Explanatory perfectionism: a fresh take on an ancient theory

The ‘Big Three’ theories of well-being – hedonism, desire-satisfactionism and objective list theory – attempt to explain why certain things are good for people by appealing to prudentially good-making properties. But they do not attempt to explain why the properties they advert to make something good for a person. Perfectionism, the view that well-being consists in nature-fulfilment, is often considered a competitor to these views (or else a version of the objective list theory). However, I argue that perfectionism is best understood as explaining why certain properties are prudentially good-making. This version of perfectionism is compatible with each of the Big Three and, I argue, quite attractive.