Desire Satisfaction Critiques: Disaster Relief

We have all heard of the atrocities that took place in Nepal and the surrounding area over the weekend; a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck just outside Kathmandu. The entire country as well as neighboring Tibet and China have also been drastically impacted. The U.N. has said that eight million people have been affected by this natural disaster, with over 5,000 dead and 10,000 injured, the relief efforts necessary are extreme. The U.N. has asked for $415 million for emergency relief over the course of the next three months to help recover bodies, clear the destruction, and move Nepal out of its current state-of-emergency. The Finance Minister of Nepal, Ram S. Mahat has said that the cost to rebuild Nepal will push past $10 billion. While this is a rough estimate that will take years to implement, it is apparent that this cost cannot only be born by the Nepalese. Extreme foreign-aid campaigns will be required to raise these funds, and we have already seen support from Nepal's neighbor to the south, India, as well as other developed countries around the world. Those displaced by the earthquake are forced to live in sprawled temporary camps confining tens of thousands of people with little food and limited access to water. This disaster requires our immediate attention, but it is in a neighboring area so far away. Because of our limited access to that area, and the fact that there are so many other global actors, would desire satisfaction theorists advise for or against a large scale donation to help aid Nepal in their time of need?



To these theorists, well being is a state of ones desires being satisfied, it is very open ended and subjective by nature. Whatever someone's desires are, fulfilling them will promote well-being for that person if, only if, and because it satisfies this desire. So in the case discussed briefly above, some person may not care at all about the people who have been impacted by the earthquake in Nepal, and thus funding their relief would not bring them any satisfaction, and thus no well-being. The net effect would be they have lost money, that is all. The fact that they may have saved a little girls life by providing food and water would have no impact on you if you didn't desire that it did. This makes desire satisfaction theory extremely selfish and somewhat shortsighted. It doesn't seem to take into account the longevity of a relationship or what helping someone in their time of need could promote for the rest of the world in the future. Desire satisfaction allows for too much flexibility in terms of what well-being entails. This system of valuation gives way to terrible people committing crimes and in turn accepting their motives for doing so. It also doesn't condemn those who fail to commit the proper, or morally acceptable action. If this was accepted globally, people would not think to provide relief to a stricken country during its time in need. This would cause those displaced people to search out new areas to live in thus condemning the surrounding area, not just the impacted area.

This is where I feel that desire satisfaction theory fails, it does not identify the potential changes in satisfaction that are presently indeterminable. Maybe if people were more keen to help Nepal in their time of need, this type of sprawl would not occur, and the country would thrive as it had before. To go even further than that, potentially your home country experiences an earthquake just as horrible as what took place this weekend in Nepal. It would be in your desire to receive some foreign aid to help with the recovery process, but given the mentality that it wouldn't satisfy any of someone's current desires, it wouldn't promote well being and thus it would not be acted upon. This subjectivity makes desire satisfaction theory too open ended. Anyone can desire anything and it is not okay to challenge someone's well-being because it is provided by what they personally desire. That mentality is risky in itself and could lead to complete and total chaos.

Hedonism on the other hand, offers a more conservative approach to the most hot button issues. Its objective nature sets some guidelines that make sure that relationship between happiness and well-being as opposed to fulfilling desires and well-being. This creates a much more sympathetic approach to the issue of refuge aid or disaster relief -- people are happy knowing that someone is saved, but this may not be what they desire. From this standpoint, hedonism does provide less flexibility, but is more risk adverse in condemning actions that fulfill desires but do not bring about happiness. Not condemning actions such as this could be very derogatory to the long run well-being that value theory seeks to maximize.