The Absolute Model and the Epicurean Intuition
The Absolute Model has something to say for it. On this model, all pro-attitude satisfaction counts equally, independent of how many pro-attitudes a subject has. However, it is also easy to see why it is problematic. Consider the example of Bill and Eve above. It is one thing to say that Bill is better off than Eve because he has more satisfied pro-attitudes than she has. However, it is another to say that he is five times better off than Eve is. People with few pro-attitudes may be leading wonderful lives, if not better than those with many satisfied pro-attitudes. Eve’s life seems really good, even though she could hold many more pro-attitudes.
To enforce this point, consider a variation of Bill:
Will: Will is extremely affluent and has many pro-attitudes about things that he can buy: sport cars, massages, luxurious restaurant visits, etc. He develops new pro-attitudes very fast (even faster than Bill), is almost always able to satisfy them, but some remain unsatisfied. We can say that, in a given period, he has 60 strong pro-attitudes (Di,t=1), and 51 of them are fully satisfied (Si,t=1), the other 9 are unsatisfied (Si,t=0).
While Will has more pro-attitudes satisfied, and would come out as better off on the Absolute Model, it seems implausible that his degree of wellbeing is higher than Bill’s. The additional unsatisfied pro-attitudes seem to be, by themselves, a burden on Will’s wellbeing. And, transitioning from Will’s state to Bill’s state seems to be an improvement, as a result of eliminating unfulfilled pro-attitudes. In fact, the presence of unsatisfied pro-attitudes seems to outweigh his one additional satisfied pro-attitude.
If we merely count the number of satisfied pro-attitudes, we do not seem to do justice to the relative goodness of lives, to interpersonal comparisons in which people have vary in the total amount of pro-attitudes that they hold. In the original example, it already seemed implausible that Eve’s life was five times worse than Bill’s, but it is even more of stretch to say that Eve’s life is (even more than) five times worse than Will’s.
We believe that this judgment is rooted in a deeper idea about the value of desires, or pro-attitudes more generally. In Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus argues that one should drop one’s desire for luxury food in favor of a simpler set of desires. Numerous philosophical schools have propagated the view that a reduction of desires, or other pro-attitudes, may directly contribute to a person’s wellbeing, even if these pro-attitudes can be satisfied at little cost. For example, the prudential strategy of an ascetic is to aim for a reduction of desires. An ascetic may aim to get rid of their worldly desires (desires for certain types of food, sex, etc.), in order to achieve a high level of wellbeing. But we do not need to endorse such an extreme strategy to see that unsatisfied pro-attitudes may be a burden on someone’s wellbeing. This intuition may explain why Eve is in a state of high wellbeing compared to Will, despite having fewer pro-attitudes that are satisfied. After all, while Will has significantly more pro-attitudes satisfied, Eve’s humble set of pro-attitudes leaves her with few wants.
What can we learn from this? Additional unsatisfied pro-attitudes are not neutral: they count negatively towards a person’s degree of wellbeing, and consequently, losing an unsatisfied pro-attitude may directly improve one’s life. We can call this the Epicurean Intuition.
Epicurean Intuition: A person may sometimes be directly benefitted by a reduction in unsatisfied pro-attitudes.
The Epicurean Intuition is not compatible with the Absolute Model. According to the Absolute Model, reducing one’s pro-attitudes is never a direct benefit (it may, of course, sometimes be an instrumental benefit).
There is a further problem with the Absolute Model, but before we get there, we need to consider the Relative Model.
The Relative Model and Depressions
The Relative Model is able to arrive at more plausible comparisons of wellbeing. On the Relative Model, Bill and Eve are equally well off, and Will is slightly worse off. This seems plausible. The Relative Model, however, faces its own challenge.
In order to see this, consider a second idea about degrees of wellbeing that subjectivism, and all theories of wellbeing, should be able to account for: depression is an archetypical case of ill-being, of having a low degree of wellbeing. Perhaps not all depressed are badly off in general, but, typically, depression is a state of ill-being. Moreover, all in all, depression disbenefits the person who suffers from it.
Depressions are diverse, but they also have common features. The DSM-5 prescribes nine criteria for identifying depressions, having five of them in two weeks is sufficient for the diagnosis. Three characteristics of depressions are worth describing here: First, depressions are often accompanied by negative affects – a depressed person typically experiences negative emotions towards the world, such as anxiety, stress, sadness, and despair. One of the DSM criteria is that one experiences bad moods throughout the day. Second, one has a low sense of self-worth and esteem. One of the DSM criteria is that one experiences “feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day” (APA 2013, 125). Lastly, depressions are often accompanied by a loss of desire, appetite, and valuation about particular goods that one perhaps was motivated by previously, or about the world in general. One of the nine symptoms that the DSM uses to diagnose depressions is a “[m]arkedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day” (APA 2013, 125).
