ENUMERATIVE AND EXPLANATORY THEORIES OF WELFARE Christopher Woodard

One kind of philosophical question about welfare is about the nature of the concept itself. We seek elucidation of the concept, perhaps by relating it to the concept of goodness or the concept of rationality. We do not seek to determine which lives have the property of a high degree of welfare, or why; we seek only to clarify what it means to ascribe this property to a life. Call this sort of question formal. There are also substantive questions about welfare. These too are abstract questions, but they seek a description or explanation of some sort—a description of the features of lives which constitute a high degree of welfare, or an explanation of why lives with those features have that property. These questions are logically downstream of the formal question: they presuppose some understanding of the nature of the concept, and pursue matters of its extension. This paper focuses on substantive questions, but I had better provide some answer, even if stipulative, to the formal question. I shall understand a person’s welfare as consisting of those things that are final goods for her. This formula combines two ideas: the idea that some things are ‘final goods’, and the idea that some things are ‘good for’ someone. Something is a final good just in case it is good for its own sake.1 Not everything that is good is a final good; some things are good merely as means. I assume that we should count only final goods as constituents of a person’s welfare—so that, for example, wealth is not properly a constituent of welfare. Second, I shall take the orthodox view that welfare is what is ‘good for’ a person. This expresses an admittedly imprecise and elusive idea, to the effect that welfare is goodness relative to each subject.2 What’s good for me may not be good for you. Turn now to substantive questions. Roger Crisp has drawn a helpful distinction between two such questions about welfare. On one hand is the enumerative question. This asks for a list of the constituents of a life with a high degree of welfare (‘constituents of welfare’ hereafter, for short). Candidate answers include the following: ‘pleasure’, ‘preference satisfaction’, ‘achievement’, and

Korsgaard (1983: 170). This is not at all the same idea as that welfare is goodness relative to each subject’s point of view or evaluative outlook. ‘Good for’ is not equivalent to ‘good according to’. On the difficulties involved in spelling out ‘good for’ see Fletcher (2008). 1 2

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‘virtuous activity’. An enumerative theory of welfare provides an answer to the enumerative question. It attempts to list the features of a life that are final goods for the person whose life it is. On the other hand is the explanatory question. This asks, of any enumeration, why the things enumerated and no others are constituents of welfare. For example, our answer to the enumerative question might be ‘pleasure alone’. We could then ask for an explanation of why pleasure is a constituent of welfare, and nothing else is. An explanatory theory of welfare provides an answer to the explanatory question that is oriented to some particular enumerative theory.3 This paper uses Crisp’s distinction in two ways. First I shall use it to consider the adequacy of the traditional tripartite classification of theories of welfare as hedonist, preferentist, or objective list theories.4 I shall argue that we should adopt a different taxonomy with two features: it considers additional possible views, and it respects the distinction between enumerative and explanatory issues. Second, I shall argue that subjectivism faces some significant problems. These come properly into focus when we emphasise the explanatory role that subjectivism is supposed to play.

1. TAXONOMY Ideally a taxonomy of philosophical views should cover all relevant possibilities, distinguishing between them in a way that is intelligible and also at an appropriate level of detail. The traditional tripartite classification of theories of welfare lacks these features even if it successfully captures the most popular or promising views about welfare. It leaves out some relevant possibilities; it lumps together views that should be distinguished; and it is not clear why the three categories are used to classify the range of possible views. Most obviously, it fails to respect Crisp’s distinction. To contrast hedonism and preferentism with ‘objective list theories’ is to contrast enumerative views with a category partly defined by an explanatory theory. Not only that, but hedonism and preferentism, as enumerative views, could equally be combined with an objective explanatory theory. For example, hedonism could be combined with the claim that what makes pleasure alone a final good for someone is that it has objective value.

Crisp (2006: 102-3). See Parfit (1987: 493-502). See also Crisp (2006: 98); Scanlon (1998: 113); Sumner (1996: chs. 35). 3 4

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Preferentism could be combined with the claim that what makes preference satisfaction a final good for someone is that autonomy has objective value, together with the claim that autonomy requires that an individual’s life be governed by her preferences. Thus even if hedonism and preferentism have more often been combined with subjective explanatory theories—so that the tripartite classification captures the most popular combinations of enumerative and explanatory theories— we should allow that they might not be, and we should represent these possibilities in a taxonomy of theories of welfare. More generally, we should aim for a taxonomy that respects Crisp’s distinction. This is not to assume that enumerative and explanatory issues are entirely independent of each other. It may be that, having applied the distinction, we find that some combinations of views on each question are obviously unappealing or even plain incoherent. But we should certainly not approach the topic of welfare with minds closed to possible combinations outside the standard three. It would be far better to examine each possible combination—even if we conclude that the standard three seem most promising on reflection. So let us consider how to classify theories of welfare using Crisp’s distinction. First consider enumerative theories. An enumerative theory lists certain facts about a person’s life, and claims that those facts and no others are final goods for her. In principle the space of enumerative theories is thus very large, since there are very many possible classes of facts about a person’s life. But many or most of these possible classes will not be genuine candidates as enumerative theories. If we disentangle the explanatory and enumerative elements of the standard classification it yields the following categories: hedonist theories, preferentist theories, and other list theories. This is quite close to the classification of enumerative theories that I will settle upon. But if we approach it cold—without the benefit of acquaintance with the philosophical literature on welfare—it is somewhat puzzling that these three categories should be chosen to divide up the territory. Why choose these three categories and not others? It’s not entirely clear. It is in this sense that the taxonomy lacks intelligibility. One way of reconstructing this division and thereby making sense of the choice of categories it embodies is as follows. We can divide the space of all possible enumerative theories using two independent distinctions. The first distinction is between those theories which do and those which do not include an experience requirement. A theory imposes an experience requirement just in case it claims that 3

