Sunday, April 26, 2015
Establishing objective theory of welfare as the most appropriate theory
We have covered the objective theory of welfare, namely the objective list before the midterms. Objective list, as we all know, contains some basic elements which is intrinsically valuable for life. Among the elements, happiness seems to be one which should be make the list before any other element. Most of us concur that happiness makes our life better in itself. However, the desire satisfactionists and the hedonists might not fully agree with this. So, what arguments would someone who is endorsing happiness would put forward when people object to happiness being intrinsically valuable? Also, what is biggest objection to both desire satisfactionists and hedonists from the point of view of people in favor of the objective list theory of welfare?
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This is obviously a tough scenario and you have to look at your fundamental moral beliefs on abortion no matter how bad the case must be. My concern with getting an abortion in this case is that they chose to have the child in the first place. Cases like rape or unexpected pregnancy are easier cases to accept abortion in my opinion, but the act of killing an undeveloped child - key world being "child" - is morally wrong if the baby was conceived purposely. This is based on my belief in the premise that a baby is an undeveloped being and it is wrong to kill a human being, undeveloped or not.
ReplyDeleteFor the second question: hedonists/desire satisfaction cannot deal with the case in which pleasure/desire is evil, say you only gain pleasure from killing people, or your only desire is to kill people. It seems pretty intuitive that justice should be on the objective list, and justice is against evil pleasure or desire.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting addition to the list- Justice. However, what about cases when "justice" is not the thing which is anticipated by the one receiving it, although it should be the fact the justice is intrinsically valuable for life. Suppose, someone is meted out justice in a particular issue, however, he just wants to sacrifice himself and/or suffer for the fear of God or in the hope of a good afterlife. So, he wants injustice to be done to him so that he suffers. Does getting justice make his life have more goodness?
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