Well-Being

In ‘Treating Adolescents Differently’, Skelton, Black, and Forsberg develop their wellbeing-based justification of the asymmetrical treatment of adolescent consent and refusal in the context of health care to justify the differential and paternalistic treatment of adolescents more generally. The core of the Skelton, Black, and Forsberg’s view is a variabilist theory of what is fundamentally and non-instrumentally prudentially good for adolescents, which includes the prudential value of what they call shielding—or the value of being insulated from full responsibility for their (...) choices. This theory of wellbeing, they argue, explains why adolescents may be treated differential and paternalistically in numerous domains. It is good for them to be shielded because it allows for a variety of freedom from making certain kinds of decisions in the absence of a safety net provided by others in supportive and caring relationships. Skelton, Black, and Forsberg argue that their account of the justification of differential and paternalistic treatment of adolescents has attractive implications for a range of cases and holds up well in the face of philosophical criticism. (shrink)

What moral reasons, if any, do we have to prevent the extinction of humanity? In “Unfinished Business,” Jonathan Knutzen argues that certain further developments in culture would make our history more ‘collectively meaningful,’ and that premature extinction would be bad because it would close off that possibility. Here, I critically examine this proposal. I argue that if collective meaningfulness is analogous to individual meaningfulness, then our meaning-based reasons to prevent the extinction of humanity are substantially different from the reasons discussed (...) by Knutzen. (shrink)

By definition the conference series Taboo - Transgression - Transcendence in Art & Science includes theoretical presentations and artists’ talks focusing (a) on questions about the nature of the forbidden and about the aesthetics of liminality, as expressed in art that uses or is inspired by technology and science, and (b) on the opening of spaces for creative transformation in the merging of science and art. The organization of Taboo - Transgression - Transcendence in Art & Science 2018 in Mexico (...) City, the third conference of the TTT series, embodies the trust and support that constitutes its community. After three years working in the organization of TTT in Corfu the possibility to see it happening across the Greek borders and, above all, on the other side of the Atlantic was overwhelming. I am personally grateful to María Antonia González Valerio, Marta de Menezes, Ana Ventura Miranda and Andreas Giannakoulopoulos for gracefully challenging the concept of a conference’s digital organization in real-time space and for kindly bringing in their immense experience and ability to connect beyond limits. I am also thankful to all TTT2018 participants who have generously shared their experiences, offering, through their presentations, excellence and respect for the concept of interdisciplinarity and collaboration, independently of each other’s status. Finally, my appreciation for the discrete and inestimable sustaining role of my fellow members on the Steering Committee of the TTT conference series: Roy Ascott, Andreas Floros, Gunalan Nadarajan, Melentie Pandilovski, Stelarc, Polona Tratnik and Adam Zaretsky. I am also thankful for the support of the Scientific-artistic committee. Together the Commitees insured that TTT2018 in Mexico City was an intentionally facilitated meeting point, organized to safely host the free interaction of ideas around liminal issues in the frame of Art&Sci. (shrink)

Is there more to how well a life goes overall (its lifetime well-being) than simply the aggregate goodness and badness of its moments (its momentary well-being)? Atomists about lifetime well-being say ‘no’. Holists hold that there is more to lifetime well-being than aggregate momentary well-being (with different holists offering different candidates for what this extra element might be). -/- This paper presents and defends a novel form of holism about lifetime well-being, which I call ‘End of Life’. This is the (...) view that the momentary goodness or badness of the end of lives has a disproportionate effect upon lifetime well-being. More precisely: a welfare subject’s level of momentary well-being at the end of their life contributes more to their lifetime well-being than their level of momentary well-being at each other point. (shrink)

Recent debates about consciousness and welfare have focused on whether consciousness is required for welfare subjectivity. There have been fewer attempts to explain the significance that particular kinds of consciousness have for welfare value. In this paper, I explore the relevance of cognitive experience for theories of welfare. I introduce the cognitive zombie intuition, the idea that an absence of cognitive experience can drastically change one’s welfare. I then attempt to explain the cognitive zombie intuition. I first consider and reject (...) the idea that cognitive experience is itself a welfare good. I then argue that cognitive experience plays an object-expanding role: it drastically expands the range of objects welfare subjects can desire or be pleased by. This expanded range includes paradigmatic welfare goods such as intellectual achievement, friendship, humor, aesthetic experiences, and existential experiences. I close by showing how cognitive experience’s object expanding role is compatible with leading theories of welfare. (shrink)

