Desire-satisfaction and Welfare as Temporal

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (1):151-171 (2013)
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Abstract

Welfare is at least occasionally a temporal phenomenon: welfare benefits befall me at certain times. But this fact seems to present a problem for a desire-satisfaction view. Assume that I desire, at 10am, January 12th, 2010, to climb Mount Everest sometime during 2012. Also assume, however, that during 2011, my desires undergo a shift: I no longer desire to climb Mount Everest during 2012. In fact, I develop an aversion to so doing. Imagine, however, that despite my aversion, I am forced to climb Mount Everest. Does climbing Mount Everest benefit me? If so, when? A natural answer seems to be that if in fact it does benefit me, it benefits me at no particular time, and hence the desire-satisfaction view cannot accommodate the phenomenon of temporal welfare. In this paper, I argue, first, that a desire-satisfaction view can accommodate the phenomenon of temporal welfare only by accepting what I call the “time-of-desire” view: that p benefits x at t only if x desires p at t . Second, I argue that this view can be defended from important objections

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Dale Dorsey
University of Kansas

Citations of this work

How to Use the Experience Machine.Eden Lin - 2016 - Utilitas 28 (3):314-332.
The Significance of a Life’s Shape.Dale Dorsey - 2015 - Ethics 125 (2):303-330.
Why Subjectivists About Welfare Needn't Idealize.Eden Lin - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (1):2-23.

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References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Leviathan.Thomas Hobbes - 1904 - Harmondsworth,: Penguin Books. Edited by C. B. Macpherson.
The methods of ethics.Henry Sidgwick - 1874 - Bristol, U.K.: Thoemmes Press. Edited by Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones.
Welfare, happiness, and ethics.L. W. Sumner - 1996 - New York: Oxford University Press.
A theory of the good and the right.Richard B. Brandt - 1979 - Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

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