In ethics, welfarism is a theory that well-being, what is good for someone or what makes a life worth living, is the only thing that has intrinsic value.
Pure welfarists hold that this value is directly determined by the individual degrees of well-being of each entity.
Arguments in favor often focus on general intuitions about the importance of well-being concerning most evaluative judgments.
Critics of welfarism frequently concentrate on specific counterexamples in which these general intuitions seem to fail, including cases of malicious pleasures, the value of beauty and art, and the so-called "repugnant conclusion".
As a descriptive theory of value, welfarism provides a general framework for answering questions of value, such as which choices are good or which of two alternatives is better.
[1][3] The value in question is usually understood as intrinsic value or what is good in itself,[4][5] as contrasted with extrinsic value, which belongs to things that are useful as a means for something else.
[10] It is commonly accepted by many ethical theories that considerations of well-being play an important role for how one should act.
[7][9] But welfarism, in its ethical sense, goes beyond this common-sense agreement by holding that, ultimately, well-being is the only thing that matters in terms of what one ought to do.
[3] In this sense, welfarism is usually seen as a form of consequentialism, which holds that actions, policies or rules should be evaluated on the basis of their consequences.
On the other hand, many things seen as bad, such as disease or ignorance, tend to have a negative impact on well-being, either directly or indirectly.
[1] Pure welfarism holds that the value of a possible world only depends on the individual degrees of well-being of the different entities in it.
[7] One argument against this type of approach is that it strays away from the original intuition driving welfarism: that well-being is the only thing intrinsically valuable.
[2] Despite the common characterization in positive terms, well-being is normally understood as arising in degrees that may also be negative.
[2] In this context, pleasure and pain are understood in the widest sense, i.e. as whatever feels good or bad.
[19] But it also includes other types of experiences, like the intellectual joy at grasping a new theory or like suffering an existential crisis.
If true, this would pose an important objection to pure welfarism since it points to a rift between the degree of well-being and value.
[22][23][1] Such examples pose even more serious problems for welfarism since the pleasure seems to be good for the agent and thereby constitutes well-being while at the same time having a negative value.
[2] A similar argument against welfarism is due to Susan Wolf, who affirms that one cannot account for the value of great works of art by only focusing on the well-being they cause.
[25][1] Ben Bramble has objected to this line of argument by pointing out that great works of art can cause well-being in a variety of ways.
These ways are not just restricted to the pleasure one takes while perceiving them but include other components, like the motivation to discover similar works of art or to share one's experience with friends.
Immanuel Kant expresses a similar idea by stating that the highest good is "Virtue and happiness together ... in a person".
[29] This point is also emphasized by W. D. Ross, who holds that "justice", defined as happiness in proportion to merit, is intrinsically valuable.
[1] One more objection that concerns pure welfarism in particular is due to the common impression that it is more important to increase the well-being of those that are worse off.
[33][1] This intuition seems to be based on the idea that what matters is not just a high total well-being, as suggested by pure welfarism, but also an equal distribution.
This can be explained by pure welfarism since the same amount of resources would mean more to the poor person and thereby have a bigger impact on their well-being.