Abstract

Why are we still studying well-being? After more than two thousand years of Western philosophy, why do we lack a settled account of the good life for humans? Philosophical problems in general are perennial, and the nature of human well-being is one such problem. However, we seem to stand in an epistemic relationship to this topic that is not shared by other ones. We have a vested interest in understanding the good life, and the relevant data seem to be accessible to us all. The challenge is to explain why well-being is one lasting philosophical topic among others in spite of our special epistemic relationship to it. I argue that human nature renders us well-being blind. On one side this is due to the heterogeneous nature of our interests. Some are directly mediated by conscious thought, others are not. Some are individualistically realized, others relationally. On the other side we suffer from cognitive biases that lead us to under-value, indeed to miss entirely, the important aspects of human life that do not depend on conscious attention. Consequently, there is reason to think that we will never be satisfied with a theory of well-being.