nothing constitutes welfare unless it enters the subject’s experience.5 According to such theories, if some fact about my life does not affect my experience it cannot affect my welfare. Which facts about experience constitute welfare is of course a further matter, over which theories accepting an experience requirement may differ. And, of course, an enumerative theory may fail to endorse an experience requirement yet still include certain experiences as constituents of welfare. So the class of theories that do not impose an experience requirement is not the same as the class of theories that altogether ignore experiences. The second distinction is between those theories which do and those which do not accept a preference requirement. A theory imposes a preference requirement just in case it claims that only facts which satisfy preferences constitute welfare. According to such theories, if some fact about my life does not satisfy one of my preferences it cannot be a final good for me. Note that this does not amount to claiming that all satisfied preferences are constituents of welfare. So one may affirm a preference requirement yet also single out some subset of preferences, such as those that are well informed, or about the subject’s life.6 Likewise, enumerative theories that do not affirm a preference requirement are not thereby committed to ignoring the satisfaction of preferences. Since these two distinctions are independent they yield four possible combinations. These are shown in Figure 1 below.

Preference requirement

No preference requirement

Experience requirement

1

2

No experience requirement

3

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Figure 1. Possible combinations of the experience and preference requirements

See Griffin (1986: 13, 16-19); Scanlon (1993: 186-7); Sumner (1996: 127-8). There are of course difficulties in specifying the experience requirement precisely, since it is not straightforward to specify what is involved in something’s ‘entering a subject’s experience’. Fortunately we can leave these aside here. 6 See Griffin (1986: 21-39); Sumner (1996: 113-137). 5

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Standard forms of hedonism occupy Cell 2. They define pleasure in such a way that it is possible to have pleasurable experiences without desiring them, even at the moment of pleasure; and they claim, of such undesired pleasures, that they nevertheless constitute final goods. They thus impose an experience requirement but not a preference requirement. However, ‘preference hedonism’ imposes both requirements, and thus occupies Cell 1. Standard forms of preferentism—those unrestricted by the experience requirement—occupy Cell 3. According to these views, a fact about someone’s life must satisfy some preference, but need not enter the subject’s experience, to constitute a final good for her. Finally, views which impose neither requirement occupy Cell 4. These views may of course include the satisfaction of preferences and features of the subject’s experience in their lists of final goods, but they may include other goods as well. Such views may be quite heterogeneous. These are ‘other list theories’, since they are a sort of residual class of views. Though Cells 1 and 2 are distinct, it is reasonable for many purposes to consider them together. Preference hedonism, which occupies Cell 1, claims that a fact must enter the subject’s experience and satisfy a preference to be a final good for her. Though in principle this could be the result of two quite separate considerations—one speaking in favour of the experience requirement, and the other speaking in favour of the preference requirement—in fact it is typically motivated only by a certain philosophical view about the nature of pleasure. On this view, what diverse pleasures share in common is being desired or preferred.7 Since all pleasurable experiences thereby satisfy some preference by virtue of being pleasurable, the focus on pleasure brings the preference requirement in its train for free. Thus it is reasonable to treat all existing hedonist views together. They share a commitment to the experience requirement, and a focus on pleasure in particular. Preference hedonists merely have a specific view about the nature of pleasurable experience.8

On the heterogeneity of pleasure, see Sidgwick (1962: 127); Sumner (1996: 87-94); Crisp (2006: 103-111); Feldman (1997). 8 For some purposes it may be better to keep Cells 1 and 2 distinct. Though existing preference hedonist views adopt the preference requirement purely because of a view about the nature of pleasure (as discussed in the main text above), we may wish to allow for the possibility of a view occupying Cell 1 that is motivated by independent commitment to each requirement. Or for other reasons it may be worth distinguishing hedonist views according to whether they accept the preference requirement, however motivated. For simplicity I will here treat all hedonist views together, however. 7

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Of course, a view could accept the experience requirement without focusing on pleasure as the relevant kind of experience. Other candidates include enjoyment and happiness, for example.9 So we should remember that classifying all views which accept the experience requirement together risks glossing over important distinctions. However, for the sake of simplicity and tractability I propose to classify them together in what follows. If we do this we can then reconstruct something close to the traditional tripartite classification of views. Using the term somewhat broadly, we can call any view that affirms the experience requirement a form of hedonism.10 Views that do not affirm the experience requirement fall into two classes. Those that affirm the preference requirement are preferentist, while those that do not are other list theories. While hedonism and preferentism are at least formally monistic theories (though pleasures and preferences may of course be diverse), other list theories may not be. They may list several different kinds of fact about someone’s life as constituting final goods for her. Note some further points about hedonism and preferentism. In particular, note that each category is a broad church. Hedonists disagree amongst themselves about which experiences constitute final goods. Some focus on pleasurable experiences, while others focus on other kinds of experience, such as enjoyment or happiness or contentment. Members of each of these subgroups may disagree about the precise nature of the kind of experience in question. Further, they may impose additional restrictions on the kind of experience that matters, or the extent to which each matters. For example, it is perfectly consistent with hedonism as defined here to claim as Mill did that some kinds of pleasure contribute more to the subject’s welfare than do others.11 Indeed, a view which claimed that the only final good is one particular kind of pleasurable experience and that all others count for nothing would be a form of hedonism, since it would affirm the experience requirement. Thus veridical hedonism, which claims that the only final goods for a person are those pleasurable experiences not based on error, is a possible form of hedonism. This brings out the important point that the experience requirement does not preclude so-called world-involving conditions. When philosophers discuss Sumner (1996: 138-183) develops a theory of welfare as authentic happiness. Haybron (2008) develops an ‘emotional state’ account of happiness, and argues that happiness is central to, though not identical with, welfare. 10 This is how Scanlon (1993: 186) defines hedonism. Note that it makes adherence to the experience requirement, rather than any thesis about pleasure and pain, definitive of hedonism. 11 Mill (1991: 138-39). 9

