In my philosophy class this term, we have been focusing most of our time so far on the question of welfare. In philosophy, welfare does not refer to things like Medicare, but instead is the question of what makes a human life worth living. It is also distinct from the normative question of what makes a life ethical. We have been examining four main theories of welfare: preference satisfaction theory, hedonism, life satisfaction theory, and objective list theory. Preference satisfaction has historically been a favorite of economists. It asserts that welfare consists in getting what you want as much as possible. It is important to note that it is the actual satisfaction of your preferences that, according to this theory, increases one's welfare, not the feeling one experiences when one gets what one wants. One notable objection to preference satisfaction theory is the problem of remote desires. If I hear that a stranger's mother has cancer, for example, I would desire that she gets better. When she is healed a year later, though, I have no way of knowing that my preference was satisfied, yet, according to preference satisfaction theory, my welfare would increase as soon as she is healed, which seems (to some) implausible. The same problem can also apply to desires satisfied after one's death. Hedonism is one of the oldest theories of welfare, and simply states that the best life is the one that contains the highest amount of pleasure and the lowest amount of pain. Hedonists care about maximizing the duration and intensity of pleasure, which allows it to account for temporary sacrifices of pain (like going to the dentist) to avoid greater pain in the future. A major problem for hedonism is that many people care about other things more than immediate pleasure and pain. Someone who wants to climb all the world's tallest mountains and succeeds in doing so, for example, likely experiences a lot of pain from doing so, but would probably be said to have a good life. Life satisfaction theory is the newest of the lot, and tends to be favored by psychologists. It states that welfare consists in being satisfied with one's life. This theory has the advantage of resolving many of the objections to preference satisfaction theory while maintaining its anti-paternalistic spirit. One problem for it, however, is that people tend to be poor judges of the past, and misremember how satisfying their life has been. Objective list theory is the most popular among philosophers, and states that there is an objective list of things (e.g., friendship, comfort, etc.) that are objectively good for human welfare in the same way that there are things that are objectively good for a tree's welfare, like sunshine, water, and rich soil. A problem with this theory is that justifying what is on the list and why proves to be challenging and contentious. This theory, along with hedonism, also have the problem of potentially discouraging people from seeking their own welfare if they disagree with the specifics of either theory, which seems to be problematic. So, which of these theories strikes you as most plausible? What makes a human life worth living? I must say that I am partial to life satisfaction theory.