No Theory-Free Lunches in Well-Being Policy

Philosophical Quarterly 70 (278):43-64 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Generating an account that can sidestep the disagreement among substantive theories of well-being, while at the same time still providing useful guidance for well-being public policy, would be a significant achievement. Unfortunately, the various attempts to remain agnostic regarding what constitutes well-being fail to either be an account of well-being, provide useful guidance for well-being policy, or avoid relying on a substantive well-being theory. There are no theory-free lunches in well-being policy. Instead, I propose an intermediate account, according to which well-being is constituted by endorsed veridical experiences. This account refers back to theories of well-being but does so as agnostically as possible. An intermediate account of well-being is meant as a policy guiding compromise between the different theories of well-being that make claims regarding what constitutes well-being. An intermediate account does as well as can be hoped for in providing a basis for well-being policy.

Similar books and articles

Beyond serving a purpose: additional ethical focuses for public policy agents.Vanessa Scholes - 2011 - In Jonathan Boston, Andrew Bradstock & David Eng (eds.), Ethics and public policy: contemporary issues. Victoria University Press.
Public Policy: Ethics.Andrzej Klimczuk - 2015 - In James D. Wright (ed.), Public Policy: Ethics. Elsevier. pp. 580--585.
The Narrowed Domain of Disagreement for Well-Being Policy.Gil Hersch - 2018 - Public Affairs Quarterly 32 (1):1-19.
On Highest Authority.Zachary Hoskins - 2009 - Social Theory and Practice 35 (3):393-412.
Health Security and Risk Aversion.Jonathan Herington - 2016 - Bioethics 30 (7):479-489.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-07-01

Downloads
484 (#35,338)

6 months
97 (#36,610)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Gil Hersch
Virginia Tech

Citations of this work

Well-Being Coherentism.Gil Hersch - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (4):1045-1065.
Happiness.Dan Haybron - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Normative Models and Their Success.Lukas Beck & Marcel Jahn - 2021 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 51 (2):123-150.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations