.)And this reaction seems right no ma t t e r how longheld andstrong the past desires to goskydivingwere. This suggests that, to determine what benefits aperson, we ignore her past desires.40 However, other cases might suggest that we should take into account past desires. We tend to think that we ought to respect the Wishes of the dead ‐ for example concerningwhether andwhere they willbeburied.Onenaturalview is that wedothis for their sake ‐ that is, for their benefit. If that's right, then the desire theory should coun t at least somepast desires.On the other hand,many find it absurd that aperson can bebenefitted or harmed after he is dead. If that's right, thenwemus t findanother explanation for whywe should respect the wishes of the dead, assuming that we should. If past desires canbe ignored, this suggests the view that the desire theory coun t only desires forwhat goes on at the t ime of the desire.As R. M. Hare, a proponent of this View, puts i t , the theory "admits only now‐for‐now and then‐for-then preferences," to the exclusion of any now-for‐thenor then‐for-now preferences.41 But, asbefore, this might seem to exclude too much. For suppose that I do in fact strongly regret, for years, n o t having gone skydiving onmy fortieth birthday. If so, perhaps it was in my interest to force myself to go skydiving, despite my strong aversion to it at the time, for the sake of satisfying the "then‐for-now" desires I would come to Subjective theories of well-being 217 have. If that's right, this suggests a surprising asymmetry: the desire theory of well-being should ignore future-directed desires but count present‐ andpast‐directed desires. However the problem of changing desires is ultimately resolved, it poses questions that any subjective theory ofwell-being mus t grapple with. C O N C L U S I O N The notion of well-being plays some part in answering most, and perhaps even literally all, moralquestions. Yet there is no consensus amongphilosophers concerningwhich general kindof theory ofwell‐ being is correct, or which specific version of any general k ind is best. Fortunately, we do not have to know which theory of well-being is correct in order to come to responsible answers to many of themoral questions that involvewell-being. For certainkindsofact are harmful and others beneficialonal l of the theories ofwell‐being that wehave considered. We can thus know that such acts are wrong or right on these bases Without having to know precisely what well-being consists in. Still, a full accounting of the act's moral s ta tus would require the correct account of well‐being. N O T E S . Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics,p. 420. . See Plato,Euthyphro, 1 0 a . . Nowell‐Smith, Ethics, pp. 111‐113. . Railton, "Facts andValues," p.9. . Rawls,A Theory of Justice, p. 432. G.E.Moore, Ethics,pp. 237‐238. . Nagel, "Death," p.77. . On hybrid theories, see Parfit, Reasons and Persons, pp . 501‐502,‐ Kagan, "Well‐Being asEnjoying the Good"; andHeathwood, "Welfare," pp. 652~653. 9. Parfit,Reasons andPersons,p. 493. I O . See, e.g., Raibley, "Well‐Being and the Priority of Values",andTiberius and Plakias, "Well‐Being," § 3. I I . Madhava Acharya, Sarva‐Dars'ana-Samgraha, pp . 2‐11,and Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions, pp. 81‐96. . 1 2 . See Epicurus, Extant Remains; Bentham, IPML, chapter I (pp. 11‐16); and (.8. Mil l , Utilitarianisrn, chapter 2 (Collected Works, vol. x, 218 13. I4 . 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 2 0 . 2.1. 2 2 . 23. 24. 25. 16. 27. 28. 29. 3o. 31. 32. C H R I S H E A T H W O O D pp. 209‐226). See also Aristotle, NicomacheanEthics,book x, chapter 2 (pp. 184‐185); andDiogenes Laértius, Lives andOpinions, pp. 89~9o. See Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics,book 1,chapter 4, §§ 1 ‐ 2 . Feldman,Pleasure and the GoodLife, chapter 4. Spencer, The Principlesof Psychology, § 125 (vol. 1,pp. 280‐281];Brandt, A Theory of the Good and the Right, p. 38; and Heathwood, "The Reductionof Sensory Pleasure to Desire." Heathwood, "Desire SatisfactionismandHedonism." I.S.Mill, Utilitarianism,CollectedWorks, vol. x, p.21r. G.E.Moore,Principia Ethica, § 47 (pp. 77‐79}. Nozick,Anarchy, State, and Utopia,pp. 44‐45. See Railton, "Naturalism and Prescriptivity," p. 170; Crisp, "Hedonism Reconsidered," §5(pp.635‐642); andFeldman,"WhatWeLearnfromthe ExperienceMachine" for discussions of and/or replies to the experience‐ machine objection. Feldman,What Is This ThingCalledHappiness!criticizes life-satisfaction theories of happinessanddefends ahedonistic theory, aswell ascriticizes and defends, respectively, the corresponding versions of eudaimonism. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, chapter 6 defends a life‐ satisfaction account of happiness and a corresponding eudaimonistic theory of welfare. See alsoHaybron,The Pursuit of Unhappiness. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, book I, chapter 9, § 3 (pp. 109‐ I I 3); Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 30; and Spinoza, Ethics, par t I n , prop. 9 (pp. 499‐500)‐ SeeSumner,Welfare, Happiness, andEthics,p. I I 3; Shaw,Contemporary Ethics,p. 53; andHaybron, The Pursuit of Unhappiness,p. 3. Sidgwick, TheMethodsofEthics,p. 109;andvonWright, The Varietiesof Goodness, pp. 103‐104. Sidgwick, TheMethodsofEthics,p. I 12;andOvervold, "Self-Interest and GettingWhat YouWant." Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, pp. 111 ‐ 112; Parfit, Reasons and Persons,pp. 497‐498; andCarson, Value and the GoodLife, pp. 73‐74. Railton, "Facts and Values," p. 16,and Kraut, "Desire and the Human Good," p. 40. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, pp. 11 0 ‐ 1I r,and Brandt,A Theory of the Goodand the Right, p. 247. Heathwood, "The Problemof DefectiveDesires," pp. 491‐493. Sobel, "Full-InformationAccounts ofWell‐Being"; andRosati, "Persons, Perspectives, and Full InformationAccounts of the Good." Griffin, Well-Being, p. r 1; see Railton, "Facts and Values," p. 16 for a possible solution. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness, andEthics,p. I 35. 33‐ 34. 35‐ 36. 37‐ 38. 39' 40. 4 I . Subjective theories of well-being 219 Parfit,Reasons andPersons,p. 494. Griffin, Well-Being, pp. 16‐17. Overvold, "Self-Interest and Getting What Yo u Want"; and Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 494. Scanlon, What WeOwe to EachOther, pp. 119‐121. Heathwood, "Desire Satisfactionism andHedonism," pp. 547 ‐551 ; and Sumner, Welfare, Happiness, andEthics,pp. 127‐128. Scanlon, What WeOwe to EachOther, p. 114. Lukas, "Desire Satisfactionism and the Problemof Irrelevant Desires." Brandt,A Theory of the Goodand the Right, pp. 247‐253. Hare,Moral Thinking, pp. 101‐103.