Objective List Theory of Well-Being as an Explanatory Theory.

Abstract

It is often argued that the so-called Objective List Theory (OLT) cannot support an explanatory view about what well-being is because the OLT cannot identify one single good-maker property that is responsible for unifying all the elements that compose the well-being. Then, the Objective List Theory can only be an enumerative view of well-being. In this paper, I aim to show that we may offer an explanatory view on well-being even without identifying a single good-maker property that is shared by all the elements that compose it. I hold that the OLT is still explanatory, because it is possible to identify each good-maker property in each element that is supposed to compose the list that is responsible for defining what well-being is. In addition, I hold that in order to have a full explanation of the concept of well-being we need to distinguish between two questions: 1) Why is something intrinsically good? and 2) How could the things that are intrinsically good benefit us? My conclusion is that we may conceive one explanatory and pluralistic list that has constitutive elements of well-being, and that a good explanation of well-being should include the distinction between the two aforementioned questions.