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hedonism and preferentism they usually emphasise that one is a ‘mental state’ theory while the other is a ‘world state’ theory, as a prelude to discussing Nozick’s idea of an experience machine.12 However, hedonism as I have defined it includes veridical hedonism, which is not a pure mental state view. The distinguishing mark of hedonism is that it affirms the experience requirement. But this does not amount to denying other requirements, such as lack of error. Veridical hedonism claims that only veridical experiences contribute to welfare. (Whether veridical hedonism can be supported by an appealing explanatory theory is a good question, though not a taxonomical one. The present point is that it is a possible form of hedonism, and that affirming the experience requirement does not amount to endorsing pure mental statism.) Preferentists also disagree amongst themselves. One basic point is that the concept of ‘preference’ and the associated concept of ‘desire’ are subject to a wide range of interpretations. One interpretation of ‘preference’ treats it as a placeholder for whatever explains behaviour, such that preferences are necessarily revealed in behaviour. On this interpretation, ‘preference’ may fail to refer to any particular psychological phenomenon. On different views it does refer to psychological phenomena, but it is not quite clear which phenomena it refers to. Supposing preference to be comparative desire, so that to prefer X to Y is to desire X more than Y, helps only a little. Desire is itself a compendious concept, including on common usage anything from irresistible primal urges to highly contemplative states. Similarly, I might prefer X to Y in the sense that I find myself pushed towards X by a stronger urge, or in the sense that I judge X to be better than Y.13 We might wonder whether all these phenomena are on the same footing so far as welfare goes. If they are not, plausible forms of preferentism will find some way to distinguish between them. Similarly, some preferentists claim that there are certain restrictions on which preferences matter for welfare. Two salient kinds of restriction are information restrictions and scope restrictions. Information restrictions can seem plausible when we reflect on cases in which someone’s desire is clearly based on a mistaken understanding of her situation. More or less expansive accounts of what counts as

For example, see Griffin (1986: 7-10). Nozick’s idea is in his (1974: 42-5). Broome (1999: 81-6) helpfully contrasts ‘functionalist’ and ‘evaluative’ concepts of preference. My distinction is similar to his, though not identical. 12 13

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mistaken understanding will then lead to markedly different forms of preferentism.14 Scope restrictions are designed to avoid problems arising from preferences that seem to have little to do with the subject’s welfare. As Scanlon puts it, ‘a person can in principle have preferences about anything whatever—about the number of moons the planet Uranus has, about the colour of Frank Sinatra’s eyes, or about the sexual mores of people whom they will never see’.15 To exclude such preferences, preferentist views may include a restriction to the effect that only preferences about the subject’s own life matter for her welfare. As with the possible restrictive forms of hedonism, we must consider later whether adequate explanatory theories can be found to support these restrictive forms of preferentism.16 Using the two distinctions—relating to the experience and preference requirements—we have arrived at a tripartite classification of enumerative theories that is similar to the traditional tripartite classification, except that we should resist attaching the label ‘objective’ to what I have called ‘other list’ theories. I have emphasised the diversity within each of these categories. Hedonists share commitment to the experience requirement, but may differ over many other issues including over whether welfare is purely a matter of mental states. Preferentists share commitment to the preference requirement and rejection of the experience requirement (thus preference hedonists count as hedonists rather than preferentists, on the current proposal). They may differ over the concept of preference and over whether to impose restrictions on which preferences count. Other list theories are even more diverse, since they constitute a residual category defined by rejection of both requirements. They may be monist or pluralist, and may list a very wide variety of facts about someone’s life as constituting final goods for her. However, this tripartite division does not exhaust the range of possible enumerative theories. Hedonism, preferentism, and other list theories all share the following feature: they enumerate the same list of goods for all subjects. A fourth possible kind of enumerative theory rejects this feature. According to what I shall call diversity theories, different things are final goods for different subjects. To take just one example, it could be the case that pleasure is the only final good for some, while preference satisfaction is the only final good for others.