In a common, pejorative sense of it, ideology consists in attitudes whose presence contributes to sustaining, by making them seem legitimate, social orders that are problematic. An important way a social order can be problematic concerns the prospects for well-being facing the people living in it. It can make some people wind up worse off than they could and should be. They have “real interests” that are not properly served by the social order, and the interests aligned with it are (...) in fact “false,” merely “apparent,” or “distorted.” Ideology critique consists in part in noting the existence of such different interests, and in challenging the latter to facilitate the fulfillment of the former. This picture of ideology critique implies that ideology thwarts well-being. This paper aims to clarify, develop, and vindicate this picture. It argues that ideology critique should indeed draw (inter alia) on prudential considerations, and that a specifically objectivist view of well-being would be fitting. The fruitfulness of this approach is shown by exploring the specific case of the critique of working practices in contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

This book explores the connection between God and happiness, with happiness understood as a life of well-being or flourishing that goes well for the one living it. It provides a historical and contemporary survey of philosophical questions, theories, and debates about happiness, and it asks how they should be answered and evaluated from a theistic perspective. The central topics it covers are the nature of happiness (what is it?), the content of happiness (what are the constituents of a happy life?), (...) the structure of happiness (is there a hierarchy of goods?), and the possibility of happiness (can we be happy?). It argues that God's existence has significant, positive, and desirable implications for human happiness. (shrink)

Scholastic philosophers sometimes told jokes. Some of these have been preserved in the texts. (And some are even funny!). -/- But beyond the general human interest in having fun, these thinkers had good theoretical reasons to value humor as well. This is because Aristotle himself claims that ready wit (eutrapelia) is a virtue. I published a paper on this in 2022 (“Scholastic Humor”), and since then colleagues have brought further examples to my attention. (Thanks, everyone!) -/- Here, I aim to (...) do three things: (i) catalog and present these jokes in Latin and facing English translation, (ii) give credit where it’s due, and (iii) expand the collection by encouraging researchers on Scholastic philosophy to find and submit examples of jokes from the texts. -/- The text is open access, and will be updated on a rolling basis. -/- So if you do find any such jokes, please email me at boaz [dot] schuman [at] kuleuven [dot] be. (shrink)

Facts about need play some role in our causal understanding of the world. We understand, for example, that people have basic needs for food, water and shelter, and that people come to be harmed because those needs go unmet. But what are needs? How do explanations in terms of need fit into our broader causal understanding of the world? This paper provides an account of need attribution, their contribution to causal explanations, and their relation to disposition attribution.

In recent decades, P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” (1962) has had an enormous influence on philosophical views of moral responsibility. Many contemporary views follow Strawson in centering questions of responsibility on the appropriateness of certain attitudes in our interpersonal relations, especially attitudes of blame and anger, rather than on the abstract nature of free will. Strawson’s influence has in many ways been beneficial, but the prevailing Strawsonian views have taken on some of the more dubious tendencies of contemporary moral (...) philosophy. Among them is the tendency to think of our ethical relations narrowly in terms of the sort of respect that we owe friends and strangers alike, while neglecting attitudes of concern and understanding. This tendency distorts our views of our ethical relations and how we should respond to one another’s wrongful conduct. To correct those distortions, I retrieve insights from older traditions of ethical thought—especially Platonic, Stoic, and Christian traditions—which give love and understanding a central place in our ethical relations, along with respect. These traditions, which have profoundly shaped the development of Western ethical thought, are unduly neglected in contemporary moral philosophy. By joining the insights of these traditions with the insights of Strawsonian views of responsibility, I believe we can articulate a more complete and compelling view of ethical life and responsibility. (shrink)

Historically, studies in Kant’s ethics have tended to prioritize his formal work in moral philosophy. This has begun to change with a welcome new emphasis on his later practical works, but commentators still tend to approach this material in the shadow of the Groundwork with the same limited set of concerns and problems in mind. Practical Kantian Ethics reverses the usual order of interpretation, beginning with his applied moral philosophy, without preconceptions about his view, and using this later work to (...) offer a radically new account. -/- The “inner freedom” model it proposes connects and explains diverse threads in Kant’s moral theory informing obscure aspects of the Groundwork but also, and just as importantly, offering a radically different and comprehensive vision of Kantian moral life. This new account transcends the narrow rational asceticism often associated with Kant’s view, embedding morality in our humanity, recognizing the vital role of emotion in moral life, and prioritizing framing moral commitments and questions of character over obedience to formal rules. In doing so, it makes community and collective and individual judgment essential in giving content to ideals of practical respect, creating important space for moral disagreement and growth. The net result is a nuanced account focused on the integration of diverse norms and the lived experience of morality, capable of guiding ordinary moral judgement and informing deliberation in hard cases where different grounds of obligation conflict. (shrink)

Many believe that an upward-sloping life is better than a downward-sloping life because of its shape. This is a common way of formulating the shape of a life hypothesis. We argue that the hypothesis is mistaken. We need not assume that there is something intrinsically valuable in the shape of one’s life to justify the tendency to judge an upward-sloping life as better than a downward sloping one. Instead, we can appeal to more fundamental and less controversial claims to justify (...) such a judgment. What one might justifiably judge to be better are features of lives which are often (though not necessarily) correlated with, rather than constituted by, an upward slope. (shrink)

No one fully appreciated my worry that self-interest and well-being were importantly distinct until I started writing about assholes. But we need to talk about assholes anyway, because we live in an asshole world. Assholes dominate our politics (both parties), our economy, and our culture. And they’re willing to use their ill-gotten power to ensure that they stay on top. In response, we need to develop an ethical vocabulary for our time that begins with the firm conviction that being an (...) asshole is very bad for you, and not just in the self-interested terms the asshole himself might recognize. -/- But first, who is the asshole? Aaron James argues that in social settings, the asshole: 1) allows himself to enjoy special advantages 2) out of a sense of self-entitlement (he treats himself as morally special) 3) which immunizes him against our complaints (Assholes: A Theory, 5-6) -/- Being an asshole isn’t a matter of what you do, but how you reason. It’s about your pattern of concern: what you care about and how you care about it. -/- Crucially, the asshole’s pattern of concern is too narrow to fully appreciate the ultimate value of others, or even himself. The asshole likes himself, but he lacks the resources to truly love himself because of the outsized role that self-interested reasons play in his pattern of concern. (Even when he does heed any other sorts of reasons, it tends to be because they are merely useful for promoting his own self-interest.) Thus, the asshole fixates on the value that emanates from himself and is reflected back onto him by our usefulness for him. He fetishizes his own self-interest so much that well-being drops off his radar, and so he comes to live in a world sucked dry of almost all its value. In the limit, the asshole lives cosmically alone, surrounded (in his eyes) by more or less useful objects. And that is really bad for his well-being. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the notion of value presupposed by empirical value-surveys such as the World Values Survey (WVS) or the European Values Study (EVS), using some basic distinctions of philosophical value-theory. I intend to show that the framework of these surveys is grounded on definitions or implicit claims that are systematically problematic, having also a certain impact on the empirical realisation and some of the survey’s outcomes. First, it is shown that the assumption of values (...) as “that what is valued” is not consistent with a taxonomy of four value-groups. Whereas the former leads to an inflation of values, the latter is too narrow even for the conceptualisation of some values mentioned in the survey’s questionnaire. Referring to the philosophical distinction of values and (valuable) goods, it is also shown that the survey’s framework is not able to articulate cases in which we value the same good over time but because of different value-aspects. Second, it is shown that an understanding of the value-groups as fundamentally conflicting does not withstand a critical review: Whereas the conflict of materialist and post-materialist values should be understood as a mere difference of preferences regarding goods that are all evaluated positively, the assumed conflict of traditional and secular-rational values depends on a rigorous, intolerant articulation of value-based worldviews. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly using wellbeing frameworks as a primary way to measure economic and social progress. These frameworks aim to measure a population’s wellbeing in order to develop policies that improve its wellbeing. However, there’s strong disagreement as to what wellbeing consists in, both among philosophers and the general public. So, what is it exactly that governments should be trying to promote when they aim to measure and promote wellbeing? My method is to identify the primary conditions for an account (...) of wellbeing for wellbeing frameworks and find the account of wellbeing that best meets those conditions. When we do this, we find that no existing account of wellbeing used for this purpose is satisfactory. I describe an account of wellbeing that has not been used in wellbeing frameworks, which I call the Reflective Value account. I argue this account succeeds in meeting our conditions and so is the best account of wellbeing for this purpose. (shrink)

