An email from a student (X), who gave me permission to share with the class.
Hi Prof. Loy,
This is X and I am one of your students in GET1029 this semester. I have some doubts that I don’t know if I should bring it up during tutorial but it’s keeping it awake at night so I thought I might just write an e-mail to ask you first.
1. The first topic discussing value theories have a big assumption that, everything in this world intrinsically contains value, ie something must be good or bad. So as a nihilistic person myself, who believes in that the illusion of well-being is merely a biological mechanism to ensure the survival of a life being, my stand is that why aren’t we scrutinizing this assumption? Because it is in my opinion a very strong argument against all three theories that we have discussed, as it directly challenges the ground that these theories stand upon.
2. And let’s say I accept the assumption that everything contains intrinsic value. One of the “worries” of the Objective List Theory is that different people may have a different list of things that constitute well-being, and different weightage/mixtures for the same list. My question is that, could it be that well-being might not have a universal benchmark, but is instead defined by the perception of each individual? So, the bigger question is that, is it acceptable for a philosophical theory to accept that the “one, whole story” about well-being just does not exist?
I would very much appreciate if you would allow me to pick your brain on these issues that I have!
Best Regards,
X