See Griffin (1986: 10-17). Scanlon (1993: 186). See also Parfit (1987: 494-5); Griffin (1986: 16-17, 21-23). 16 Preferentists also disagree about whether to focus on ‘global’ or ‘local’ preferences. See Parfit (1987: 496-99). 14 15

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It is puzzling that diversity theories have not featured in discussions of welfare.17 It is a commonplace that different people find different things rewarding. It is obvious that the truth about welfare must acknowledge diversity in people’s tastes in some way, since these different tastes cannot altogether fail to affect which things are good for different people. Of course it does not follow from this obvious truth that some form of diversity theory must be correct. It could be that by specifying a list of goods in suitably abstract terms we can arrive at a true, informative, and perfectly general enumerative theory. The present point is merely that things are not guaranteed to be so. Diversity may run so deep that there is no true, informative, perfectly general enumerative theory. Obviously we can easily give a true uninformative perfectly general enumerative theory: for each subject, welfare consists in all and only the final goods for that subject. But such a theory would not be a satisfactory answer to the enumerative question. It could be that failure to distinguish the enumerative question from questions about the concept of welfare hitherto has contributed to overlooking the possibility of diversity theories. If we think that there is just one big question about the nature of welfare, it may seem that the unity of the concept guarantees that any true theory of its nature will be perfectly general. But once we distinguish the enumerative question from conceptual questions it is hard to see why this is guaranteed. Since the enumerative question is not supposed to be purely conceptual, it needn’t have a perfectly general answer. Recognising this might help caution against a rush to formality and (what might turn out to be) excessive abstraction in answering the enumerative question. So we have four categories of enumerative theory: hedonist, preferentist, other list theories, and diversity theories. We could of course draw various further distinctions within these categories, as I have emphasised. Of the four, ‘other list theories’ is probably the most compendious, and so the case for further distinctions may be strongest here. But for present purposes we can leave that issue aside. Turn now to explanatory theories. These theories attempt to explain why some particular enumerated items constitute welfare. The most salient distinction amongst possible explanatory theories is between those which are subjective and those which are objective. These terms are of course treacherous—especially here, where metaethical, ethical, and political intuitions are apt to collide. One important

17

An exception is Fletcher’s discussion of ‘Good for variabilism’ (2008: Ch. 6). 9

point is that we should be careful not to slide back over Crisp’s distinction. A philosophical theory of welfare could be ‘subjective’ in the sense that its answer to the enumerative question lists some subjective feature of lives, even though it endorses an objective answer to the explanatory question. Some forms of hedonism may be like this. As we are concerned with the distinction between subjective and objective theories, it applies to different possible answers to the explanatory question alone. Sumner has a careful discussion of the appropriate sense of ‘subjective’ in relation to welfare. He concludes that we should reserve the term ‘subjective’ for those theories according to which something cannot contribute constitutively to a person’s welfare unless she has some appropriate positive attitude towards it. Any other theory he deems ‘objective’, so that the two categories are jointly exhaustive.18 Though it is helpful, I think we should depart from Sumner’s way of drawing this distinction in two respects. First, we should define the category of subjective theories more narrowly. I assume that a large part of the interest in explanatory subjectivism has to do with worries about the ontological commitments of objective theories of value. If so, Sumner’s category is certainly too broad since it includes hybrid explanatory theories, according to which something can be a final good for a person only if she has some appropriate positive attitude towards it and it merits that attitude by being objectively valuable. Such views could have extravagant ontological commitments. So Sumner’s classification does not serve one of our main interests in distinguishing ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ theories. The problem is that Sumner makes the distinguishing feature of subjectivism the idea merely that appropriate positive attitudes are necessary for something’s being a final good. As we have just seen, this is compatible with the idea that objective value is also necessary for something’s being a final good. We could exclude that possibility by stipulating that a theory is subjective only if it claims that appropriate positive attitudes are necessary and sufficient for something’s being a final good. Sumner considers this, but rejects it on the grounds that ‘[j]ust as subjective analyses of colour are likely to regard it as the product of an interaction between a perceiving subject and a perceived object, subjective analyses of welfare are also likely to be relational or dispositional’.19 I take it that this means that we

Sumner (1996: 38). ‘Attitude’ is a general term for any kind of valenced mental state, such as ‘wanting, or liking, or enjoying, or approving’ (37). 19 Sumner (1996: 38). 18

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should allow for subjective theories that, like standard forms of preferentism, account for final goods partly in terms of states of the external world, so that it is possible to distinguish between cases in which someone’s preference is really satisfied and cases in which she erroneously believes it to be satisfied. Certainly it is important to allow that some subjective theories of welfare will track this distinction or in other ways refer to states of the external world. The ‘world-involving’ nature of standard forms of preferentism is much emphasised in the literature on welfare. And we should define explanatory subjectivism so that it is compatible with preferentism. However, this does not speak against defining subjective theories as those which answer the explanatory question by reference only to the subject’s attitudes. To think otherwise is to confuse enumerative issues with explanatory ones. The distinction between genuinely satisfied preferences and preferences erroneously believed to be satisfied falls on the enumerative side of Crisp’s distinction. It is a matter of which things contribute to welfare, not of what explains why these things contribute to welfare. One can hold that genuine preference satisfaction contributes to welfare while merely believed satisfaction does not, yet still seek to explain why preference satisfaction contributes to welfare entirely in terms of the subject’s attitudes. Thus to exclude hybrid theories we should define a theory as subjective just in case it answers the explanatory question entirely in terms of the subject’s attitudes. Such theories claim that the subject’s attitudes alone explain why certain things are final goods for her. They can be combined with enumerative claims that refer to states of the external world. But they cannot appeal to anything other than the subject’s attitudes in answering the explanatory question. This is why hybrid theories do not count as subjective theories on my proposal. The second departure from Sumner’s way of drawing the distinction is to treat objective views as merely a subset of possible non-subjective views. Consider a view according to which the answer to the explanatory question has to do exclusively with facts about biological function.20 Such a view is not subjective, since it does not answer the explanatory question in terms of the subject’s attitudes. But it seems not to be objective either, at least if the point of distinguishing subjective views from objective ones is largely to do with controversies about the existence of objective values. The sort of view I have in mind makes no reference to values. So I