Prudential value is the kind of value that something has when it is good for someone, in the sense that is conceptually tied to welfare or well‐being. Impersonal value is the kind of value that something has when it is good simply, absolutely, or “from the point of view of the universe.” According to the Moorean position on prudential value, the concept of prudential value can be analyzed in terms of that of impersonal value and is unintelligible if it is (...) not so analyzed. I answer some recent arguments for the Moorean position due to Kris McDaniel and Thomas Hurka, and I make a more comprehensive case than has thus far been made for rejecting that position. (shrink)

This paper examines the prospects for an expressivist theory of prudential thought and discussion, or thought and discussion about what is good for us or what makes our lives go well. It is becoming increasingly common to view prudential thought and discussion as a kind of normative thought and discussion. If this is right, then expressivism, like any other meta-normative view, must be able to explain prudential thought and discussion. However, existing expressivist theories offer no such explanation and lack the (...) resources to construct one. I argue that the best strategy for expressivists is to adopt a fitting attitudes account of prudential concepts. More specifically, I propose that expressivists adopt the rational care theory of well-being, according to which claims about what is good for a person are equivalent to claims about what it is rational to want for that person insofar as one cares for them. In doing so, I defend the rational care theory against its most pressing objection and argue that the view provides an independently attractive account of prudential thought and discussion that fits well with the expressivist’s aim to explain normative thought and discussion in terms of its distinctive practical function. (shrink)

This chapter explores Tatjana Višak’s arguments for the claim that all animals have the same welfare ranges. It starts by defining capacity for welfare and reviews some theoretical considerations that bear on this question. Next, Višak’s empirically informed, theoretical arguments for the claim that all animals have the same welfare ranges are reviewed. Her arguments rely on the idea that relativized accounts of well-being are the most plausible accounts and appeal to a certain view about the evolutionary explanation of hedonic (...) capacities. It’s then argued that relativized accounts of well-being are implausible because (i) they generate absurd conclusions and (ii) cannot plausibly be extended to account for animals’ total well-being. The paper ends by reviewing Višak’s evolutionary explanation of hedonic capacities and argues that the descriptive features of evolution she discusses do not provide evidence of equal hedonic capacities across taxa. In fact, given the way that evolution works, it would be very surprising if that turned out to be true. Consequently, Višak’s arguments fail to establish their conclusion. (shrink)

Against those who contend that there is a basic duality between the moral and the non-moral good, or the right and the good, I articulate a form of realism that works with a unified conception of the good in which virtue and benefit are key concepts, and in which the “moral good” is not foundationally distinctive, but explicable in terms of the good for human beings. I argue: (a) that virtuous actions are such because and insofar as they (actually or (...) potentially) protect, preserve, secure, or promote the good for human beings, and (b) that being appropriately responsive to the good for human beings is (at least part of) what it is to be a virtuous person, where this form of responsiveness can itself be shown to be good for the one who is so. My proposal is one way of developing a schema for the relationship between virtue and the beneficial that is variously developed by Philippa Foot and Judy Thomson. The schema is that virtues are ways of doing and being that are necessary because and insofar as some human good hangs on them. (shrink)

The argument that is in question in this article concerns the would-be dependence of one form of value on another. When something is intrinsically good for someone, which is to say, directly beneficial for them, it is so because it is good simpliciter. Proponents of the argument have so-called ‘perfectionist’ values chiefly in mind: worthwhile artworks, striking natural formations, intellectual and scientific achievements. They contend that the fact that engaging with perfectionist goods is non-instrumentally good for people depends on the (...) fact that perfectionist goods are good simpliciter. I argue that the dependency argument is not forced on us by intuitive claims about dependence, or by the need to be adequate to our practices with the relevant class of values. The good for theorist can provide a sophisticated account of perfectionist goods. If successful, the article provides a line of defense for the view that good is good for. (shrink)

