Welfarism is a theory of value based on well-being. It states that well-being is the only thing that has intrinsic value, i.e. that is good in itself and not just good as a means to something else.[57][58][59] On this view, the value of a situation or whether one alternative is better than another only depends on the degrees of well-being of each entity affected. All other factors are relevant to value only to the extent that they have an impact on someone's well-being.[57][58] The well-being in question is usually not restricted to human well-being but includes animal well-being as well.[59]
Different versions of welfarism offer different interpretations of the exact relation between well-being and value. Pure welfarists offer the simplest approach by holding that only the overall well-being matters, for example, as the sum total of everyone's well-being. This position has been criticized in various ways.[57][60] On the one hand, it has been argued that some forms of well-being, like sensory pleasures, are less valuable than other forms of well-being, like intellectual pleasures.[61][62][63] On the other hand, certain intuitions indicate that what matters is not just the sum total but also how the individual degrees of well-being are distributed. There is a tendency to prefer equal distributions where everyone has roughly the same degree instead of unequal distributions where there is a great divide between happy and unhappy people, even if the overall well-being is the same.[57][60][64] Another intuition concerning the distribution is that people who deserve well-being, like the morally upright, should enjoy higher degrees of well-being than the undeserving.[57][60]
These criticisms are addressed by another version of welfarism: impure welfarism. Impure welfarists agree with pure welfarists that all that matters is well-being. But they allow aspects of well-being other than its overall degree to have an impact on value, e.g. how well-being is distributed.[57][60] Pure welfarists sometimes argue against this approach since it seems to stray away from the core principle of welfarism: that only well-being is intrinsically valuable. But the distribution of well-being is a relation between entities and therefore not intrinsic to any of them.[60]
Some objections based on counterexamples are directed against all forms of welfarism. They often focus on the idea that there are things other than well-being that have intrinsic value. Putative examples include the value of beauty, virtue, or justice.[65][66][67][68] Such arguments are often rejected by welfarists holding that the cited things would not be valuable if they had no relation to well-being. This is often extended to a positive argument in favor of welfarism based on the claim that nothing would be good or bad in a world without sentient beings.[57][64] In this sense, welfarists may agree that the cited examples are valuable in some form but disagree that they are intrinsically valuable.[64]
Some authors see welfarism as including the ethical thesis that morality fundamentally depends on well-being.[59][60] On this view, welfarism is also committed to the consequentialist claim that actions, policies, or rules should be evaluated based on how their consequences affect everyone's well-being.[69]