In his paper Desire and the Human Good, Richard Kraut argues that the typical defense for pluralism, Desire Satisfaction Theory, is too weak; subsequently Kraut offers his own alternative. In this paper I will explain Desire Satisfaction Theory as Kraut opposes it, defend the objections made by Kraut against Desire Satisfaction Theory, and evaluate his alternative theory.
In ancient greek philosophies such as platonic, aristotelian, stoic and epicurean, as well as in medieval christian philosophies, the answer to to the question “what makes a life go best?” is always a narrow answer. With little variation the only life that is good and worth living, to the aforementioned schools of thought, is the life which which is spent developing an understanding of nature and of metaphysics, or rather the life spent as a philosopher. However the position which is by far more popular today is that of pluralism. Pluralism is the concept that there are multiple ways to live that result in a life going best; Desire Satisfaction Theory attempts to offer a justification for pluralism.
Desire Satisfaction Theory states that: a life goes best if and only if desires for that life are satisfied. The variability of desires from person to person, along with Desire Satisfaction Theory, makes it possible to have many types of lifes that are different yet all of them making the life of anyone who desire to live them go well; for example if someone desires to make a living as an engineer, the fulfillment of that desire makes his life go best, and at the same time another person who desires to write music would be better off studying music rather than engineering.
Kraut makes a few modifications to this basic idea of Desire Satisfaction Theory in order to gi...
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...his primary example of this is the deliberations unguided children would make about their lives. While a child would have certain necessary desires, for food, stimulation, warmth and contact, that child also lacks desires for what we would consider makes life go best (desires to develop capacities and to become nurtured in the customs of society).
To this objection, a proponent of Desire Satisfaction Theory could claim: to remedy these concerns and further extension should be made to the theory, that is, that one’s future desires being satisfied is also a component of a life going well. While this modification does fix the issue of not have ideal desires in youth, it does nothing to reconcile issues caused by someone forming bad desires out of not knowing or not caring about what makes their life go best.
Works Cited
Response to Kraut’s Desire and the Human Good
However, with individual’s contentment, it encompasses a broader group of audiences. For instance, it can include a child, a woman, a man, or anyone. For example, a child is contented when he received something he had always wanted for a present. To do that child, receiving what he always wanted means the world to him. A mother may wish for nothing more than to see her children growing successfully and living a good life. When her wishes bear fruits, she would feel contented, even though she might have sacrificed a lot during the course of raising her children. A father could be content with similar ideal. He may wish nothing more than to be able to support his family, to see that his wife and children are financially supported by working extra hours. Similarly, Slaughter, an elite feminist, believes she did not have it all by expressing her longing for motherhood and is not contented even though she has achieved a high-profile government position (Slaughter 676-677). When her stint from her government position is up, she becomes a dean at Woodrow Wilson School. With her position, she is able to make work schedule flexible for her to allow her the time for her family. Believing that with her flexibility at work, she can have have it all (Slaughter 687). However, it also tells us that she contented with her
A researcher in humanistic psychology, Abraham Maslow, stated that, “Basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative prepotency… (The organism’s) behavior organized only by unsatisfied needs.” (A.Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation, 1943) This suggests that in order to progress to the next step in the hierarchy (shown on the right) one must fulfill the steps below.
Simons, Janet A., Donald B. Irwin, and Beverly A. Drinnin. "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs." Psychology: the Search for Understanding. St. Paul: West Pub., 1987. Print.
