The Trouble With Genuine-Attraction Desires

Many views of well-being hold that a person’s desires directly contribute to well-being. Such views need to account for the plausible thought that not all satisfied desires benefit. An influential way of doing so—chiefly defended by Chris Heathwood–-holds that only ‘genuine-attraction desires’ count toward well-being. I aim to show that we lack the conceptual grounds to distinguish genuine-attraction and other kinds of desire. I argue that if we appeal to phenomenology to explain the difference, we face a heterogeneity objection and we are unable to accommodate the intuition that the satisfaction of calm desires can benefit. If we cannot appeal to phenomenology, it is unclear what the difference is meant to be. I present two strategies that aim to account for the distinction non-phenomenologically and argue that neither is viable. I conclude that, without further analysis, the key distinction remains too unclear for the genuine-attraction strategy to work.