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Foot (2001) may be an example of this sort of view. 11

propose that we distinguish objective views from naturalist ones. A theory is objective just in case it answers the explanatory question by appeal to objective values, even if it appeals to other considerations as well. Thus, the hybrid views I mentioned earlier are objective on this usage. A theory is naturalist just in case it answers the explanatory question without appeal to the subject’s attitudes or to objective values.21 Theories that appeal to naturalist considerations such as facts about biological function and also to objective values are a second kind of hybrid. As with the other kind of hybrid, my classification includes these amongst objective theories. This yields three categories of explanatory theory. We should add a fourth: no answer theories, according to which there is no true and informative answer to the explanatory question.22 These views claim that it is a mistake to expect such an answer, just as some intuitionists claim that it is a mistake to expect a true and informative answer to the question of what makes it the case that we have the duties we have. Such views seem coherent and worthy of discussion. Thus we should include them in our taxonomy of possible answers to the explanatory question. Figure 2 depicts the relationship between the four categories of explanatory theory we have distinguished.

Of course it may be difficult to decide whether some particular consideration counts as an objective value. I leave that hard issue aside here. 22 Scanlon seems inclined to endorse a no answer theory about welfare. He writes that the most plausible kind of ‘substantive good’ theory ‘claims that certain diverse goods make a life better, and it will be prepared to defend this claim by offering reasons (possibly different in each case) about why these things are desirable. But it may offer no unified account of what makes things good. It seems to me unlikely that there is any such account to be had, since it is unlikely that there are any good-making properties which are common to all good things. If this is correct, then there will be no general theory of goodness in between, on the one hand, a purely formal analysis of ‘good’ such as ‘answers to certain interests’ or ‘has the properties it is rational to want in a thing of that kind’ and, on the other hand, diverse arguments about why various properties of particular objects make those objects good.’ Scanlon (1993: 191). See also Scanlon (1998: 125-6). 21

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According to the theory, is there a true informative answer to the explanatory question?

No

Yes

No answer theories Does the explanation refer only to the subject’s attitudes?

No

Yes Subjective theories

Does the explanation refer to objective values?

No Naturalist theories

Yes Objective theories

Table 2. Classification of explanatory theories To summarise, I propose that we adopt a greatly expanded taxonomy of theories of welfare. We should distinguish enumerative claims from explanatory claims, treating them for taxonomical purposes as independent kinds of issue (though explanatory theories must of course be oriented to particular enumerations). I have suggested that we distinguish four categories of answer to each question. Treating the two questions as independent, we should recognise sixteen possible combinations of answers.23

Aren’t some of the sixteen combinations obviously incoherent? Not obviously. For example, we might think that explanatory subjectivism could not be combined with anything other than hedonism or preferentism, since it claims that the subject’s attitudes alone explain why the things that are final goods for her are so. But this claim is compatible with versions of diversity theory according to which preference satisfaction is good for some, while pleasure is good for others. It is also compatible with a view according to which, for each person, some mixture of preference satisfaction and pleasure constitutes welfare. This view is a form of other list theory, since it affirms neither the experience nor the preference requirement. 23

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This does not imply, of course, that there are exactly sixteen good candidate combined theories of welfare. Some of the possible combinations might be unappealing for various reasons. As I’ve mentioned, it could be that finer-grained distinctions between views occupying the various categories I have specified are warranted in some cases. The sixteen categories are supposed to establish bearings and prompt consideration of possible combinations, not to replace detailed argument about the merits of particular theses. The main point is that we should think in terms of a much richer range of possible theories of welfare than is suggested by the traditional tripartite taxonomy.

2. PROBLEMS FOR SUBJECTIVISM One result of taking Crisp’s distinction seriously is an improved taxonomy of theories of welfare. Another result is that the issues at stake should come into clearer focus. To illustrate this second point I will discuss three kinds of problem for subjectivist views. I will focus on subjectivism as it may be combined with hedonism and preferentism, though we should remember that other list theories and diversity theories may also be combined with subjective explanatory theories. My comments are not supposed to constitute a refutation of subjectivism, let alone an argument in favour of any alternative to it. They are supposed only to illustrate the way in which Crisp’s distinction casts even familiar views about welfare in a new light. Indeed, the problems for subjectivism become apparent precisely when we focus on the fact that it is supposed to be an explanatory theory. The first problem is in tailoring a subjective explanatory theory so that it supports the various restrictions and qualifications that tend to be features of appealing enumerative theories. This is a problem, of course, only for those who wish to endorse these restrictions. But many wish to do so. For example, consider once more Mill’s idea that higher quality pleasures have greater value. This idea has been accused of incoherence or of abandoning hedonism.24 The accusation is incorrect if we define hedonism as I did above: qualitative hedonism endorses the experience requirement, and so on my broad definition it is a hedonist view. It goes on to specify the constituents of welfare using further distinctions, but there’s Moore (1993: 129-32) famously claimed that Mill’s qualitative distinctions were inconsistent with hedonism. 24

