Ill-Being for Desire Satisfactionists

Abstract

Shelly Kagan notices in a recent, influential paper how philosophers of well-being tend to neglect ill-being—the part of the theory of well-being that tells us what is bad in itself for subjects—and explains why we need to give it more attention. This paper does its part by addressing the question, If desire satisfaction is good, what is the corresponding bad? The two most discussed ill-being options for theories on which desire satisfaction is a basic good are the Frustration View and the Aversion View. I aim to show that the Frustration View is more plausible than Kagan and others think; to introduce and evaluate two additional desire-oriented theories of ill-being worth considering, the Pluralist View and the Deflationary View; and to present a new line of argument for the Aversion View.