Many believe that an upward-sloping life is better than a downward-sloping life because of its shape. This is a common way of formulating the shape of a life hypothesis. We argue that the hypothesis is mistaken. We need not assume that there is something intrinsically valuable in the shape of one’s life to justify the tendency to judge an upward-sloping life as better than a downward sloping one. Instead, we can appeal to more fundamental and less controversial claims to justify (...) such a judgment. What one might justifiably judge to be better are features of lives which are often (though not necessarily) correlated with, rather than constituted by, an upward slope. (shrink)

According to the hybrid account of harm, an agent suffers harm if the agent has negative wellbeing or is worse off than before. However, Erik Carlson, Jens Johansson, and Olle Risberg have criticized the hybrid account, arguing that it finds harm where there is none in cases of temporary benefits and that it fails to find harm in the case of death. In this note, I defend the hybrid account against both criticisms.

What makes your life go well for you? In this paper, we give an account of welfare. Our core idea is simple. There are impersonally good and bad things out there: things that are good or bad period, not (or not only) good or bad for someone. The life that is good for you is the life in contact with the good. We’ll understand the relevant notion of ‘contact’ here in terms of manifestation: you’re in contact with a value when (...) it is manifest in parts of your life or parts of your life are manifest in it. So, the more the good is manifest in your life, or your life manifest in the good, the better for you. The more the bad is manifest in your life, or your life manifest in the bad, the worse for you. We’ll argue that this account is extensionally adequate: it explains the welfare value of achievements, friendships, knowledge, pleasures and virtues. Moreover, it has a number of explanatory virtues: it’s unified, elegant and explanatorily powerful. So, we’ll suggest, it’s an excellent account of welfare, and in many ways superior to its main competitors. (shrink)

This paper examines the integration and unification of the philosophy and psychology of well-being. For the most part, these disciplines investigate well-being without reference to each other. In recent years, however, with the maturing of each discipline, there have been a growing number of calls to integrate the two. While such calls are welcome, what it means to integrate well-being philosophy and psychology can vary greatly depending on one’s theoretical and practical ends. The aim of this paper is to provide (...) a novel conceptual framework for thinking about integrating well-being philosophy and psychology that systematically categorizes different kinds of integration projects. We divide existing attempts in the literature into three broad categories according to the perspective from which the integration takes place: (1) top-down meta-theoretical unification; (2) psychological integration within philosophy; and (3) philosophical integration within psychology. These categories are then broken down into various further subcategories. Our aim in providing this framework is both to facilitate the assessment and comparison of existing integration attempts and to provide a roadmap for future integration attempts. For each category, we discuss one or two representative examples of the approaches. By doing so, we hope to generate interest in the wide variety of existing integration projects, as well as to generate discussion concerning the benefits and pitfalls of different approaches. (shrink)

How does good combine with bad? Most creatures are neither so blessed as to only enjoy good nor so cursed as to only suffer bad. Rather, the good and bad they receive throughout their lives combine to produce their overall quality of life. But it’s not just whole lives that have combined good and bad. Many stretches within contain both positive and negative occurrences whose value is joined to form the overall quality of that span of time. In a single (...) morning someone might wake up, brush their teeth, stub their toe groggily lumbering down the stairs, and have a sip of coffee that’s tasty but so hot they burn their tongue. These events are good and bad for them to various degrees, and their value comes together to form an overall value for them of that morning. A single moment, even, can have combined value from distinct pockets of good and bad that occur simultaneously. The tastiness of the coffee is good, but the pain of the heat is bad. They combine to form an overall value of the sipping moment – negative if the pain outweighed the flavor. Thus, wellbeing and illbeing combine. But how? How can someone rightly chastise themselves for sipping the overly hot coffee when it was, in fact, good because it was tasty? To pose the question starkly, a life can be bad, even so bad to not be worth living, and yet it can have many instances of good, where these goods are, in themselves, pure of any negativity. But how can good make something bad? (shrink)