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nothing incoherent in an enumerative theory doing that. However, it is much less clear that a subjective explanatory theory could support these further distinctions. Qualitative hedonists claim that higher quality pleasures have higher value whether or not the subject agrees. It’s hard to see how this claim can be explained, as subjectivists wish to do, entirely in terms of the subject’s attitudes. So there is a kind of incoherence here, but it lies in the combination of qualitative hedonism with explanatory subjectivism. It could be that those who allege that qualitative hedonism itself is incoherent have tacitly assumed that it must be paired with a subjective explanatory theory. In fact, though, qualitative hedonism is more naturally paired with an objective explanatory theory according to which different qualities of pleasure make different contributions to welfare because pleasures of these kinds have correspondingly different amounts of objective value. Similar remarks go for other restrictions or qualifications of hedonism or preferentism. Veridical hedonism is, as I pointed out above, a coherent and interesting enumerative theory. It offers one way for hedonists to respond to the challenge posed by Nozick’s experience machine thought experiment.25 But it’s hard to see what resources a subjectivist has for explaining why veridical pleasures have greater value than non-veridical ones. Appeals to preferences don’t help much, even if many people prefer veridical to non-veridical pleasures. Once again, the enumerative claim is supposed to be quite general, and so it appears unsupported by appeals to features of human psychology that are liable to vary across the population.26 Likewise, restrictions of preferentism to informed preferences, or to preferences about one’s own life, seem equally hard to motivate on purely subjectivist grounds.27 These restrictions are supposed to be generally true: true of everyone in our world, and true of people in at least some merely possible worlds. Subjects’ attitudes are more variable than that. Thus, explanatory theories that are limited to appealing to facts about subjects’ attitudes seem incapable of supporting these general restrictions. The general point is that explanatory subjectivism seems bound to imply that the details of an accompanying enumerative theory depend on the quirks and Crisp (2006: 117-125) discusses other possible responses. One might think that this point generalises to any combination of subjectivism with hedonism, since not everyone prefers pleasure. Shortly I will explain why this may be wrong. 27 Scanlon claims that ‘the informed desire theory should probably not be counted as a form of desire theory at all but assigned instead to Parfit’s third category [‘objective list theories’]’ (1993: 188). In fact, the point is not that it fails to be a desire theory, but that it fails to be subjective. Griffin (1986: 17, 26-31) also discusses this worry about informed desire accounts. 25 26

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vicissitudes of different subjects’ psyches. Attempts to neaten or improve the enumerative theory by introducing qualifications and restrictions may seem necessary to generate intuitively acceptable implications from the theory, but they are hard to motivate on strict subjectivist grounds. The second problem is what I will describe as ‘avoiding pluralism’. The thought that subjectivists face this problem rests on two important ideas. The first is the idea that we should distinguish between two possible kinds of subjectivism. Negative subjectivism aims merely to answer the explanatory question using no materials other than the subject’s attitudes. Positive subjectivism aims to capture the subject’s evaluative stance. The difference between negative and positive subjectivism is thus that positive subjectivism aims at comprehensiveness in capturing the subject’s values while negative subjectivism does not. If an enumerative theory fails to reflect some important aspect of the subject’s evaluative stance, that enumerative theory could not be supported by positive subjectivism though it could be supported by negative subjectivism. However, negative subjectivism appears to be unstable in the face of the following question. Why should a mere subset of the subject’s values provide the appropriate standards for evaluating her welfare? One could not answer merely that it is because they are the subject’s own standards, since she also has other standards. But it is hard to see what other answer could be given. Negative subjectivism appears unstable under this challenge—liable to topple either into some form of non-subjectivism or into positive subjectivism. Without an appeal either to comprehensiveness or to standards other than the subject’s it is just mysterious why any subset of the subject’s values should be thought the appropriate standards for judging her welfare. If that is right, any subjectivist who wishes to endorse a monistic enumerative theory had better hope that subjects typically have just one set of standards—thereby enabling monism to be reconciled with positive subjectivism. The second important idea is that this is may not be the case. In particular, it is that a subject’s hedonic dispositions may constitute at least one set of standards that is independent of the same subject’s preferences. We can illustrate the idea in terms of dispositions to take pleasure in particular, though there may be other kinds of hedonic disposition—which together

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threaten a greater degree of pluralism.28 Consider Rosa and Susan. On matters of preference these two sisters are very similar indeed, and perhaps even indistinguishable. They share, let us say, an overriding commitment to some political cause. They have similar preferences about every other part of life, whether large or small. But each is disposed to take pleasure in quite different things. Rosa finds most pleasure in company while shy Susan finds it painful. Rosa finds intellectual work enjoyable, while Susan enjoys practical tasks more. They take pleasure from different food, music, films, and books; and so on. All the while, though, they share the same preferences about these various things. My description of Rosa and Susan may seem incoherent, since I portray them as very different in matters of pleasure yet very similar in their preferences. Of course we usually expect people’s preferences and their dispositions to take pleasure in things to line up in various ways, so that the combination of divergence in one domain and similarity in the other ascribed to Rosa and Susan is certainly unusual. But is it really incoherent? On the face of it, a person’s dispositions to take pleasure in things may diverge greatly from her preferences. For one thing, a person can take more pleasure in things that rank low in her preferences than things that rank higher. For another, a person’s tendency to take pleasure in things is not fixed by her preference for pleasure as compared with other things. We can imagine an unsuccessful ascetic, for example, who despite renouncing pleasure in his preferences is unusually prone to experiencing it. All this seems true even if we accept a view of pleasure according to which it is conceptually connected with desire or preference, such as Brandt’s claim that ‘an experience is pleasant if and only if it makes its continuation more wanted’.29 On such a view, there is a conceptual connection, not merely a regular causal connection, between preference and pleasure. Something’s being pleasant always makes its continuation more wanted than it would otherwise be. But that is consistent with its being very little wanted as compared with other, non-pleasant things. More generally, no version of the conceptual claim will be plausible if it does not permit sufficient discord to arise between preference and pleasure to allow for the unsuccessful ascetic, or for something approaching the situation of Rosa and Susan.

