Published papers by Ben Bramble
Many philosophers think that it is only because we happen to want or care about things that we th... more Many philosophers think that it is only because we happen to want or care about things that we think some things of value. We start off caring about things, and then project these desires onto the external world. In this chapter, I make a preliminary case for the opposite view, that it is our evaluative thinking that is prior or comes first. On this view, it is only because we think some things of value that we care about or want anything at all. This view is highly explanatory. In particular, it explains (i) the special role that pleasure and pain play in our motivational systems, (ii) why phenomenal consciousness evolved, and (iii) how the two main competing theories of normative reasons for action—i.e., objectivism and subjectivism—can be reconciled. After explaining why this is so, I respond to the most serious objections to this view, including that it cannot account for temptation and willpower, or for the existence and appropriateness of the reactive attitudes.
Ergo
According to hedonism about well-being, lives can go well or poorly for us just in virtue of our ... more According to hedonism about well-being, lives can go well or poorly for us just in virtue of our ability to feel pleasure and pain. Hedonism has had many advocates historically, but has relatively few nowadays. This is mainly due to three highly influential objections to it: The Philosophy of Swine, The Experience Machine, and The Resonance Constraint. In this paper, I attempt to revive hedonism. I begin by giving a precise new definition of it. I then argue that the right motivation for it is the 'experience requirement' (i.e., that something can benefit or harm a being only if it affects the phenomenology of her experiences in some way). Next, I argue that hedonists should accept a felt-quality theory of pleasure, rather than an attitude-based theory. Finally, I offer new responses to the three objections. Central to my responses are (i) a distinction between experiencing a pleasure (i.e., having some pleasurable phenomenology) and being aware of that pleasure, and (ii) an emphasis on diversity in one's pleasures.
In this paper, I reconstruct Robert Nozick's experience machine objection to hedonism about wellb... more In this paper, I reconstruct Robert Nozick's experience machine objection to hedonism about wellbeing. I then explain and brief ly discuss the most important recent criticisms that have been made of it. Finally, I question the conventional wisdom that the experience machine, while it neatly disposes of hedonism, poses no problem for desire-based theories of well-being.
American Philosophical Quarterly
In this paper, I set out and defend a new theory of value, whole-life welfarism. According to thi... more In this paper, I set out and defend a new theory of value, whole-life welfarism. According to this theory, something is good only if it makes somebody better off in some way in his life considered as a whole. By focusing on lifetime, rather than momentary, well-being, a welfarist can solve two of the most vexing puzzles in value theory, The Badness of Death and The Problem of Additive Aggregation.
What is it for a life to be meaningful? In this paper, I defend what I call Consequentialism abou... more What is it for a life to be meaningful? In this paper, I defend what I call Consequentialism about Meaning in Life (or CML for short), the view that (1) one’s life is meaningful at time t just in case one’s surviving at t would be good in some way, and (2) one’s life was meaningful considered as a whole just in case the world was (or will be) made better in some way for one’s having existed.
Philosophical Studies
In this article, I attempt to resuscitate the perennially unfashionable distinctive feeling theor... more In this article, I attempt to resuscitate the perennially unfashionable distinctive feeling theory of pleasure (and pain), according to which for an experience to be pleasant (or unpleasant) is just for it to involve or contain a distinctive kind of feeling. I do this in two ways. First, by offering powerful new arguments against its two chief rivals: attitude theories, on the one hand, and the phenomenological theories of Roger Crisp, Shelly Kagan, and Aaron Smuts, on the other. Second, by showing how it can answer two important objections that have been made to it. First, the famous worry that there is no felt similarity to all pleasant (or unpleasant) experiences (sometimes called ‘the heterogeneity objection’). Second, what I call ‘Findlay’s objection’, the claim that it cannot explain the nature of our attraction to pleasure and aversion to pain.
