 In philosophy, the concept of preference gained increased attention in the wake of the conceptual developments in the social sciences. Because the hedonic utility notion was increasingly questioned, utilitarian philosophers sought alternative foundations for their ethical theories. Today, preferentialism defends satisfaction of individual preferences as the only intrinsic value bearer, and thus is a subcategory of the broad welfarist family of value theories, which identify intrinsic value with well-being. Few people defend the view that well-being is constituted by the satisfaction of any preference, but a number of authors defend refined versions of preferentialism (e.g. Rawls 1971, Scanlon 1998). Philosophers have also discussed the formal properties of preferences in preference logic. To this we turn in the next section. 