See for example the very interesting discussion of a range of concepts of emotional state in Haybron (2008: Chs. 6-7). 29 Brandt (1979: 40-41). 28

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Suppose that is right. Might we think of someone’s dispositions to take pleasure in things as constituting a subset of her values and her preferences as constituting a different subset? It is not entirely clear. On one hand, these dispositions are evaluative features of the subject’s psychology in at least a weak sense. To be disposed to take pleasure in solitude, as Susan is, is to have a certain evaluative stance towards life’s events. Suppose we imagine that the world is such that Susan ends up with considerably more pleasure than her sister Rosa. Then there is an important difference in their lives that does not depend on any difference in their circumstances or their preferences, for we are assuming there is no difference in those. And the difference in their lives does seem to be a difference in how they go according to their own lights. It’s just that ‘their lights’ refers not just to their preferences but also to their dispositions to take pleasure in different things. On the other hand, we might think that having values involves being committed to certain attitudes, and that dispositions to take pleasure involve no such commitment. The unsuccessful ascetic, for example, is not committed to taking pleasure in the many things in which he takes pleasure; indeed, he is committed to renouncing pleasure altogether, albeit unsuccessfully. This explains why someone could be alienated from all of her dispositions to take pleasure—could find them all repugnant, for example—while it seems impossible for someone to be alienated from all of her preferences. (It is possible to be alienated from some of one’s preferences, but that is a different matter.) Though this consideration is important, it may not be decisive. If there is any prospect of subjectivism being combined with hedonism, for example, then the sense of commitment that is lacking in dispositions to take pleasure, and which explains the sense in which one can be alienated from all such dispositions, must not be essential to something’s constituting a subject’s evaluative standards. Constituting an evaluative stance in the weaker sense in which dispositions to take pleasure undoubtedly do constitute an evaluative stance must be sufficient. I shall not try to settle this deep issue here, which probably depends ultimately on our conception of selfhood. I shall be content to say that the thesis that hedonic dispositions constitute subjective evaluative standards relevant to welfare is a live one, and poses a possible threat to subjectivists who wish to endorse a monistic enumerative theory. The problem of avoiding pluralism is then this. Since negative subjectivism is unstable, we assume positive subjectivism. Suppose we further accept that hedonic dispositions constitute relevant subjective standards. Then no enumerative theory 18

which ignores these standards can be supported by positive subjectivism. But preferences undoubtedly also constitute relevant subjective standards, and these standards may diverge from those constituted by hedonic dispositions. Thus subjectivists must endorse a pluralist enumerative theory. They cannot endorse standard forms of hedonism or of preferentism. This might be thought interesting but unproblematic. Granting the assumptions, it might be said, implies only that subjectivists must be enumerative pluralists, endorsing either some form of other list theory or some form of diversity theory. But why think that is a problem? Pluralism may be positively attractive. This brings me to the final problem for subjectivist views that I mentioned at the start of this section, and which I shall describe as ‘responding to pluralism’. The problem is how to motivate a determinate view about the constitution of welfare given commitment to plural standards and no apparent way to assign relative weights to the different standards. How much welfare does the unsuccessful ascetic have, for example? That depends on the relative importance of the standards associated with his preferences as compared with the standards associated with his hedonic dispositions. What settles their relative importance? For subjectivists it has to be some fact about the subject’s psyche. But it is hard to see what this could be. It cannot be his preference for pleasure, for example, for that would simply privilege his preferences over his hedonic dispositions. Could it be a belief? What could the belief be about, except what his own values are, or the objective value of pleasure as against preference satisfaction?30 It might be thought that the question should be answered procedurally, by means of the subject adopting some appropriate reflective stance on his core values.31 (Of course, the specification of the procedure must be consistent with subjectivism, so it should not depend on any non-subjectivist considerations such as considerations of objective value.) This sort of reflective procedure may encourage

Could it be an existentialist act of will? It might be thought that someone might plump for the standards embodied in his preferences over those embodied in his hedonic dispositions, for example. However, it’s hard to believe that any act of will could silence the hedonic dispositions. Post existential plumping they would remain. 31 Valerie Tiberius discusses the idea of a reflective perspective on one’s life, defining it as ‘one in which a person considers her values to the right degree and on the basis of relevant information, given what she values most as determined by reflection in accordance with the norms of reflection she accepts’ (2006: 11). But this does not solve our problem. It’s not quite clear whether ‘to the right degree’ introduces non-subjectivist considerations. In any case, her idea of a reflective perspective does not tell us how a subjectivist can respond to plural subjective standards to yield a determinate account of the constitution of welfare. 30

