The Network Theory of Well-Being: An Introduction

The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 7 (2012)
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Abstract

In this paper, I propose a novel approach to investigating the nature of well-being and a new theory about wellbeing. The approach is integrative and naturalistic. It holds that a theory of well-being should account for two different classes of evidence—our commonsense judgments about well-being and the science of well-being (i.e., positive psychology). The network theory holds that a person is in the state of well-being if she instantiates a homeostatically clustered network of feelings, emotions, attitudes, behaviors, traits, and interactions with the world that tends to have a relatively high number of states that feel good, that lead to states that feel good, or that are valued by the agent or her culture.

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Michael Bishop
Florida State University

Citations of this work

Happiness.Dan Haybron - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Well‐being and Philosophy of Science.Anna Alexandrova - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (3):219-231.

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References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Robert Nozick - 1974 - New York: Basic Books.
Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1984 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
Welfare, happiness, and ethics.L. W. Sumner - 1996 - New York: Oxford University Press.
A theory of the good and the right.Richard B. Brandt - 1998 - Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

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