Human and Animal Well-Being

There is almost no theoretical discussion of non-human animal well-being in the philosophical literature on well-being. To begin to rectify this, I develop a desire satisfaction theory of well-being for animals. I contrast this theory with my desire theory of well-being for humans, according to which a human benefits from satisfying desires for which she can offer reasons. I consider objections. The most important are (1) Eden Lin's claim that the correct theory of well-being cannot vary across different welfare subjects and (2) his objection against theories of human well-being that require exercising a sophisticated capacity such as reason giving.