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the subject to think carefully about what matters to him most, in light of our best knowledge about biases, fallacies, and so on. Something like this may succeed on the whole in bringing each person’s hedonic dispositions and his preferences closer together. However, it is unlikely to make them correspond perfectly in every case. To assume otherwise is to presume that a unified evaluative outlook is the default setting of each subject, waiting to be unlocked by sufficient reflection. That looks like a piece of dogma. Some, perhaps most, subjects may be deeply and permanently riven. In sum, there is a complex set of problems facing subjectivist explanatory theories. The simplest problem is that of finding ways to support the various distinctions and qualifications that are features of attractive enumerative theories. Then there are two connected problems, of avoiding pluralism and responding to it if it cannot be avoided. The idea that subjectivism tends to generate a pluralist enumerative theory depends on two controversial claims: that the most credible form of subjectivism is positive, and that hedonic dispositions embody a distinct set of evaluative standards to those embodied in the subject’s preferences. If both ideas are correct, subjectivism does tend to generate pluralism. While enumerative pluralism may seem unproblematic or attractive for various reasons, it is hard for the subjectivist to cope with. It calls for some weighting of the relative importance of the various distinct sets of standards, and it is hard to see how a subjectivist could justify such a weighting. Thus there is a real danger of subjectivism yielding only an indeterminate enumerative theory of welfare.

3. CONCLUSION The traditional tripartite division of theories of welfare is puzzling and unduly restrictive. It is puzzling both because it mixes enumerative and explanatory issues and because it is not at all clear why the range of possible views is divided into these three classes. It is unduly restrictive because it finds no room for theories of welfare that are worthy of discussion, such as naturalist theories, or no answer theories, or diversity theories, or combinations of preferentism or hedonism with objective explanatory theories. If we continue to organise philosophical discussion of welfare around the tripartite classification we risk overlooking promising theories.

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I have proposed a new taxonomy based on Crisp’s distinction between enumerative and explanatory questions. It has sixteen categories, generated by the possible combinations of four kinds of enumerative theory with four kinds of explanatory theory. The details of this proposal are less important than its spirit. There are alternative ways of classifying answers to each question, and some of them may be better than the classifications I have proposed. The result may be a better taxonomy with more, or fewer, or just different categories than feature in mine. Though I have tried to offer reasons for classifying enumerative and explanatory theories as I have, I would rather insist on the general proposal to free up our conception of the range of theories of welfare, and the proposal to organise it around Crisp’s distinction, than insist on the particular sixteen category taxonomy developed in §1 above. Taking the distinction between enumerative and explanatory questions seriously promises to improve our taxonomy of theories of welfare. Not only that, it casts some theories in a different light. In particular, some problems for subjectivism about welfare come more sharply into focus. This is because we see more clearly that subjectivism is supposed to be an explanatory theory—whereas, if we do not attend closely to the enumerative-explanatory distinction, we might tend to think that the central feature of subjectivism about welfare is the idea that subjective states of some sort (states of pleasure, or preferences) constitute welfare. When the emphasis is put firmly on explanation the prospects for subjectivism look less rosy. This is clearest in relation to the problem of explaining the various qualifications and distinctions that tend to feature in attractive enumerative theories, such as the distinction between different qualities of pleasure or the distinction between informed and uninformed preferences. More contentiously, it applies also to the problem of avoiding pluralism and coping with it if it cannot be avoided. Of course, these comments on subjectivism are not intended to amount to an argument for or against any particular explanatory view. We must weigh the various merits and demerits of each possible view and compare it with the others, whereas I have focused only on certain problems with subjectivism. Other views may have other, worse, problems. Subjectivism itself may have worse problems, or indeed decisive attractions. The comments suggest something much more modest than endorsement or rejection of any particular explanatory view. They suggest that we might find new arguments for or against certain theories of welfare by clarifying the

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subject matter of the theories themselves. Like their rivals, subjectivist theories have to be judged according to their success as explanatory theories. In at least these two ways we can hope to make progress in the theory of welfare by taking Crisp’s distinction seriously.

REFERENCES

Brandt, R. B. (1979). A Theory of the Good and the Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Broome, J. (1999). Can a Humean be moderate? In. Broome, J. (1999) Ethics out of Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crisp, R. (2006). Reasons and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Feldman, F. (1997). Two questions about pleasure. In Feldman, F. (1997) Utilitarianism, hedonism, and desert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fletcher, G. (2008). Good for. Unpublished manuscript. Foot, P. (2001). Natural Goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Griffin, J. (1986). Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Haybron, D. M. (2008). The Pursuit of Unhappiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Korsgaard, C. (1983). Two Distinctions in Goodness. Philosophical Review, 92, 169-95. Mill, J. S. (1991). Utilitarianism. In Mill, J. S. (1991) On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moore, G. E. (1993). Principia Ethica, revised edition, ed. T. Baldwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Parfit, D. (1987). Reasons and Persons, reprint with corrections. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scanlon, T. M. (1993). Value, Desire, and Quality of Life. In Nussbaum, M. and Sen, A. (eds.) (1993) The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 185-200. Scanlon, T. M. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sidgwick, H. (1962). The Methods of Ethics, seventh edition. London: Macmillan. Sumner, L. W. (1996). Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tiberius, V. (2006). “How’s It Going?” Judgments of Overall Life-Satisfaction and Philosophical Theories of Well-Being. Unpublished conference paper, accessed at http://www.tc.umn.edu/~tiberius/workshop_papers/Tiberius.pdf on 16.01.09.

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ENUMERATIVE AND EXPLANATORY THEORIES OF ...

Second, I shall take the orthodox view that welfare is what is 'good for' a person. This expresses .... develops an 'emotional state' account of happiness, and argues that happiness is central to, though not .... I assume that a large part of the interest in explanatory .... The sixteen categories are supposed to establish bearings.

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