The point of departure of this paper is the recently emphasised distinction between psychological theories of happiness, on the one hand, and normative theories of well-being, on the other. With this distinction in mind, I examine three possible kinds of relation that might exist between (psychological) happiness and (normative) well-being; to wit, happiness may be understood as playing a central part in (1) a formal theory of well-being, (2) a substantive theory (...) of well-being or (3) as an indicator for well-being. I note that, in the relevant literature, happiness is mostly discussed in terms of either (1) or (2). In this paper, I attempt to motivate a shift of focus away from such accounts of happiness and towards (3), i.e. its epistemic role. When examined in connection to (normative) well-being, (psychological states of) happiness and unhappiness should be understood as psychological states that inform individuals about the contribution of various activities, pursuits, or situations to their well-being or ill-being. (shrink)

This Element provides an opinionated introduction to the debate in moral philosophy over identifying the basic elements of well-being and to the related debate over the nature of happiness. The question of the nature of happiness is simply the question of what happiness is, and the central philosophical question about well-being is the question of what things are in themselves of ultimate benefit or harm to a person, or directly make them better or (...) worse off. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 15-30, January 2022. We offer an account of mental health and well-being using the predictive processing framework. According to this framework, the difference between mental health and psychopathology can be located in the goodness of the predictive model as a regulator of action. What is crucial for avoiding the rigid patterns of thinking, feeling and acting associated with psychopathology is the regulation of action based on the valence of affective states. In (...) PPF, valence is modelled as error dynamics—the change in prediction errors over time. Our aim in this paper is to show how error dynamics can account for both momentary happiness and longer term well-being. What will emerge is a new neurocomputational framework for making sense of human flourishing. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 15-30, January 2022. We offer an account of mental health and well-being using the predictive processing framework. According to this framework, the difference between mental health and psychopathology can be located in the goodness of the predictive model as a regulator of action. What is crucial for avoiding the rigid patterns of thinking, feeling and acting associated with psychopathology is the regulation of action based on the valence of affective states. In (...) PPF, valence is modelled as error dynamics—the change in prediction errors over time. Our aim in this paper is to show how error dynamics can account for both momentary happiness and longer term well-being. What will emerge is a new neurocomputational framework for making sense of human flourishing. (shrink)

In this innovative and cogent presentation of her concept of sustainable happiness, Catherine O’Brien outlines how the leading recommendations for transforming education can be integrated within a vision of _well-being for all_. Solution-focused, the book demonstrates how aspects of this vision are already being realized, and the potential for accelerating education transitions that enable people and ecosystems to flourish. Each chapter assists educators to understand how to apply the lessons learned, both personally and professionally. The aim is (...) to support educators to experience themselves as change-makers with growing confidence to implement new teaching strategies and inspire their students to become change-makers as well—engaged in deep learning that develops character, connections with life, and invigorating collaborations that revitalize the very purpose of education. (shrink)

Samuel Lepine Dans cet article, je propose d’analyser le concept de bonheur en termes d’humeurs positives. Je montre que cette analyse constitue une voie moyenne entre l’analyse du bonheur comme émotion et l’analyse du bonheur en termes de propensions émotionnelles. Je soutiens plus particulièrement qu’être heureux consiste à ressentir une humeur positive, quelle que soit cette humeur. Cette analyse est donc réductionniste – être heureux n’est rien d’autre qu’être de bonne humeur – et pluraliste –nos bonnes humeurs, dans toute leur (...) diversité, constituent autant de manières différentes d’être heureux. Afin de soutenir cette approche, je défends la thèse selon laquelle les humeurs sont des attitudes prospectives, consistant à évaluer l’impact affectif possible de notre environnement sur nos états motivationnels tels que nos désirs ou nos préférences. Je m’efforce ensuite d’explorer les relations que le bonheur entretient avec le bien-être à partir de cette analyse du bonheur comme bonne humeur. (shrink)

