MODULE 1: Wellbeing (2)

Next reading response

• RR3 -- annotation
• RR instructions

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Shelly Kagan, "What is wellbeing?"

para 1-21

What is wellbeing?  (para 1)

• "what is it for a life to be going well?" ... or a shorter period of a life
•  not a question about what makes a person morally admirable
• "what makes a life a good one for the person whose life it is?"
• "what are the ingredients of a good life?"

There are tons of things worth having in life. How can we bring any "system or order" to this topic? We should focus on intrinsic goods and bads. (para 2-4)

An account of wellbeing is a list of intrinsic goods and a list of intrinsic bads (we can ignore the bottom half of the table). (para 8)

Pleasure and pain will surely be on the lists. (para 12)

Hedonism is the view that ONLY pleasure and pain are on the lists.  (para 13-14)

• You have a life that's going well the more that you obtain pleasure and avoid pain.

How to use Hedonism as a yardstick... (para 16, etc.)

• looking back at your life as a whole, you should judge how well it's gone based on pleasure and pain
• looking ahead, you should plan your life so as to maximize pleasure and minimize pain

Next question: is hedonism really the right view of wellbeing?

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Kagan, "What is wellbeing?" 

Para 22-43

Is hedonism true? (para 22) 

Kagan discusses a famous objection to hedonism--the experience machine argument (para 26 onward)

• Robert Nozick--the experience machine (can someone explain?)

The Experience Machine Argument

Premise 1. Plugged in to the experience machine for life, you'd have the greatest pleasure possible.

Premise 2.  But most of us wouldn't want to plug in.  

Therefore,

Conclusion.  Hedonism must be wrong--something besides pleasure must be intrinsically good.

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What would be missing, if you plugged in? 

What intrinsic goods add to life besides pleasure?

1. accomplishment (para 37)
2. self-knowledge (para 37)
3. loving relationships (para 37)
4. Also read para 41

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Hedonism--the yardstick for assessing lives is pleasure ONLY

Objective list view -- the yardstick for assessing lives is a list of various intrinsic goods

1. pleasure
2. accomplishment
3. self-knowledge
4. loving relationships
5. What else?

Same yardstick throughout our lives

Normatively speaking, no life stages

Next time--life stages--different yardsticks for each stage