Browsing by Author "Zuk, Peter David"
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Item A Theory of Well-Being(2019-12-03) Zuk, Peter David; Sher, George; Siewert, CharlesI defend the view that the value of every contribution to individual well-being is explained by affective experience, suitably defined. In Chapter 1, I set out a methodological approach centered on Rawlsian wide reflective equilibrium and offer considerations in favor of affective experience as a uniquely powerful explanation of contributions to well-being. The remaining three chapters employ affective experience as an explanation of the goodness of the goods proposed by three leading theories of wellbeing: hedonism, desired-based views, and objective list views. In Chapter 2, I offer arguments against attitudinal conceptions of pleasure and defend instead an affective conception of pleasure that provides a plausible way of unifying two major phenomenological conceptions of pleasure. In Chapter 3, I defend an affective conception of desire and offer arguments against motivational and cognitivist conceptions of desire. In Chapter 4, I provide an account of reasons for affective states and apply this account to several purportedly objective goods: love, friendship, virtue, and self-respect. The goodness of these goods for individuals, I argue, can be explained by appeal to affective experience in a way that does not depart from what is most important in subjective approaches to well-being. Having offered a deeper explanation of the goodness of the various goods proposed by these three leading theories of well-being, I conclude that my theory is preferable to them.