There is an intuitive connection between well-being and happiness. Accordingly, many theories of well-being hold that well-being consists in (either unqualified or properly qualified) happiness. Traditional happiness-based theories are subject, however, to several important objections. The goal in this chapter is to offer a new happiness-based theory that is immune to the main objections raised against traditional happiness-based theories. The authors’ own fitting happiness theory of well-being (...) can be seen as the combination of the following claims. The first is that happiness consists in a broadly positive balance of affective states such as emotions, moods, and sensory pleasures. The second is that emotions, moods, and sensory pleasures are different kinds of perceptual experiences of evaluative properties. The third claim is that, insofar as happiness is constituted by states that have fittingness conditions, it is possible to assess happiness itself as fitting or unfitting. The last claim is that well-being consists in fitting happiness thus defined. (shrink)

My main thesis in this article is that Descartes' ethics should be understood as involving a distinction between happiness and well-being. The distinction I have in mind is never clearly stated or articulated by Descartes himself, but I argue that we nevertheless have good reason to embrace it as an important component in a charitable reconstruction of his ethical thought. In section I, I present Descartes' account of happiness and of how he thinks happiness can (...) (and cannot) be acquired. Then, in section II, I introduce and develop the distinction between happiness and well-being. I do this via a discussion of a difficult passage in one of Descartes' letters to Elisabeth, where he may seem first to grant and then immediately to reject the view that people's happiness can vary in degree depending on the possession of goods or perfections that are outside their power to control. I believe my proposed distinction can help us make good sense of this passage. In the last two sections (III and IV), I then offer some further grounds or reasons for why the proposed distinction should be ascribed to Descartes. (shrink)

The pursuit of happiness is a long-enshrined tradition that has recently become the cornerstone of the American Positive Psychology movement. However, “happiness” is an over-worked and ambiguous word, which, it is argued, should be restricted and only used as the label for a brief emotional state that typically lasts a few seconds or minutes. The corollary proposal for positive psychology is that optimism is a preferable stance over pessimism or realism. Examples are presented both from psychology and economics (...) that illustrate the dangers of optimism, and in which better outcomes can occur with a pessimistic stance. A more sophisticated approach is then presented in which, in relation to well-being and quality of life, neither optimism nor pessimism is seen as inherently better than the other, but, rather, in which psychological flexibility may contribute optimally to health and well-being. (shrink)

This article reflects on a survey carried out at a non-profit organization that deals with health care for oncological terminally ill in order to find out for those who are involved in this project each worker's time projection and well-being class. The survey has pointed out each single team member's time perspective and well-being class and allowed building a pedagogical path for work orientation that has involved the same team members.

This study explored the associations between the Dark Triad traits and mental well-being in a Korean adult sample. The role of the conceptions of happiness as mediators of these associations was also investigated. Eight conceptions of happiness, 3 dimensions of hedonic well-being, and 2 dimensions of eudaimonic well-being were included in the study. The results showed that Machiavellianism and psychopathy were negatively and narcissism was positively associated with well-being. The pattern (...) of associations between the dark triad and conceptions of happiness showed that Machiavellianism and psychopathy were associated with valuing personal happiness but also considering it to be out of one’s control, and to have negative consequences when achieved. People high on narcissism endorsed generally positive notions of happiness. Results showed that conceptions of happiness functioned as partial mediators in the relationships between the dark triad and well-being. Hence, it seems that the dark triad traits provide a context for the formation of certain beliefs surrounding the nature and value of well-being, which per se influence experienced levels of well-being. (shrink)

The sociology of emotions is a fast-growing disciplinary field. Research on emotions has enabled major advances in medical science, political science, anthropology, psychosociology etc. Turner and Smets have shown that social relations feature a kernel of phenomena with an emotional substrate ranging from face-to-face encounters to the emergence of social movements. The social arena is shaped by emotions, which are powerful agents of change. In this paper, we focus on the links between emotions, happiness and well-being apprehended (...) as a polymorphic state culturally determined by an emotional substrate. Finally, through the lenses of emotions, we sketch out the features of the structural crisis of neoliberalism and the lessons for a renewed understanding of the underlying socio-economic phenomena. (shrink)