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
Books by Ben Bramble
Bartleby Books, 2020
Pandemic Ethics is a clear and provocative introduction to the ethics of COVID-19. It is suitable... more Pandemic Ethics is a clear and provocative introduction to the ethics of COVID-19. It is suitable for university-level students, academics, and policymakers, as well as the general reader. It is also an original contribution to the emerging literature on this important topic. The author has made it available Open Access, so that it can be downloaded and read for free by all those who are interested in these issues. Key features include: * A neat organisation of the ethical issues raised by the pandemic. * An exploration of the many complex interconnections between these issues. * A succinct case for a continued lockdown until we develop a vaccine. * An original account of the Deep Moral Problem of the Pandemic, and a Revolutionary Argument for how we should change society post-pandemic. * References to, and engagement with, many of the best writings on the pandemic so far (both in popular media and academic journals).
Papers by Ben Bramble
International Encyclopedia of Ethics
According to welfarism about value (here-after simply welfarism), something is good (or bad) only... more According to welfarism about value (here-after simply welfarism), something is good (or bad) only if it is good (or bad) for somebody—that is, makes somebody
Philosophical Studies, 2019
According to attitudinal theories of (sensory) pleasure and pain, what makes a given sensation co... more According to attitudinal theories of (sensory) pleasure and pain, what makes a given sensation count as a pleasure or a pain is just the attitudes of the experiencing agent toward it. In a previous article, I objected to such theories on the grounds that they cannot account for pleasures and pains whose subjects are entirely unaware of them at the time of experience. Recently, Chris Heathwood and Fred Feldman, the two leading contemporary defenders of attitudinal theories, have responded to this objection, in very different ways. In this paper, I reconstruct and evaluate these responses. My conclusion is that neither response succeeds.
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2017
This article responds to an argument from Katarzyna de Ladari-Radek and Peter Singer in their art... more This article responds to an argument from Katarzyna de Ladari-Radek and Peter Singer in their article, "The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical Reason."
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018
Many philosophers think that it is only because we happen to want or care about things that we th... more Many philosophers think that it is only because we happen to want or care about things that we think some things of value. We start off caring about things, and then project these desires onto the external world. This chapter makes a preliminary case for the opposite view, that it is our evaluative thinking that is prior. On this view, it is only because we think some things of value that we care about or want anything at all. This view explains (i) the special role that pleasure and pain play in our motivational systems, (ii) why phenomenal consciousness evolved, and (iii) how the two main competing theories of normative reasons for action—objectivism and subjectivism—can be reconciled. The chapter responds to the most serious objections to this view, including that it cannot account for temptation and willpower, or for the existence and appropriateness of the reactive attitudes.
Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 2016
According to hedonism about well-being, lives can go well or poorly for us just in virtue of our ... more According to hedonism about well-being, lives can go well or poorly for us just in virtue of our ability to feel pleasure and pain. Hedonism has had many advocates historically, but has relatively few nowadays. This is mainly due to three highly influential objections to it: The Philosophy of Swine, The experience Machine, and The resonance Constraint. In this paper, I attempt to revive hedonism. I begin by giving a precise new definition of it. I then argue that the right motivation for it is the 'experience requirement' (i.e., that something can benefit or harm a being only if it affects the phenomenology of her experiences in some way). next, I argue that hedonists should accept a felt-quality theory of pleasure, rather than an attitude-based theory. Finally, I offer new responses to the three objections. Central to my responses are (i) a distinction between experiencing a pleasure (i.e., having some pleasurable phenomenology) and being aware of that pleasure, and (ii) an emphasis on diversity in one's pleasures. 1. In this essay, I will use 'pain' to refer to unpleasurable experiences more generally. 2. These include Democritus, Aristippus, epicurus, Jeremy Bentham, and J. S. Mill. Others whose views seem at times to come close to hedonism include Socrates, Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, and Sidgwick. 3. notable exceptions include . note that Heathwood counts as both a hedonist and a desire-based theorist of well-being due to his desire-based theory of pleasure.
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Published papers by Ben Bramble
Books by Ben Bramble
Papers by Ben Bramble