 The filtering (“laundering”) of preferences can be justified by the everyday experience that some preferences are much more important for a person’s well-being than others. It can be argued that a plausible preference-based account of welfare cannot be based on total preferences, but would have to be based on a subset of “core” preferences that are important for the individual. The determination of that subset is expectedly contentious. If it is to be determined by others than the individual whose welfare is concerned, then problems of paternalism will be difficult to avoid. 