ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains a large proportion which arose from undergraduate teaching. It examines hedonism about well-being. Roughly, the view claims that only pleasure is ultimately good for people and that only pain is ultimately bad for them. Such a theory has a lot going for it. Many cases of pleasure seem obviously to be good for people. And many cases of pain seem obviously to be bad for them. Nonetheless, hedonism faces a significant set of challenges, challenges that suggest that pleasure and pain alone are not the only things that are good and bad forthem. The kind of value that people are thinking about when they try to determine whether the blood donation is better for the author than the kidney donation is that of prudential value, of well-being, of how well his life goes for him.