Precise measurements of well-being would be of profound societal importance. Yet, the sceptical worry that we cannot use social science instruments and tests to measure well-being is widely discussed by philosophers and scientists. A recent and interesting philosophical argument has pointed to the psychometric procedures of construct validation to address this sceptical worry. The argument has proposed that these procedures could warrant confidence in our ability to measure well-being. The present paper evaluates whether this type of argument succeeds. The answer (...) is that it depends on which methodological background assumptions are motivating the sceptical worry to begin with. We show this by doing two things. First, we clarify (a) the different types of well-being theories involved in the science of well-being, and (b) the general methodological dimensions of well-being theorising. Second, we apply these distinctions and argue that construct validation is an unsuccessful response to measurement scepticism if this scepticism is motivated by a form of methodological non-naturalism. In the light of this, the overall point of the paper is that philosophers and scientists, when discussing measurement of well-being, should explicate their deeper methodological commitments. We further suggest that making such explicit commitments might present philosophers with a dilemma. (shrink)

It is an open question whether well-being ought to primarily be understood as a temporal concept or whether it only makes sense to talk about a person’s well-being over their whole lifetime. In this article, I argue that how this principled philosophical disagreement is settled does not have substantive practical implications for well-being science and well-being policy. Trying to measure lifetime well-being directly is extremely challenging as well as unhelpful for guiding well-being public policy, while temporal well-being is both an (...) adequate indirect measure of lifetime well-being, and an adequate focus for the purposes of improving well-being through public policy. Consequently, even if what we ought to care about is lifetime well-being, we should use temporal measures of well-being and focus on temporal well-being policies. (shrink)

Each person has a special relation to his or her own well-being. This rough thought, which can be sharpened in different ways, is supposed to substantially count against objectivist theories on which one can intrinsically benefit from, or be harmed by, factors that are independent of one’s desires, beliefs, and other attitudes. It is often claimed, contra objectivism, that one cannot be _alienated_ from one’s own interests, or that improvements in a person’s well-being must _resonate_ with that person. However, I (...) argue that every theory of well-being must allow that we can be alienated from our own well-being, and that sophisticated objectivists can accept and make use of a resonance constraint against their opponents. (shrink)

Many philosophers reject the view that well-being over a lifetime is simply an aggregation of well-being at every moment of one's life, and thus they reject theories of well-being like hedonism and concurrentist desire satisfactionism. They raise concerns that such a view misses the importance of the relationships between moments in a person's life or the role narratives play in a person's well-being. In this article, we develop an atomist meta-theory of well-being, according to which the prudential value of a (...) life depends solely on the prudential value of each moment of that life. This is a general account of momentary well-being that can capture different features of well-being that standard atomistic accounts fail to capture, thus allowing for the possibility of an atomism that is compatible with a variety of well-being theories. Contrary to many criticisms leveled against momentary well-being, this well-being atomism captures all of the important features of well-being. (shrink)

What explains why we are subjects for whom objects can have value, and what explains which objects have value for us? Axiologicians say that the value of humanity is the answer. I argue that our value, no matter what it is like, cannot perform this task. We are animals among others. An explanation of the value of objects for us must fit into an explanation of the value of objects for animals generally. Different objects have value for different animals. Those (...) differences depend on differences in animal natures and, in particular, on the diverse characteristic capacities of different animals. Once we invoke animal natures, there is nothing for the value of animality, including the value of humanity, to explain. (shrink)

A person possesses value from various components of wellbeing, but they also have overall wellbeing from various instances of value taken together. Most ethicists assume that there is an objectively unique way that wellbeing from components aggregates into overall wellbeing. However, I argue that aggregation is subjective and varies depending on what sort of aggregation a person values. I end with some implications for the significance of death.