This is a theory in psychology from 1943 that lists our needs in a hierarchal format and says that the needs of the most basic level must be fulfilled before higher needs are desired. You must meet all your biological and physiological needs before you are concerned about your relationship or esteem needs. Psychologists have criticized this theory throughout the years, for example, Saul McLeod says in his essay explaining Maslow’s Theory, “Personal opinion is always prone to bias, which reduces the validity of any data obtained. Therefore Maslow 's operational definition of self-actualization must not be blindly accepted as scientific fact” (Simple Psychology). Using a theory that has not been rigorously proven weakens the author’s argument. Most readers, however, are not familiar with the theory or it’s controversy, and would take it at face
Veronneau, M. H., Koestner, R. F., & Abela, J. R. (2005). Intrinsic need satisfaction and well-
The more desires we achieve the more we want to seek out. We are never satisfied with attaining one desire; it leads to wanting to look at how we can accomplish more and bigger ones. Most of the time without thinking man starts his/her day off with desires as the goal of the day. Our daily desires can sometimes be a positive thing, especially when it encourages us to resolve a problem. An example would be, if there is a problem within the work group and the manager would like to have a resolution before the close of business the next day, you may have a desire
...oncept of well-being. Overall, the amalgamation of the inconsistencies and errors I have attempted to highlight with my arguments I think prove my original hypothesis, that actual preference theory does not offer the correct account of well-being, because the arguments show that the fulfilment of a preference does not always produce consequences that are conducive to
A good life can be defined with continuous happiness, various accomplishments, and everlasting prosperity. The eternal desire for a good life has influenced philosophers and their reasoning throughout the years. Many have followed ancient religions; while others followed the modern belief of listening to your heart and therefore one’s self. Pascal, Luther, and Augustine are some of the philosophers who followed religion, and believed it to be the ultimate way of achieving a good life. Other preachers like Rousseau and Nietzsche believed in following one’s heart and conscious in order to achieve the desired goal. Rousseau presented the idea that humans are born good and society is what actually shapes humans into good or bad people. Furthermore, he expands on the subject of one’s self and the inward view rather than the outward view. With this, a modern and innovative perspective on the good life was developed as reason cannot only be used on an everyday basis, but can also present a more attainable way of achieving a good for all members of society.
From pursuing pleasure to avoiding pain, life seems to ultimately be about achieving happiness. However, how to define and obtain happiness has and continues to be a widely debated issue. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives his view on happiness. Aristotle focuses particularly on how reason, our rational capacity, should help us recognize and pursue what will lead to happiness and the good life.';(Cooley and Powell, 459) He refers to the soul as a part of the human body and what its role is in pursuing true happiness and reaching a desirable end. Aristotle defines good'; as that which everything aims.(Aristotle, 459) Humans have an insatiable need to achieve goodness and eventual happiness. Sometimes the end that people aim for is the activity they perform, and other times the end is something we attempt to achieve by means of that activity. Aristotle claims that there must be some end since everything cannot be means to something else.(Aristotle, 460) In this case, there would be nothing we would try to ultimately achieve and everything would be pointless. An ultimate end exists so that what we aim to achieve is attainable. Some people believe that the highest end is material and obvious (when a person is sick they seek health, and a poor person searches for wealth).
At one point in our lives, we all ask ourselves, “What is the good life?” Is it winning the lottery, or finding love, or is it graduating University? Philosopher Plato, the Buddhist religion and Confucius had their own beliefs of what the good life is for them. I believe all of these Philosophers’ and religions theories have truth and meaning, and we have all, or will experience them in our journey through our lives. The philosophers and Religions that spoke out to me the most were Plato, the Buddhist and the Confucius.
Each higher order of motivational need is built upon a more basic need. After physiological and safety needs are met then the individual looks to belong and be accepted by peers and groups that they identify with. Once accepted, one looks to improve their self-esteem and garner the respect and esteem of their peers and the groups to which they belong. Finally an individual is driven by the need to become self-actualized, becoming all that one has the potential of becoming.
primary want in life can have great impacts on the development of a child, helping or hindering a
The Good Life is an expression representing how one would like to live out their life. In other words, how that person achieves happiness. There are three theories that correlate to the Good Life: daoism, stoicism, and existentialism. Since each person defines their happiness differently, each person has their own opinion as to whether or not what is read to be correct or not. The goal is to at least shine a light onto what everyone seems drawn towards. Existentialism is an important theory to consider in order to achieve the Good Life. Although existentialism may not appeal to everyone as a reliable theory to achieve the Good Life, it does elaborate as to how existentialism can be used to achieve the Good Life.
Thus, while the ERG theory presents a model of progressive needs, the hierarchical aspect is not rigid. This flexibility allows the ERG theory to account for a wider range of observed behaviors. For example, it can explain the “starving artist” who may place growth needs above existence ones.
However, we can wonder if the pleasures that derive from necessary natural desires are what actually brings us happiness, since having a family, friends, a good job and doing fun things seem to bring the most joy in life. Plato’s ideas on life are even more radical, since he claims that we should completely take difference from our bodily needs. Therefore it seems that we should only do what is necessary for us to stay a life and solely focus on the mind. Although both ways of dealing with (bodily)pleasure are quite radical and almost impossible to achieve, it does questions if current perceptions of ‘living the good life’ actually leads to what we are trying to achieve, which is commonly described as