Desire and motivation in desire theories of well-being

Mariqueo-Russell, Atus (2023) Desire and motivation in desire theories of well-being. Philosophical Studies, 180 (7), 1975–1994. (doi:10.1007/s11098-023-01966-y).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Desire theories of well-being claim that how well our life goes for us is solely determined by the fulfilment and frustration of our desires. Several writers have argued that these theories are incorrect because they fail to capture the harms of self-sacrifice and severe depression. In this paper, I argue that desire theories of well-being can account for the harm of both phenomena by rejecting proportionalism about desire and motivation. This is the view that desires always motivate proportionally to their strength. If we reject this view, then we can explain the harm of many cases of self-sacrifice as arising when we act upon our weaker desires and thereby frustrate our stronger desires. Moreover, the harm of many cases of severe depression can be explained by its suppression of the motivational force of desires. This inevitably frustrates desires that we are left unmotivated to fulfil. I argue that this approach captures the experiential quality of self-sacrifice and severe depression better than rival views that seek to problematise these phenomena for desire theories of well-being. Moreover, these theories have sufficient conceptual resources to account for residual cases of self-sacrifice and severe depression that are less well explained by this approach.

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Accepted/In Press date: 20 April 2023

e-pub ahead of print date: 6 May 2023

Published date: July 2023

Additional Information: Funding Information: A debt of gratitude is owed to Alex Gregory for comments on multiple full drafts of this paper. Thanks are also due to Brian McElwee, Giulia Felappi, Jonathan Way, Elliot Porter, Mariana Guerra, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on full drafts. Thanks also to St.John Lambert and Charlotte Unruh for feedback on sections of this paper. This paper has also benefitted from audience feedback from two postgraduate seminars at the University of Southampton and from the 2022 PhiGS Colloquium at the University of Kent. It was also made possible by generous funding from the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Jacobsen scholarship. Funding Information: A debt of gratitude is owed to Alex Gregory for comments on multiple full drafts of this paper. Thanks are also due to Brian McElwee, Giulia Felappi, Jonathan Way, Elliot Porter, Mariana Guerra, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on full drafts. Thanks also to St.John Lambert and Charlotte Unruh for feedback on sections of this paper. This paper has also benefitted from audience feedback from two postgraduate seminars at the University of Southampton and from the 2022 PhiGS Colloquium at the University of Kent. It was also made possible by generous funding from the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Jacobsen scholarship. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).

Keywords: Depression, Desire Satisfactionism, Preferentism, Self-sacrifice, Welfare, Well-being

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