Is well-being the kind of thing that can be summed across individuals? This paper takes a measurement-theoretic approach to answering this question. To make sense of adding well-being, we would need to identify some natural "concatenation" operation on the bearers of well-being that satisfies the axioms of extensive measurement and can therefore be represented by the arithmetic operation of addition. I explore various proposals along these lines, involving the concatenation of segments within lives over time, of entire lives led alongside (...) one another or in sequence, and of evaluatively basic propositions via conjunction. All of these proposals turn out to carry highly controversial commitments about the good. I do not claim that these commitments are unacceptable. But they suggest that we cannot simply take for granted, as many philosophers do, that there is any such thing as the sum of well-being. (shrink)

Many philosophers now see meaning in life as a key evaluative category that stands alongside well-being and moral goodness. Our lives are assessed not only by how well they go for us and how morally good they are, but also by their meaningfulness. In this article, I raise a challenge to this view. Theories of meaning in life closely resemble theories of well-being, and there is a suspicion that the former collapse into the latter. I develop this challenge showing that (...) it is formidable. I then answer it by offering a novel account of what meaning in life is and how it differs from well-being. The account I offer is able to resist the strongest form of the challenge while also having much intuitive appeal. (shrink)

Many questions about wellbeing involve metaphysical dependence. Does wellbeing depend on minds? Is wellbeing determined by distinct sorts of things? Is it determined differently for different subjects? However, we should distinguish two axes of dependence. First, there are the grounds that generate value. Second, there are the connections between the grounds and value which make it so that those grounds generate that value. Given these distinct axes of dependence, there are distinct dimensions to questions about the dependence of wellbeing. In (...) this paper, I offer a view of wellbeing that gives different answers with respect to these different dimensions. The view is subjectivist about connections but objectivist about grounds. Pluralist about grounds but monist about connections. Invariabilist about connections but variabilist about grounds. Thus, the view offers a simple account that captures the complexity of wellbeing. (shrink)

In an important and widely discussed series of studies, Jonathan Phillips and colleagues have suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness has a substantial moral component. For in- stance, two persons who enjoy the same extent of positive emotions and are equally satisfied with their lives are judged as happy to different degrees if one is less moral than the other. Considering that the relation between morality and happiness or self-interest has been one of the central questions of moral philosophy (...) since at least Plato, such a result would be of considerable philosophical interest. On closer examination of the original research and new studies, we suggest that the data point to a different conclusion: in the dominant folk understanding of happiness, morality has no fundamental role. Findings seeming to indicate a moralized concept are better explained, we suggest, by folk theories on which extreme moral turpitude indicates that an individual suffers from psychological dysfunction. (shrink)

Critical notice of Guy Fletcher's 'Dear Prudence: The Nature and Normativity of Prudential Discourse' and Dale Dorsey's 'A Theory of Prudence'.

Since Shelly Kagan pointed out the relative neglect of ill-being in philosophical discussions, several philosophers have contributed to an emerging literature on its constituents. In doing so, they have explored possible asymmetries between the constituents of ill-being and the constituents of positive well-being. This paper explores some possible asymmetries that may arise elsewhere in the philosophy of ill-being. In particular, it considers whether there is an asymmetry between the contribution made to prudential value by equal quantities of goods and bads. (...) It then considers a similar question about the contributions made to moral value by equal quantities of ill-being and positive well-being. The paper explores some of the difficulties involved in assessing these questions. It ends by considering broader differences, both practical and theoretical, between the significance of ill-being and of positive well-being. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical assessment of leading theory-based, evidence-based and coherentist approaches to the definition and the measurement of well-being. It then builds on this assessment to articulate a reformed division of labor for the science of well-being and argues that this reformed division of labor can improve on the proffered approaches by combining the most plausible tenets of theory-based approaches with the most plausible tenets of coherentist approaches. This result does not per se exclude the possibility that theory-based (...) and coherentist approaches may be independently improved or amended in the years to come. Still, together with the challenges that affect these approaches, it strengthens the case for combining the most plausible tenets of those approaches. (shrink)

Does our life have value for us after we die? Despite the importance of such a question, many would find it absurd, even incoherent. Once we are dead, the thought goes, we are no longer around to have any wellbeing at all. However, in this paper I argue that this common thought is mistaken. In order to make sense of some of our most central normative thoughts and practices, we must hold that a person can have wellbeing after they die. (...) I provide two arguments for this claim on the basis of postmortem harms and benefits as well as the lasting significance of death. I suggest two ways of underwriting posthumous wellbeing. (shrink)

