The Objective List Theory: Autonomy And Happiness

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The doctor has just told you that you have been diagnosed with cancer, but how are you going to decide whether you want to fight it or just live the rest of the life you have without going through the pain of the treatment? In instances like this, people must decide, depending on how bad their case is, whether they are going to start chemotherapy treatments to fight off the cancer. However, people do not have the desire to be in pain and go through this treatment, they are have the desire to be cancer free and healthy as they once were before. We have the autonomy to choose whether to go through treatment and be healthy. Autonomy and happiness connect one and one with each other in this situation because we have the option to choose to follow…show more content…
Examples of the objective list theory include that of moral goodness and any type of actions that is justified for any reason. The desire satisfaction theory, on the other hand, says if something satisfies your desires, then it is good for you. If something is good for you, it satisfies your desires. I disagree with this theory of human well-being because we don’t always enjoy things that we desire. The desire satisfaction theory might argue that we have the deep desire to be healthy, however, they do not recognize the aspects of autonomy and happiness that the objective list theory does when fulfilling our desires. If we have a false belief, our life will not become better and also this theory does not assign any intrinsic value to pleasure. Happiness is an objective value, therefore I think that the objective list theory is a better representation of a theory of human well-being. The objective list theory is a better theory of well-being compared to the desire satisfaction theory because the desire satisfaction theory lacks aspects of well-being that the objective list theory…show more content…
These feelings of false happiness may make them feel as though there desires are being satisfied, however, this doesn’t always stand true. When having the objective good of autonomy in your life, you are showing that it is important to you to make your own decision that will affect your desires. The objective list theory strives for more than just one thing. By having a list of objective goods to follow and strive for in life, our life has meaning to it. In the situation of Bonnie, whose husband is cheating on her, and Annie, whose husband is truthful to her, Bonnie has the autonomy to leave her husband if she were to find out. She has a sense of false happiness because she thinks her husband is being loyal. If Bonnie found out that her husband was cheating on her, and she follows the objective list theory, she could use autonomy which is an example of an objective good. Autonomy makes a person's life go well even if it doesn't make him happier. In this situation of false happiness, if Bonnie left her husband when she found out he was not faithful, she would still be improving her well-being. Our desires include a process to fulfill the desire. Just like the cancer patient who wants to be healthy, they do not want to undergo the pain of chemotherapy, adults do not always necessarily want to go to work. However, because they want the

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