Utilitarianism Wins Outright Part 42: The Symmetry Argument For Hedonism
Hedonism most naturally explains ill-being
I’ve recently been on a bit of a well-being kick — there are so many interesting things to be said about the determinants of how well one’s life goes. I think that there are some extremely forceful arguments for hedonism, many of which I’ve laid out previously. Yet the best reason to be a hedonist is probably not a single knock-down arguments. Rather it will be death from a thousand cuts — there are oodles of things favoring hedonism that comprise an overwhelming cumulative case for the view that only desirable mental states make people better off. The considerations presented here are not intended to settle the debate — rather, they’re just one consideration favoring hedonism.
Hedonism best explains the symmetry between well-being and ill-being. On hedonism, what makes people’s lives go well (pleasure) has, as its opposite, suffering, which makes people’s lives go poorly. It’s quite natural that good and bad would be symmetric, in the sense that good things would have other things that are bad and opposite them. This is true on hedonism, but very difficult to make sense of on objective list theory and desire theory.
Kagan provides a brief account of ill-being — namely, that which makes people’s live go poorly; the flip side of well-being. Kagan described why this raises an especially large problem for desire theory -- it’s hard to account for things making a person badly off on desire theory. He notes
One possible answer, I suppose, is this: well-being is lowered by the frustration of one’s desires. That is, if I want X, and X does not obtain, then to that extent I am worse off.
This is, as I say, a possible answer. But it seems to me unsatisfying in an important way. According to preference theories of well-being, if I want X and X does obtain, then I am to that extent made better off. Obviously enough, then, if I want X, and X does not obtain, I fail to get the improvement in well-being that I would have gotten if X had obtained. But that is, after all, only the absence of a robust good. It seems to me that this doesn’t yet introduce any sort of robust bad. (It is important to remember that in the relevant sense of “frustration,” one’s desire can be frustrated—it can be the case that the object of one’s desire, X, does not obtain—without your being aware of this fact. In and of itself, the situation we are considering needn’t involve any negative experience at all; there need be no feeling of frustration.) (Kagan, 2014, p.268)
This seems clearly correct. After all, if you have something you want, but you’re not sad when you don’t get it, it really doesn’t seem bad for you. Kagan explains why another response is not successful
Nor does it seem to me that we make any progress if we suppose, instead, that ill-being consists in the situation where what I want is that X not obtain, and yet, despite this, X does obtain. At first glance it might seem that here we have managed to introduce a robust bad, rather than the mere absence of a good. But at second glance, I think, this appearance proves to be misleading, for all we have actually done is redescribe the proposal we were just considering, where failure to have what you desire is bad for you. Suppose, after all, that I want X to not obtain: then it remains the case that there is something (namely, not X) that I want. So if I am fortunate enough to have it be the case that X does not obtain, then of course it trivially follows that my desire (for not X) is satisfied, in which case I am to that extent better off. Accordingly, if—despite my preference—X does obtain, then I fail to get what I wanted (namely, not X), and so there is a failure to improve my well-being in that regard. But this is still, after all, a mere failure to receive a potential boost to well-being. It doesn’t yet seem to introduce any sort of intrinsic bad. There is nothing that in and of itself constitutes a reduction in well-being. (Kagan, 2014, p.269)
He then criticizes a third option according to which there’s a distinct psychological attitude involving finding something undesirable.
Here is a different proposal that might be suggested. Perhaps what the preference theory needs is to introduce a second psychological attitude, one that corresponds, in a negative way, to the positive attitude that preference theories normally describe. That is, just as there is a positive attitude—desire or preference—that we can have toward certain objects (or states of affairs), perhaps there is a quite distinct negative attitude—call it aversion—that we can also take toward various objects (or states of affairs). And just as preference theory holds that when I want X and X obtains (so my desire is satisfied) this improves my level of well-being, so too it should hold that when I have an aversion to X, and yet X obtains nonetheless (so that my aversion is frustrated) this lowers my level of well-being.
On a proposal like this, preference theory (which might now need a new name, so as to mark the fact that it incorporates aversion, and not merely preference) includes robust bads, and not only robust goods (or their absence). Admittedly, if I simply want X and X does not obtain, then even though my desire is frustrated this points to nothing more than the absence of a potential good. Nonetheless, on this revised view, there are indeed robust bads: for if I have an aversion to something, and yet that thing obtains nonetheless, then my aversion is frustrated, and that will constitute a robust bad. (On the other hand, if I simply have an aversion to something, and that thing does not in fact obtain, then although I have avoided the robust bad, this doesn’t yet introduce a robust good.)
So adding “aversion theory” to their account might seem to offer a promising way for the preference theorist to extend their approach to cover ill-being. Unfortunately, it too faces a difficulty. For if preference and aversion are indeed logically distinct psychological attitudes, then as far as I can see, nothing rules out the possibility that one might have both a preference for X and an aversion to X—indeed both a preference and an aversion to the very same feature of X—at one and the same time. And if one did, then if it should turn out that X does obtain, then that very fact will simultaneously be both intrinsically good for you and intrinsically bad for you.
That seems to me implausible. (I am not prepared to say it is unacceptable; but it does seem to me implausible.) To be sure, we are used to the idea that some generally described object or state of affairs might be good for you in one way and bad for you in another. But in such cases, I think, we normally point to different features of the object (different aspects of the state of affairs), precisely so as to be able to say that the one feature of the object is good for you, while another feature of the object is bad. What seems troubling is the idea that a single feature of a single object could be both intrinsically good and intrinsically bad for you simultaneously. Yet as far as I can see, nothing in the current view rules this out. Once we have added the logically distinct second attitude—aversion—at best it seems to be a merely empirical question whether we ever do happen to want something at the very same time that we also have an aversion to that very same thing.” (Kagan, 2014, p.270-271)
So, it’s not clear that desire theorists can even believe that things make people badly off, without accepting several implausible things. The problem also avails objective list theory, albeit less seriously. Kagan cites Parfit (1984, p.499)
The good things might include moral goodness, rational activity, the development of one’s abilities, having children and being a good parent, knowledge, and the awareness of true beauty. The bad things might include being betrayed, manipulated, slandered, deceived, being deprived of liberty or dignity, and enjoying either sadistic pleasure, or aesthetic pleasure in what is in fact ugly.
This list is very asymmetric. The good things don’t have opposites, as Kagan notes. What is the opposite of having children? What’s the opposite of being slandered? Thus, objective list theory has to violate a plausible symmetry principle. If we consider sadistic pleasures, for example, it’s not clear what their opposite is.
fwiw, I don't think I have any direct intuition about the truth or falsity of the principle that "All good things have opposites." (Where by 'direct intuition' I mean considered in abstraction from any substantive assumptions about which things are good.)
Moreover, it seems to me like a very strange sort of principle to have direct intuitions about. Certainly, positive well-being has an opposite, namely negative well-being. But I really would think that the only way to form a judgment about whether each and every *type* of good thing has an opposite would be to list them and see. I don't see any particular reason to prefer either answer here (in advance of simply seeing what falls out of one's preferred theory).