Preferentism and the Paradox of Desire

Bradford Skow

doi:https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v3i3.34

Volume 3, Number 3
October 2009

ARTICLE

Preferentism and the Paradox of Desire

Volume 3, Number 3, October 2009, Pages 1–17

https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v3i3.34

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Abstract

The basic idea behind actualist preferentism is that getting what one wants makes one’s life go better. A recent objection to preferentism is the “paradox of desire.’’ In a nutshell, this objection goes like this. I can certainly desire to be badly off. But if a desire-satisfaction theory of welfare is true, then—under certain assumptions—the hypothesis that I desire to be badly off entails a contradiction. So much the worse for desire-satisfaction theories of welfare. In this paper I show how to formulate preferentism so that the hypothesis that I desire to be badly off does not entail a contradiction. The key is to allow how close someone’s desires are to being satisfied to play a role in determining their level of welfare. My version of preferentism implements this idea by allowing desire satisfaction to come in degrees.

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