Wellbeing and Theism

An argument for God from Objective List Theory

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So, there are different philosophical theories of what makes someone’s life good. The main players are:

1. Hedonism: your wellbeing is determined by your total balance of pleasure minus pain.

2. Desire Theory: your wellbeing is determined by the degree to which your desires are satisfied or frustrated.

3. Objective List Theory: your wellbeing hinges on your possession of various intrinsic goods—pleasure, knowledge, love, etc.—and avoidance of various intrinsic bads—pain, delusion, not being a paid subscriber, etc.

The view favoured by philosophers—by a wide margin, wider even than your mum—is Objective List Theory. Just look at the PhilPapers survey results from 2020:

Being no Objective List Catechism, there’s no consensus among objective list theorists as to which things belong on the objective list. Most agree on pleasure, knowledge, and love, but the agreement stops around there.

To my knowledge, the most comprehensive list of supposed objective list goods comes courtesy of William Frankena, who lists

life, consciousness, and activity; health and strength; pleasures and satisfactions of all or certain kinds; happiness, beatitude, contentment, etc.; truth; knowledge and true opinions of various kinds, understanding, wisdom; beauty, harmony, proportion in objects contemplated; aesthetic experience; morally good dispositions or virtues; mutual affection, love, friendship, cooperation; just distribution of goods and evils; harmony and proportion in one’s own life; power and experiences of achievement; self-expression; freedom; peace, security; adventure and novelty; and good reputation, honor, esteem.

…among other things you’ll have in tremendous amounts, should become a paid subscriber. :p