Radical pluralist theory of well-being: towards a new pluralist conception of welfare
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Date
28/06/2022Author
Barbieri, Alessandro
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Abstract
The philosophy of well-being has generally assumed that only a weak form of
pluralism could be true about prudential value: one which posits a plurality of
constituents of well-being. The main exponent of theories espousing this form of
pluralism are pluralist objective list theories. In this thesis I argue for the need to
explore stronger forms of pluralism about well-being. In Chapter 1, I begin by
arguing that pluralist objective list theories should develop an account of ill-being.
Doing so, however, reveals a particular phenomenon about the relation between
objective list goods and ills. This is that they appear to form pairs: each good is a
counterpart to a particular and distinct ill (and vice versa), e.g. pleasure and pain,
such that the two stand in a special relationship to each other. In Chapter 2 it is
argued that objective list theories lack the ability to appropriately explain pairing.
In particular, though they can develop accounts of how members of a pair are
related, they cannot explain why the pairing relation obtains. This, it is argued, is
a serious problem for objective list theories. Following this, in Chapter 3 I argue
that perfectionism, an alternative objectivist account of welfare, provides an
intuitive explanation of (most of) the objective list theory’s goods and ills as well
as of the nature of pairing. However, perfectionism itself encounters a serious
problem in its inability to appropriately account for the goodness of pleasure and
badness of pain. A broader, eudaimonist solution is then introduced that can save
some degree of the perfectionist view. However, this is itself heavily suggestive of
the stronger pluralist theories defended by this thesis. Chapter 4 introduces and
explains Heathwood’s distinction between different kinds of monism and pluralism.
In particular, I employ his proposed notion of radical pluralism in articulating a
radical pluralist theory of well-being. On top of postulating a plurality of goods and
ills, this theory proposes a plurality of kinds of prudential values (or value
properties), i.e., that different goods and ills are good and bad for us in different
ways. This will be shown to not only survive initial scrutiny, but also explain pairing
in an intuitive way: by postulating a distinct value property for each good-ill pair,
such that each good-ill pair is good and bad for us in the same kind of way, while
other pairs are good and bad for us in different kinds of ways. In Chapter 5 I
introduce a serious problem facing the radical pluralist theory of well-being, arising
from the threat of the incomparability of instances of different values. This would
mean that, under radical pluralism, instances of achievement cannot be compared
with instances of pleasure. As such bearers of prudential value do seem to be
comparable, this constitutes an important obstacle for the theory to overcome. In
addressing this, I consider both incomparabilist and comparabilist solutions,
dismissing the former and developing a version of the latter based on the
articulation of normative relations between such prudential values and of their
grounds. Chapter 6 turns to argumentation in favour of the radical pluralist theory
of well-being, primarily focused on arguing that there are cases where we can
rationally regret not choosing the worse of two (or more) options, even when both
options are exclusively prudentially valuable. This, it is maintained, cannot be
explained by weaker forms of pluralism, but only by stronger ones like radical
pluralism. Finally, in Chapter 7 the radical pluralist theory is applied to three
important issues in current discussions of well-being: the formulation of
explanatory theories, the variabilism-invariabilism debate, and the problem of
alienation faced by at least some objectivist theories. In each case, it is argued
that the radical pluralist theory offers novel approaches and insights into these
questions, further providing a case for its careful consideration in future
discussions of well-being.