In “Well-Being and Pluralism” (2021), Polly Mitchell and Anna Alexandrova defend conceptual pluralism about well-being. Conceptual pluralism about well-being holds that there are multiple, irreducible concepts of well-being that are employed in different contexts, all equally legitimate as concepts of well-being. Moreover, “Conceptual pluralism about well-being entails that there is no single essence which characterises all and only instances of well-being.” (Mitchell and Alexandrova, 2021, p. 2422) Conceptual monism about well-being, on the other hand, holds, at a minimum, that there (...) is some essence that unites all legitimate uses of ‘well- being’. In this paper, I will argue that there is a version of conceptual monism about well-being, the network theory of well-being defended by Michael Bishop in his book The Good Life (2015), that can secure all of the benefits of Mitchell and Alexandrova’s conceptual pluralism, namely accommodating the wide range of uses of “well-being” in the sciences of well-being and in ordinary language. Mitchell and Alexandrova’s argument for pluralism depends on the inability of a monistic theory of well-being to account for this diversity of conceptions of well-being and the diversity of instruments used to measure well-being in the sciences. Bishop’s network theory, like Mitchell and Alexandrova’s pluralism, is designed to accommodate the scientific study of well-being. Because of this, it avoids the pitfalls of traditional, monistic conceptions of well-being despite its monistic credentials. I conclude with two novel arguments for the network theory. (shrink)

In this paper, we present and defend an analysis of harm that we call the Negative Influence on Well-Being Account (NIWA). We argue that NIWA has a number of significant advantages compared to its two main rivals, the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA) and the Causal Account (CA), and that it also helps explain why those views go wrong. In addition, we defend NIWA against a class of likely objections, and consider its implications for several questions about harm and its role (...) in normative theorizing. (shrink)

The promotion of patient welfare is a central goal of medical professionals and serves as a fundamental principle of medical professionalism. Despite its importance, however, it is unclear what is meant by patient welfare. In my dissertation, I explore patient welfare by analyzing the ordinary notion of welfare and applying this analysis to the patient population. I argue that welfare is best understood and expressed in terms of capabilities, which I define using the structure and vocabulary of Basic Formal Ontology. (...) I conclude that patient welfare is a multi-dimensional quality of the human organism corresponding to the degree to which that patient has realized the array of capabilities typical of the human kind. I then identify certain important implications for this view on the practice of medicine. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 2, February 2022.

Theories of well-being purport to identify the features of lives, and of intervals within lives, in virtue of which some people are high in well-being and others are low in well-being. They also purport to identify the properties that make some events or states of affairs good for a person and other events or states of affairs bad for a person. This article surveys some of the main theories of well-being, with an emphasis on work published since the turn of (...) the century. (shrink)

Philosophers, psychologists, economists and other social scientists continue to debate the nature of human well-being. We argue that this debate centers around five main conceptualizations of well-being: hedonic well-being, life satisfaction, desire fulfillment, eudaimonia, and non-eudaimonic objective-list well-being. Each type of well-being is conceptually different, but are they empirically distinguishable? To address this question, we first developed and validated a measure of desire fulfillment, as no measure existed, and then examined associations between this new measure and several other well-being measures. (...) In addition, we explored associations among all five types of well-being. We found high correlations among all measures of well-being, but generally correlations did not approach unity, even when correcting for unreliability. Furthermore, correlations between well-being and related constructs (e.g., demographics, personality) depended on the type of well-being measured. We conclude that empirical findings based on one type of well-being measure may not generalize to all types of well-being. (shrink)

What is it to be mentally healthy? In the ongoing movement to promote mental health, to reduce stigma, and to establish parity between mental and physical health, there is a clear enthusiasm about this concept and a recognition of its value in human life. However, it is often unclear what mental health means in all these efforts and whether there is a single concept underlying them. Sometimes, the initiatives for the sake of mental health are aimed just at reducing mental (...) illness, thus implicitly identifying mental health with the absence of diagnosable psychiatric disease. More ambitiously, there are high-profile proposals to adopt a positive definition, identifying mental health with psychic or even overall well-being. We argue against both: a definition of mental health as mere absence of mental illness is too thin, too undemanding, and too closely linked to psychiatric value judgments, while the definition in terms of well-being is too demanding and potentially oppressive. As a compromise, we sketch out a middle position. On this view, mental health is a primary good, that is, the psychological preconditions of pursuing any conception of the good life, including well-being, without being identical to well-being. (shrink)