Yu, Xiang. Well‑Being, Depression, and Desire
2025, Journal of Value Inquiry
Abstract:
According to the desire-satisfaction theory of well-being, your life goes well to the extent that your desires are satisfied, and your life goes badly to the extent that your desires are frustrated. Some have objected to this theory by arguing that there are some cases of depression in which the person is negative in well-being even though they altogether lack desires. In this paper, I give a solution to this problem. I first argue that the problem arises only in cases of affectless depression in which the person has no affective experiences, and that once we realize this, the force of the objection is weakened. I then argue that, even in cases of affectless depression, depressed people plausibly have dispositional desires—ones defined by dispositions to act or feel in certain ways—that are masked by their depression, and that the frustration of these masked desires is bad for them.
According to the desire-satisfaction theory of well-being, your life goes well to the extent that your desires are satisfied, and your life goes badly to the extent that your desires are frustrated. Some have objected to this theory by arguing that there are some cases of depression in which the person is negative in well-being even though they altogether lack desires. In this paper, I give a solution to this problem. I first argue that the problem arises only in cases of affectless depression in which the person has no affective experiences, and that once we realize this, the force of the objection is weakened. I then argue that, even in cases of affectless depression, depressed people plausibly have dispositional desires—ones defined by dispositions to act or feel in certain ways—that are masked by their depression, and that the frustration of these masked desires is bad for them.
Comment: This paper distinguishes paradigmatic case of depression from other cases and discusses its implications for understanding desires of depressed individuals. It also discusses the different conceptions of desire, which can be used to analyse the wellbeing of depressed individuals devoid of all affective states.