{"title":"The Worst Things in Life","authors":"W. Sumner","doi":"10.1163/18756735-000108","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nOne important test of adequacy for a theory of welfare is completeness. To be complete a theory must cover ill-being as well as well-being. Call this the ill-being test for a theory. The author’s aim in this article is to determine how well equipped the leading theories of welfare are to pass this test. The author reaches three modest conclusions: (1) passing the test is not straightforward for any theory; (2) on the whole, subjective theories do better than objective ones; (3) within the subjective category experiential theories do better than desire theories.","PeriodicalId":43873,"journal":{"name":"Grazer Philosophische Studien-International Journal for Analytic Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18756735-000108","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Grazer Philosophische Studien-International Journal for Analytic Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18756735-000108","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
One important test of adequacy for a theory of welfare is completeness. To be complete a theory must cover ill-being as well as well-being. Call this the ill-being test for a theory. The author’s aim in this article is to determine how well equipped the leading theories of welfare are to pass this test. The author reaches three modest conclusions: (1) passing the test is not straightforward for any theory; (2) on the whole, subjective theories do better than objective ones; (3) within the subjective category experiential theories do better than desire theories.