CARING SATISFACTIONISM: A NEW THEORY OF PERSONAL WELFARE BY JASON HYDE B.S.B.A., UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, 1992 M.B.A., BAYLOR UNIVERSITY, 1993 J.D., UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, 2000 B.A., UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, 2005 M.A., UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, 2008 A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY 2011 This thesis entitled: CARING SATISFACTIONISM: A New Theory of Personal Welfare written by Jason Hyde has been approved for the Department of Philosophy Christopher Heathwood Robert Hanna Alastair Norcross Michael Tooley Benjamin Hale Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. iii ABSTRACT Hyde, Jason (Ph.D., Philosophy) CARING SATISFACTIONISM: A New Theory of Personal Welfare Thesis directed by Assistant Professor Christopher Heathwood Some lives go better than others. On this fact there is virtually no disagreement. If that is true, then what makes it so? Answers to this question are theories of personal welfare. This dissertation provides such a theory that claims, roughly, that a life goes better for the person who lives it to the extent he gets what he cares about getting and he believes he is getting those things. This dissertation is structured as follows. The Prologue properly frames and details the importance of the issue of personal welfare. Chapter One examines two of the main types of personal welfare theories. Objections to those theories are raised, and some general principles of welfare are formulated in response to those concerns, including that desires play at least some role in the correct theory of welfare. Chapter Two takes a preliminary look at desire theory⎯the third and final main type of personal welfare theory. It considers and rejects the possibility that something in addition to desires affects welfare before taking stock of the challenges that face any desire theory. Chapter Three begins by considering whether a unified theory of welfare for all beings exists before rejecting this idea. The main focus of the chapter, however, is putting in place the foundations of the proposed theory as found in the works of Harry Frankfurt. Frankfurt’s works on a variety of topics are covered in great detail because part of the problem in the debate over desire theory stems from the failure to view desires in their proper and broader context as an integral part of the human psyche. Chapter Four considers some popular iv forms of and objections to desire theory in order to collect the remaining conceptual tools required to build the correct theory of personal welfare. Chapter Five explains this theory in full, extols its virtues, demonstrates how it resolves the two most difficult objections facing any desire theory, and shows how it resolves a deep conceptual confusion within desire theory. Finally, the Epilogue details the meaning of life and shows how Caring Satisfactionism is perfectly consistent with it. DEDICATION To Mom and Dad, Spike and Bullet, and Michel vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I began working on the ideas that eventually turned into this dissertation in early 2006. My friend, Barrett Emerick (thank you, Barrett), let me join in on an independent study class he had scheduled with (what turned out to be) my dissertation supervisor, Chris Heathwood. We read Derek Parfit’s thick, dense, and brilliant Reasons and Persons cover-to-cover that spring. A few pages from the end of the book, I came across the first serious, sustained discussion of one of the reasons I wanted to do philosophy in the first place: What makes someone’s life go best? My plan was to eventually turn the paper I wrote for the independent study into my dissertation. And that is sort of how it turned out. My first stab at this topic of personal welfare was to create a new version of a desire- satisfaction theory in which the salient feature was the claim that our desires about our desires are what ultimately determines how well a life goes for the person who lives it. That paper was okay for a first attempt, but I had a lot to learn about this topic. After turning in the paper for the independent study, I turned in a different version of it to the department for the first of two required diagnostic papers. The single most critical substantive spark for this project appeared in the comments that I received back. One of the anonymous reviewers (thank you, anonymous reviewer), in what seemed to be an afterthought, wrote something to the effect of, “Hey, you should check out Harry Frankfurt’s work on this desires about desires stuff.” vii I was completely unaware of Frankfurt’s work in this area at the time, but the light bulb went on for me once I dug into his oeuvre. Although I disagreed with much of what Frankfurt argued, I could see that the seeds for the theory I was trying to perfect were there. Over the course of the last four years, however, I came to see that many of my ideas were untenable in the face of Frankfurt’s arguments. Quite simply, he has done a masterful job of giving a wonderfully nuanced account of most of the issues relating to our experience of ourselves and how that relates to the things we care the most about. I have already had the opportunity to thank him via email, but he certainly deserves another one here. So thank you⎯Harry Frankfurt⎯both I and this project are much richer for having had the benefit of your insights. The other great intellectual debt I owe is to my supervisor, Chris Heathwood. Chris studied under Fred Feldman, another great philosopher who shows up a lot in the coming pages, and wrote his dissertation on personal welfare, too. He learned his craft exceedingly well and has been extraordinarily generous with both his time and his philosophical talents. If I were to acknowledge his influence on every page of this project that merited it, then it may start to look like I was merely the figurehead for a ghost-writing project Chris undertook for unknown reasons. So thank you⎯Chris Heathwood⎯you made me see, time and again, the force of the arguments, both large and small, that (hopefully) kept me on the right path. As even a cursory examination of this project would reveal, I owe a great deal to many other philosophers as well. In particular, David Hume and viii Friedrich Nietzsche taught me, apart from numerous substantive lessons, that good philosophy need not be inaccessible or boring. I have tried to heed these lessons by making this dissertation accessible and interesting; I hope I have succeeded to some degree. I also owe a great deal to a number of philosophers who, particularly in the past 30 years or so, have been working diligently on the topic of personal welfare. Philosophy is hard, but not nearly as hard as it would be without standing on the shoulders of great philosophers. It is a humbling fact that most of the good parts of this project, if there are any, are due to others while the bad parts of this project are mine alone. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee⎯Michael Tooley, Bob Hanna, Alastair Norcross, and Ben Hale⎯and the CU Philosophy department in general. You gave me a chance to fulfill a dream and made it a very rewarding and enjoyable process to boot. Other than the temperature, I would have had trouble designing a better set of circumstances in which to get my Ph.D. I would also be terribly remiss if I did not thank my mom, Donna Budnick, and my dad, Jerry Hyde, for all they have done to get me to this point. In many ways⎯some very obvious and some much less obvious⎯I would not be anything I am without your love and support. Similarly, Spike and Bullet have been as good of friends as I could have ever hoped for. I would not be where I am without you two, either. Also, a former student turned friend of mine, Mike Ebben, helped to keep me sane(?) throughout the writing of this dissertation with a weekly backgammon game during which⎯between ix repeated amusing endorsements of the wonders of the experience machine (a contraption you will meet shortly)⎯he let me bounce off him other ideas relating to this project. Finally, I often feel as if I will never be able to repay some of the debts I owe. I have never been more sure of that than as it relates to Michel. I am not even sure how to start to thank her, much less to attempt to repay her. So here goes nothing. She moved to Colorado to be with me when I embarked on this adventure. She hates the cold. She billed (long) hours at a law firm to pay the vast majority of our bills. She hates paying attention to time. She took the bus to Denver for a job for a while. She hates commuting. She complained about some of those things, but far less than she was entitled to and far less than I would have. And she didn’t complain about my earning less money, working less hard, having more fun, or any number of other things that would have been hard for me not to comment on had the roles been reversed.