Lecture 3_ theories of well-being.html (5109B)
1 2 <!DOCTYPE html> 3 <html> 4 <head> 5 <meta charset="UTF-8"> 6 7 <title>Lecture 3: theories of well-being</title> 8 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css"/></head> 9 <body> 10 <style type="text/css"> 11 nav a { 12 text-align: left; 13 } 14 nav #name { 15 text-align: right; 16 float: right; 17 font-style: italic; 18 } 19 </style> 20 <nav> 21 <a href="index.html">Index</a> 22 <span id="name">Alex Balgavy</span> 23 </nav> 24 <hr> 25 <div class="exported-note"><h1>Lecture 3: theories of well-being</h1> 26 27 <div id="rendered-md"><p>theories don't necessarily disagree, but if they agree, they agree for different reasons.</p> 28 <p>utilitarianism justifies choices by referring to well-being of everyone involved.<br> 29 but what is well-being? what's ultimately good for one?</p> 30 <h2 id="hedonism">Hedonism</h2> 31 <p>your well-being depends on whether you enjoy your life.<br> 32 something matters because it brings you pleasure.<br> 33 but pleasure is valuable in itself.</p> 34 <p>but if you had an experience machine that could give you any experience you wanted, would you plug in?<br> 35 why not, based on Nozick:</p> 36 <ol> 37 <li>I want to be someone, not just a set of experiences 38 <ul> 39 <li>but there could be a machine in which we could be transformed into any character we ant</li> 40 </ul> 41 </li> 42 <li>I want to do things, achieve things through pain and effort, not just sit and wait for things to happen. 43 <ul> 44 <li>but there could be a machine in which we work on and <em>accomplish</em> all sorts of great projects</li> 45 </ul> 46 </li> 47 <li>I want contact with reality, not a reality restricted to what humans can imagine and program.</li> 48 </ol> 49 <h2 id="preference-satisfaction">Preference satisfaction</h2> 50 <p>your well-being depends on whether you get what you want.<br> 51 life goes better if more of your preferences are satisfied<br> 52 i.e. not just about pleasure.</p> 53 <p>is it always good to get what you want? people make bad choices...maybe because they are misinformed?<br> 54 amend: what matters is if your laundered preferences are satisfied (i.e. those you'd have if you were sufficiently informed).</p> 55 <p>policies can influence people's preferences.<br> 56 some might seem good, like smokers losing their desire for smoking.<br> 57 but what's the justification? at what point does it just become propaganda, i.e. people like stuff because of the policy?<br> 58 though preference satisfaction says it's good if people get what they want after being informed, not after having their desires manipulated.</p> 59 <p>also, what if someone's only fully-informed desire is to count blades of grass?<br> 60 if life going well for this person if they get all the time to count blades of grass?<br> 61 based on preference satisfaction, yes.<br> 62 but like, for real?</p> 63 <h2 id="objective-list-theory">Objective list theory</h2> 64 <p>your well-being depends on whether you have the items that are on the objective list.<br> 65 i.e. there are things that are good for everyone.</p> 66 <p>so what's on the list?<br> 67 based on Martha Nussbaum:</p> 68 <ul> 69 <li>life: being able to live a life of normal length</li> 70 <li>health: good health, including reproductive</li> 71 <li>bodily integrity: being able to move freely, be secure against assault/violence, and having opportunities for sexual satisfaction</li> 72 <li>senses, imagination, thought: being bale to use senses, to imagine, to think and reason with adequate education; being able to experience and produce self-expressive works of religion/literature/music/etc.; being able to have pleasurable experiences and avoid unnecessary pain.</li> 73 <li>emotions: being able to have attachments to other things and people, to love, to grieve, to experience justified anger</li> 74 <li>practical reason: being able to form conception of good, and to engage in critical reflection about planning of one's life</li> 75 <li>affiliation: being able to live with/toward others, to show concern for other people, being able to work as a human being, having social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation</li> 76 <li>other species: being able to live with concern for and relation to animals, plants, and nature.</li> 77 <li>play: being able to laugh, play, enjoy recreational activities.</li> 78 <li>control over one's environment: political (participating in political choices, protections of free speech and association), material (being able to have property, having right to equally seek employment, having freedom from unwarranted search and seizure)</li> 79 </ul> 80 <p>advantage: this view might be more suitable for policy.<br> 81 disadvantage: less room for choice and diversity.</p> 82 </div></div> 83 </body> 84 </html>