Alienation, Engagement, and Welfare

Bibliographic Data

ID4351162
AuthorsJames Fanciullo (0000-0002-9397-1951, Lingnan University , Hong Kong SAR, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume75
Issue1
Pages40-60
Publication date2024-11-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqad115
OpenAlexW4389718688
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited14

The alienation constraint on theories of well-being has been influentially expressed thus: 'what is intrinsically valuable for a person must have a connection with what he would find in some degree compelling or attractive .... It would be an intolerably alienated conception of someone's good to imagine that it might fail in any such way to engage him'. Many agree this claim expresses something true, but there is little consensus on how exactly the constraint is to be understood. Here, I clarify the sense in which the quote offers a basic constraint on theories of well-being-a constraint that should be adopted by (e.g.) hedonists, desire satisfactionists, and objective list theorists alike. This constraint focuses on affective engagement, or positive affective stances in connection with a proposed good. I show that the constraint explains a near-universal intuition, and rules out a number of well-known theories of well-being

Alienation · Connection (principal bundle) · Constraint (computer-aided design) · Epistemology · Intuition · Political science · Sociology · Law · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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