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What are the three kinds of theory of well-being that Parfit distinguished?

Rohan Desai Fellow
· 4 replies
Happiness & well-beingAnalyticAristotleDerek Parfit#desire-satisfaction#hedonism#objective-list#well-being
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For six years of running a company I thought I was optimising for happiness, mine and the team's. Now I'm not sure what I was optimising for.

A friend pointed me to an appendix in Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984) called "What Makes Someone's Life Go Best". She said it sorts all the theories of well-being into three kinds, and that once you see the three, a lot of confused arguments become clear. I have tried reading it and it is dense.

Could someone explain the three kinds with everyday examples? And is there a reason to think one of them is right, or do most philosophers now mix them?

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4 answers

Accepted answer

  1. Javier Ferrandis

    ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

    The three are hedonistic theories, desire-fulfilment theories and objective list theories.

    Hedonistic: what is good for you is pleasant experience and the absence of painful experience. Epicurus is the ancient example, although his pleasure was mostly tranquillity, not indulgence. On this view your life went well to the extent it felt good from inside.

    Desire-fulfilment: what is good for you is getting what you want. This is the economist's default, and the one I was trained on. Parfit shows it comes in versions. The crudest counts any desire, and he has a nice case against it: you meet a stranger on a train who has a serious illness, you want him to recover, and much later, without your ever knowing, he does. Did your life go better? Most people say no, which pushes the theory towards counting only desires about your own life, or only the desires you would have if fully informed.

    Objective list: some things are good for you whether or not you want them or enjoy them. Parfit's examples include knowledge, rational activity, being a good parent, developing your abilities, and being aware of true beauty. Aristotle's eudaimonia is the ancestor of this family.

    On your burnout, Rohan: you might have been succeeding on the desire theory, getting what you set out to get, while failing on the other two.

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Other answers

  1. Sasha Kovalenko

    Fellow

    Hryhorii Skovoroda, the eighteenth-century Ukrainian philosopher I read most, gives an answer that fits awkwardly into Parfit's scheme. Skovoroda thought happiness lies in "congenial work", work that suits the nature you were given. It's partly a perfectionist idea, realising what you are, and partly a matter of how the work feels, because congenial work is not a burden. Burnout, in his terms, is what happens when you do work that is foreign to your nature, however successful it is.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Rohan Desai

    Fellow

    This is exactly what I needed. Javier, you've described my company: I got everything I wanted and lost most of my friends along the way. Sasha, "work foreign to your nature" is uncomfortably accurate. I loved building things and ended up spending all my time raising money.

    Helpful · 3
  3. Elin Hedqvist

    Fellow

    To your last question: many people now hold hybrid views, and Parfit himself suggested one at the end of that appendix. What is best for us, he proposed, may be neither the objective goods alone nor the pleasure alone, but engaging in the goods on the list and wanting and enjoying that engagement. Knowledge you take no joy in, or pleasure in something worthless, would each be missing something.

    It matches what I see at work. Families of dying people almost never talk about pleasure, or about wishes fulfilled. They talk about people the person loved and things they made, and whether they enjoyed them.