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Why Be a Subjectivist about Wellbeing?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2022

Peter Königs Open the ORCID record for Peter Königs [Opens in a new window]
Peter Königs*
Affiliation:
Philosophy & Law Department, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management,Frankfurt am Main, Germany
*
Email: p.koenigs@fs.de
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Abstract

Subjectivism about wellbeing rests on the idea that what is good for a person must ‘fit’ her, ‘resonate’ with her, not be ‘alien’ to her, etc. This idea has been called the ‘beating heart’ of subjectivism. In this article, I present the No-Beating-Heart Challenge for subjectivism, which holds that there is no satisfactory statement of this idea. I proceed by first identifying three criteria that any statement of the idea must meet if it is to provide support for subjectivism: Distinctness, Exclusiveness, and Explicitness. I then argue that no statement of this idea meets these criteria.

Keywords

Wellbeingwelfareprudential valuesubjectivismobjectivismidealizationinternalism
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , February 2022 , pp. 165 - 179
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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