Atus Mariqueo-Russell

Paradigm cases of disappointment occur when we fail to attain the object of our desire, or when doing so frustrates some of our other desires. However, some non-standard cases seem not to fit this pattern. We occasionally find ourselves disappointed despite perceiving that our desire has been fulfilled. Experiences of this sort are sometimes called ‘Dead Sea apples’. Such cases threaten the viability of theories that claim that fulfilling our desires always makes our lives go better for us. This paper considers what reflection on the nature of Dead Sea apples can teach us about the structure of desire and its relationship to well-being. I argue that this type of disappointment often occurs when we have a frustrated conjunctive desire that contains some satisfied conjuncts. The fact that the desire contains some satisfied conjuncts explains why we are prone to misidentifying it as fulfilled.

Desire theories of well-being claim that how well someone’s life goes for them is entirely determined by the fulfilment and frustration of their desires. This thesis considers the viability of theories of this sort. It examines a series of objections that threaten to undermine these views. These objections claim that desire theories of well-being are incorrect because they have implausible implications. I consider four main objections over the course of this thesis. The first claims that these theories are incorrect because they implausibly entail that self-sacrifice does not exist. The second claims that these theories are incorrect because they implausibly entail that severe depression does not diminish the well-being of those afflicted by this condition. The third claims that these theories are incorrect because they have implausible implications about the relative importance of fleeting desires, long-standing desires, and fluctuations in desire strength to well-being. The fourth claims that these theories are incorrect because they fail to capture the intuition that desire fulfilments which leave us disappointed and bereft of feelings of satisfaction do not improve well-being. In each of these cases, I find that desire theories of well-being have sufficient resources to refute these objections. The primary finding of this thesis is that many of the arguments against desire theories of well-being are unsuccessful. A secondary set of findings concern observations about the structure of human psychology.

This paper considers a new problem for desire theories of well-being. The problem claims that these theories are implausible because they misvalue the effects of fleeting desires, long-standing desires, and fluctuations in desire strength on well-being. I begin by investigating a version of the desire theory of well-being, simple concurrentism, that fails to capture intuitions in these cases. I then argue that desire theories of well-being that are suitably stability-adjusted can avoid this problem. These theories claim that the average strength of a desire, and the length of time that it is held, both influence the extent to which its fulfilment or frustration affects well-being. I end by considering whether value-fulfilment theories of well-being have a more attractive response to this problem. I find that these theories have significant downsides that make them unappealing alternatives.

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.

There is an emerging body of environmental law that seeks to give formal rights to Nature’s ecosystems. These laws are intended to surpass standard environmental regulations that have provided weak opposition to the mass degradation of ecosystems. The most radical advancements in the Rights of Nature movement have been the inclusion of Rights of Nature in Ecuador’s 2008 constitution, followed thereafter by Bolivia’s passing of The Law of Mother Earth in 2010. These laws provide a powerful opportunity to reshape our uncritical models of economic “development,” address our unmet moral obligations to future generations, and challenge our understanding of what it means to live a flourishing life. However, there are challenges that must be faced in getting Rights of Nature laws into the public consciousness and political decision-making chambers. This is especially true in Europe, where Rights of Nature laws are non-existent and groups advocating them have only recently begun to emerge. Moreover, it must be ensured that these laws are advanced in a way that is conceptually coherent and rigorous enough to deliver shared prosperity across generations. Central to fulfilling this goal is the identification of connections between Rights of Nature and other conceptually similar environmental laws. With that in mind, this article argues that progress in environmental protection can be made by highlighting the mutually supportive relationship between Rights of Nature laws and the long established, though increasingly threatened, Precautionary Principle.

‘This is not a book about the future but about a present that goes unacknowledged’, Aaron Bastani writes in Fully Automated Luxury Communism. Bastani does not set out to describe what an ideal communist society would look like. Instead, he spends the bulk of his book making the argument that capitalism is unable to cope with a set of problems that will eventually lead to its destruction and implores us instead to create a better economic model built around the creation and distribution of abundance. What makes the book interesting is that the problems its author identifies are primarily found in capitalism’s relationship to technology; and in particular, in technology’s potential to eliminate the scarcity that capitalism depends upon. Bastani argues that the capacity of technology to eliminate scarcity could, under the right social arrangements, lead to shared opulence: that is, Fully Automated Luxury Communism [FALC]. He paints a picture of a future where all people could live lives equivalent to that of modern-day billionaires: ‘Luxury will pervade everything as society based on waged work becomes as much a relic of history as the feudal peasant and medieval knight’.