2306 - Can I Get A Little Less Life Satisfaction, Please?

2 doi.org/10.5287/ora-koazqnor6 Wellbeing Research Centre, Oxford 2306 | Working Paper Series If the life satisfaction theory is the correct account of wellbeing, then those advocating for the use of life satisfaction scores as the metric for welfare are presumably off to the races. [...] On the summative desire theory, all your desires count and how your life goes overall is the product of the extent to which each desire is fulfilled and the intensity of each desire. [...] Taking a step back, perhaps the focus on whether and how the life satisfaction theory is distinct from hedonism has led to it being overlooked that that life satisfaction theories are a type of an admittedly not-well-known desire theory in disguise – the global desire theory – and hence not a distinct alternative to the Parfitian Big Three theories of wellbeing. [...] In short, life satisfaction is a gauge, not of the goodness of a life, but of the good-enoughness of a life. [...] What is the root of the problem? We can adapt Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma and pose the following: is my life going well because I judge it to be going well, or do I judge it to be going well because it is? The life satisfaction theorist accepts subjectivism and thus the first reading: you judging your life to go well is what causes it to go well.