Mental States and Goodness

            I believe well-being on its own to be the greatest intrinsic goodness, with other theories acting primarily as tools for distributing or presenting well-being. For instance, equality in measuring well-being appears good only when comparing one situation to another. If I had 50 units of well-being, and someone else had 70 units, though neither of us knew the other existed, and I did not even know that it was possible to have that many units, I would be no more or less content with my well-being than I would if the other person had an equal amount as me, making that lack of equality irrelevant. This is even more true of narrative flow, as describing something as “getting better” or “getting worse” is entirely dependent on making a comparison. If I decreased from 50 units to 30 units, then 30 units would seem to be less good than it would if I had started with 30 units and retained that same amount over the same length of time. Both of these examples rely on a preexisting status of well-being, which is then affected by the individual’s awareness and the context of the well-being. If well-being is required before equality or narrative flow can occur at all, and then the end result which determines the goodness of that equality or narrative goodness is also well-being, well-being would have to be more pure or basic. (I feel like it wouldn’t make sense to say “more intrinsic”, but that is kind of what I’m going for.)

More specifically, the mental state theory of well-being seems more acceptable than either the desire satisfaction or the objective list theories since the acknowledgment of goodness coincides with a positive mental state. If a desire were satisfied, but did not result in a positive mental state, it would be difficult for the person experiencing this to acknowledge that goal being met as intrinsically good. Something considered intrinsically good would not hold much value as being good if it could not be properly appreciated.