The challenge that depressions pose for the Relative Model stems from this latter element. A depressed person may lose their pro-attitudes in general – losing their interest in most, if not almost all, activities. Consider Mark, who is depressed, and just wants to sit on the couch all day and watch YouTube videos. This is, in fact, one of the few things Mark is able to do. So, the few pro-attitudes that he has left are easy to satisfy. In terms of pro-attitude-satisfaction, his life seems similar to Eve’s. Why then, is his depression so bad for him, whereas Eve seems to be, at the very least, moderately well off?
The Relative Model is able to account for the Epicurean Intuition through its denominator. It thereby accounts for the two-sidedness of pro-attitudes: satisfying them is good, but unsatisfied pro-attitudes may also reduce one’s wellbeing. For this very reason, however, it also runs into trouble if we look at depression. After all, the types of depression we have been concerned with limit one’s pro-attitudes, and on the Relative Model, limiting one’s unsatisfied pro-attitudes – by itself – has an upward effect on one’s degree of wellbeing.
We acknowledge that, quite plausibly, depression will have as a consequence that many pro-attitudes that a person does have are more difficult to achieve. However, because a person’s total set of pro-attitudes will typically be much reduced, it is not obvious that the relative level of satisfied pro-attitudes will overall be lower for depressed individuals compared to others. If that would be so, it is very well possible that depression, on this model, would improve lives, rather than make them worse. Mark’s pro-attitudes are limited to his positive attitude about sitting on the couch and watching YouTube videos. This pro-attitude is satisfied. Mark thus has very few pro-attitudes, but the ones that he does have, are satisfied. On the Relative Model, Mark is doing very well. However, this is an unpalatable conclusion.
Depression, prima facie, seems to be bad in virtue of the negative affect it induces on those who are depressed (Hawkins 2010). However, an account that makes wellbeing dependent upon the pro-attitudes a person has, does not negatively evaluate negative affect itself. It only does so if individuals have disvaluing attitudes towards it. We also acknowledge that many depressed individuals will value this negative affect negatively. But this is not necessary. Some depressed individuals may develop a tolerance towards this negative affect. Mark’s attitudes towards the world do not seem to fully account for the badness of his depression, especially if Mark stops judging this negative affect as bad.
We can summarize this intuition as follows:
Depression Intuition: Depression is wellbeing reducing, and the depressed are typically not very well off.
Because the depressed may have high levels of relative pro-attitude satisfaction, the Relative Model is unable to account for the Depression Intuition.
This in itself seems problematic, but the problem is worse. Ian Tully (2016) has recently argued that there are even forms of depression in which the depressed completely lose their appetite for the world. He builds on Viktor Frankl’s (1986) description of concentration camp prisoners who undergo their extremely harsh treatment in apathy.Footnote 13 He then argues:
“…these individuals no longer possess desires that can be frustrated, as is evidenced by their indifference not only to the demands placed upon them, but even to their bodily functions, to threats and to physical pain. If no desires are being frustrated, then the desire theory has no grounds for ascribing ill-being. But it is simply not plausible to suppose that those individuals Frankl observed in the Nazi camps were not in a terrible state.” (Tully 2016, 6)
If Tully is correct about the case, the following intuition needs to be met by theories of wellbeing:
Indifference Intuition: people without any pro-attitudes may be very badly off, and they may increase their degree of wellbeing
For Frankl’s prisoners, the Relative Model has mind-boggling consequences. As they hold no pro-attitudes at all, the denominator in the Relative Model is nil, and consequently, the wellbeing of these prisoners is either completely undefined, or infinite. The latter would be absurd. The wellbeing of the prisoners is terribly low, not infinitely high. And the former is absurd as well: their wellbeing is not non-existent. They still have levels of welfare, and they are very low. Exactly because this model counts the benefit of reducing one’s pro-attitudes, it runs into problems explaining the disbenefit of being in the type of depressed states we have been concerned with. Not having pro-attitudes, or having very few pro-attitudes, is not a benefit in these cases, but a harm. Frankl’s depressed prisoners do not value anything, but their life can be made better. Removing them from the camp, treating them, and caring for them, for starters, would benefit them.
The Indifference Intuition at the outset, may simply be incompatible with subjectivism (as Tully 2016 suggests). If so, this would be a bad outcome for subjectivism. After all, if Frankl is right, being depressed without having any pro-attitudes towards the world is not only a hypothetical counterexample to subjectivism, but a very real one. These individuals are not only conceptually possible, but have actually existed. If the Indifference Intuition is incompatible with subjectivism, subjectivism should be rejected. While we agree with Tully that the Indifference Intuition poses a significant challenge to subjectivism, the Absolute Model may be able to account for the Indifference Intuition. This brings us back to the Absolute Model.
The Absolute Model and the Disbenefit Constraint
The Absolute Model is much better at explaining the badness of the type of depression that we have discussed. The Absolute Model is able to account for the Depression Intuition. After all, depression reduces one’s pro-attitudes. Even if many of those pro-attitudes are satisfied, the total amount of satisfied pro-attitudes will still be low. Just like the Absolute Model counts Eve as having a low level of welfare, it would also count Mark as having a relatively low level of wellbeing. Depression disbenefits individuals, on this model, because they lose pro-attitudes that could, or would, have been satisfied if they were not depressed. And, consequently, depression causes one’s degree of wellbeing to decrease.
