Welfare as Preference-Satisfaction
Consequentialist accounts are traditionally divided into hedonistic theories, desire (or preferentist) theories, and objective list theories according to what they take to be the defining feature of the consequences of action which are to be pursued, that is, what they take to be of intrinsic value. According to hedonistic accounts, pleasure alone is intrinsically valuable. Such accounts are subjectivist insofar as they take a state of affairs to be of value for an individual to the extent, and only to the extent, that it is pleasure-producing for him. No states of affairs are inherently valuable.
Objective list theories reject subjectivist accounts of value holding that some states of affairs are inherently valuable. Such accounts are typically pluralist, affirming the intrinsic value of a variety of goods or states of affairs.
Preferentism, also known as the desire theory, is a subjectivist account of value according to which well-being is...
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Baber, H.E. (2011). Preference-Satisfaction. In: Chatterjee, D.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_436
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