The Worst Things in Life

One important test of adequacy for a theory of welfare is completeness. To be complete a theory must cover ill-being as well as well-being. Call this the ill-being test for a theory. The author’s aim in this article is to determine how well equipped the leading theories of welfare are to pass this test. The author reaches three modest conclusions: (1) passing the test is not straightforward for any theory; (2) on the whole, subjective theories do better than objective ones; (3) within the subjective category experiential theories do better than desire theories.