The Absolute Model may also account for Frankl cases and the Indifference Intuition. On this model, Frankl’s prisoners are doing poorly because they have no pro-attitudes that are satisfied, though they could be doing worse if they did hold contra-attitudes that were satisfied. These seem to be exactly the right type of conclusions.
However, the solution the Absolute Model offers also shows a problem with this model that goes back to the heart of subjectivism. This solution, using the Absolute Model, does not meet The (Disbenefit) Constraint. Recall that part of Indifference Intuition is that some things are good for individuals, even in the situation of Frankl’s prisoners. What would be good for one of Frankl’s prisoners on the Absolute Model is obtaining a set of pro-attitudes that can be satisfied. But, the Resonance Constraint maintains that something can only be good for individuals if they hold pro-attitudes towards them. The prisoners hold no pro-attitudes at all, so nothing could possibly be good for them.
Moreover, on this model, what explains the badness of the type of depression we have been concerned with is the lack of pro-attitudes that a depressed person can satisfy. In other words, what disbenefits her is that she is not attracted to value; she does not have pro-attitudes towards any goods in general. The Disbenefit Constraint states that in order to disbenefit from something, she has to care about it, either by disvaluing it, or by valuing the opposite. A depressed person may care about her lack of pro-attitudes towards life, satisfying the Disbenefit Constraint. However, this is not necessary for someone to disbenefit from a depression. On the Absolute Model, a person may be disbenefitted by losing a pro-attitude that is, or can (easily) be, satisfied, regardless of her attitudes towards these attitudes.
Again, take Mark. Say that he used to enjoy tennis, and was good at it, but has lost his appetite for it. Losing this appetite, on the Absolute Model, decreases his degree of wellbeing. After all, there used to be pro-attitudes that were satisfied, but now there are none. So, as decreasing one’s wellbeing constitutes a disbenefit, we can say that, on the Absolute Model, depression has disbenefitted Mark by causing him to lose his pro-attitude for tennis, which in turn decreased his welfare. But, Mark does not care for tennis, nor does he disvalue not playing tennis. So, by explaining the disbenefit of depressions in terms of a loss in satisfied pro-attitudes that one could have, but not yet has, the Absolute Model violates the Disbenefit Constraint.
Not all defenders of subjectivist theories of wellbeing are concerned about this problem. Tiberius, who seems to endorse the Absolute Model, writes:
“The value fulfillment theory says that something could be valuable for a person who doesn’t currently value that thing, because it could be that a certain value (for example, health or self-respect) is needed for that person to live a value-fulfilled life.” (2018, 62)
This reasoning may merely seem to suggest that certain pro-attitudes are instrumentally useful in achieving the satisfaction of pro-attitudes that one already has. But Tiberius also suggests that we can improve our lives by adopting pro-attitudes that may lead to value-fulfilment of pro-attitudes that we would otherwise not have had:
“For example, a person who values partying with hard drugs and lots of alcohol is not doing as well as they could if these values are going to cause an early death and the forfeiture of many other things they would come to value more.” (2018, 62).
Using a similar strategy, Tiberius could say about the depressed that a state of depression typically does not serve a person particularly well, and it can be improved by adopting pro-attitudes that a person does not yet have. On the Absolute Model, a depressed person such as Mark is not doing very well, and adopting a different set of pro-attitudes may lead to more absolute pro-attitude satisfaction. This would explain the harm of depression in a plausible way. This would, however, still violate the Disbenefit Constraint. It ascribes direct benefit to adopting certain pro-attitudes, even though currently someone holds no pro-attitudes towards these pro-attitudes. This is exactly what the Resonance Constraint is intended to avoid.
And indeed, Tiberius acknowledges that this aspect of her theory moves her theory towards objective theories. But, she also argues that ultimately, it still is a subjective theory:
The theory rejects the idea that certain things are good for people entirely independently of how they feel about them or could come to feel about them. In this respect (an important respect, I think) the value fulfillment theory is not an objective theory (2018, 63).
While we take no issue with this claim, we do take it as an acknowledgment of the idea that subjectivism can only account for the benefit of certain goods – e.g. the absence of depression or the lifestyle that Tiberius describes – by moving away from the Resonance Constraint.
To sum-up: subjectivism of the sort we are concerned with here faces a dilemma. It needs to account for degrees of wellbeing. We have introduced two ways to account for degrees of wellbeing on this model. But, both models face significant challenges. The Relative Model fails to account for the badness of depression and the Indifference Intuition. The Absolute Model, on the other hand, not only fails to account for the Epicurean Intuition, but can only account for the badness of depression and the Indifference Intuition in a way that is incompatible with the Resonance Constraint.