"Depression and the Appreciation of Value"
Abstract: Depression involves a breakdown in the ability to appreciate the good. I pursue the idea that studying this breakdown may teach us something about how to appreciate value well. The empirical evidence suggests that many cases of depression are caused by the belief that an all-important goal is impossible to attain. Thus many depressed people’s evaluative experience is focused on states of affairs, on how the actual world compares with the world they desire. I argue that this mindset is the source of the depressed’s alienation from the good. The solution is to shift one’s attention towards appreciative experience of concrete particulars: persons, animals, artworks, activities, places, sensations. Unlike states of affairs, particulars’ value is not relative to a standard of comparison, and so persists even when the world falls short of one’s desires. I conclude that the best way to appreciate the good is focus on the noncomparative value of particular things. I also tentatively defend some further, more surprising conclusions: value-based reasons for experience are prior to value-based reasons for action; absolute value is prior to comparative value; and particulars rather than states of affairs are the fundamental bearers of goodness.
For those interested, here is a brief blog post that sketches the main idea.
Brendan de Kennesey is an Assistant Professor at the University Of Toronto.