The Sentience Argument for Experientialism about Welfare

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    13 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Can a person’s degree of wellbeing be affected by things that do not enter her experience? Experientialists deny that it can, extra-experientialists affirm it. The debate between these two positions has focused on an argument against experientialism—the experience machine objection—but few arguments exist for it. I present an argument for experientialism. It builds on the claim that theories of wellbeing should not only state what constitutes wellbeing, but also which entities are welfare subjects. Moreover, the claims it makes about these two issues should have a certain coherence with each other. I argue that if we accept a particular plausible answer to the second question—namely that all and only sentient beings are welfare subjects—extra-experientialist theories face a problem of coherence. While this problem can typically be solved, doing so will involve steps that are unattractive. On experientialist theories, on the other hand, the answer to these questions cohere perfectly.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)187-208
    Number of pages22
    JournalPHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
    Volume178
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2021

    Keywords

    • wellbeing
    • sentience
    • experience
    • experientialism

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