Abstract

This thesis sets out to answer the question of what we should value. We value many things, and in many contexts, such as the foods we like or the hobbies we enjoy most, but when we move beyond our own day to day lives what should we say is valuable? This thesis argues that if you are a consequentialist you should only value welfare, and have reasons to maximize welfare. It is clear that we do very much care about welfare, and so the question is to see if there are other things we value as well.

Welfare has a long history as a philosophical concept, and differs from the sense it has in a health and medicine context. Philosophical welfare is that which is good for a person, and there are three main theories of what this is. Hedonism - the good is pleasure, desire theories - satisfying preferences is good for you, and objective list theories - there are specific things that make life good. We’ll discuss the arguments against each of these theories as well as give a brief argument for which I favor.

When we think about what a theory of value is, it is important to note that it is a type of mathematical ordering between elements. We can think of different possible worlds, our theory of value will tell us which of these worlds are better than the other ones. Given this mathematical grounding for value theory, I’ll argue that we should not accept incommensurability, and that value pluralism leads to absurd conclusions, meaning that we should only value welfare.

Given a welfarist axiology, I’ll then argue that the philosophical position of longtermism follows, as well as give arguments against longtermism. Finally I’ll explore some of the real-world implications of the proposed axiology, such as animal welfare, global health investment, and existential risk reduction.

Advisor

Rudisill, John

Department

Philosophy

Disciplines

Ethics and Political Philosophy | Other Philosophy

Keywords

Value Theory, Axiology, Welfarism

Publication Date

2023

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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