The Best of the Six Theories

This question is difficult to answer.  Few people would determine that one of the six theories is sufficient to defend.  Instead, they are all of a great deal of importance.  Although this is the case, some theories are more defensible than others.  The last two theories about beauty and ecosystems, although important, are not central to the intrinsic good in our world.  In my opinion, accepting one theory would be an oversimplification.  I believe the order in which we discussed them is more or less the order I would rank them in terms of importance.

In my opinion, wellbeing is the most central and important of Mill’s arguments, serving as an umbrella argument.  Arguments 2-6, serve somewhat as sub-points, playing off of wellbeing as either something that adds to wellbeing (like beauty) or that adds specificity to the distribution of wellbeing.  Since that is the case, I am inclined to most support the first argument.  If one must distinguish the most important factor that contributes to Mill’s argument about good, it would be wellbeing.  To Mill, wellbeing is of primary importance, and that in order to maximize the good, and minimize the bad, one must focus on the wellbeing of others.  We saw an example of this in the Singer reading about donating money to refugees in Bengal.  Improving people’s overall wellbeing is definitely important to improving intrinsic good on a large scale.  Theories 2-4 are important in narrowing down the importance of how that wellbeing is distributed and 5-6 establish that there are other things that are intrinsically good and can improve wellbeing. 

I do not completely buy into the mental state theory.  I think there is more to good and wellbeing than an internalist experience.  I do believe that the wellbeing argument can be held up by some kind of compromise between the desire-satisfaction theory, and the objective list theory.  I find the six points oversimplifying what is intrinsically good and how to act in ways that maximize the good when considered alone.  I think they are best defended when thought of in the context of each other.  Another example of this is arguments 2-3, which are equality, and desert.

I believe that equality and desert deserve special attention in determining the context for well-being.  Our conversation about equality and desert captured my attention because I noticed many people in the class disagreed about the importance of desert factoring into equality.  We touched on this topic briefly in class, and I wanted to expand upon that idea.  I cannot accept the concept that desert is formulaic, and all humans, regardless of their behavior, deserve equal amounts of good.  In my opinion, that argument contradicts the concept of equality.  I can understand that if everyone acted the same way, each person would deserve the same level of wellbeing.

I am very much in favor of some of Mill’s points about what has intrinsic value, but I believe they must not be considered separately from each other.  I am a strong believer that consequences matter, but I think that maximizing the good and minimizing the bad requires a conversation between these separate arguments about what has intrinsic value.