This paper revisits Ronald Dworkin’s influential position that a person’s advance directive for future health care and medical treatment retains its moral authority beyond the onset of dementia, even when respecting this authority involves foreshortening the life of someone who is happy and content and who no longer remembers or identifies with instructions included within the advance directive. The analysis distils a eudaimonist perspective from Dworkin’s argument and traces variations of this perspective in further arguments for the moral authority of (...) advance directives by other authors. It then critiques a feature of the eudaimonist perspectives within these arguments—namely, the position that dementia has a retroactive negative impact on what a person has previously valued—and challenges the commonly held assumption underlying them that a person’s life and well-being have relatively low value beyond the onset of dementia. Although advance directives have moral authority as a means of guiding one’s future health care, accounts that dismiss the value of the lives and well-being of people living with dementia should be questioned to the extent that such accounts are used to support the moral authority of advance directives stipulating measures to foreshorten individuals’ lives. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-BeingDaniel H. FrankHava Tirosh-Samuelson. Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 596. Cloth, $50.00.Franz Rosenzweig tried hard to convince the neoKantian Hermann Cohen of the merits of Zionism and the normalization it would bring to Jews and Jewish life. His attempt met with this response from (...) Cohen: "Oho! So the gang now wants to be happy, does it?" For those ignorant of the history of Jewish philosophy, one might imagine that Jewish philosophers, no less than their non-philosophical kinsmen, were so weighed down by the burdens of history and persecution that happiness could play no role in their theorizing. But happiness plays a key role in the history of Jewish moral and political philosophy, especially in the premodern period. Even Spinoza, the last of the medievals and the first of the moderns, the great critic of the rabbinic tradition and of Maimonides in particular, is concerned in his Ethics with identifying those activities that together constitute human well-being and the good life. Only lately, since the Enlightenment and Kant, has non-eudaimonism been a live option for Jewish thinkers. Only with the rise of (modern) Orthodoxy, and its predilection for construing goodness as rectitude and rule-following, has eudaimonism fallen out of favor. But with Tirosh-Samuelson's weighty volume on happiness in premodern Judaism, there can be no excuse in the future to imagine that all Jews are, or must be, closet Kantians, strict deontologists. To think otherwise seems to come close to taking on the classical (anti-Semitic) dichotomy of legalistic Judaism vs. spiritual Christianity. In it own way, Happiness in Premodern Judaism is a critique of such a one-sided, monochromatic view of Judaism, whether from the Christian or even from the Jewish side.Tirosh-Samuelson writes explicitly as an intellectual historian, rather than as a philosopher. She understands herself and her project as one that presents just the facts, without evaluating them. While one may cavil at a lost opportunity, in the present case this would be churlish, given the enormous erudition on display. After an introductory chapter outlining the foundational moral theories of Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic philosophers, the text presents the (Greek-inspired) areteic wisdom literature of the Second Temple period, the teleological theocentrism of the rabbis, the Greco-Arabic Islamicate culture that nurtured Jewish philosophers from Saadia in the tenth century to Maimonides in the twelfth, the rabbinic and kabbalistic critiques of the philosophical ideal of happiness commencing [End Page 338] with the translation (into Hebrew) of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and finally, very important and the focus of much recent scholarly work, the transformation of Jewish eudaimonism through direct contact with Christian Scholasticism and later with the humanist Renaissance. All in all, a millennium and a half of Jewish intellectual history is presented in a sober and scholarly way.Not surprisingly Maimonides plays a pivotal role in the story that Tirosh-Samuelson relates. A Janus-like figure, he represents the culmination and height of accommodation with Greek and Greco-Arabic philosophical culture. However, with the gradual worsening of the socio-economic condition of European Jewry in the thirteenth century, his accommodationism seemed traitorous, and as a result generations of thinkers, mystics and philosophers alike, strove to critically distance themselves from Maimonidean Aristotelianism. Tirosh-Samuelson is admirably clear in pointing out that such anti-Maimonidean tendencies are ill-characterized as anti-philosophical. Hasdai Crescas in the late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries launched a massive critique of Maimonides' physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, but did so in as rigorous a manner as any philosopher would. The picture that enfolds over the course of the text is one of vigorous dialectic between partisans of 'alien' (Greek) wisdom and those who viewed such wisdom with considerable suspicion. Such a dialectic parallels, not surprisingly, developments in Christian philosophy.The trajectory of the story of premodern Jewish musings on happiness is from the centrality of reason and intellect, and the contemplative activity that is reason's preeminent actuality, to the primacy... (shrink)

This article sets out to critically examine the accounts of well-being produced by a middle-aged Swiss woman living in precarious prosperity. By taking on a feminist reading of the narrative on well-being, the article challenges the taken for granted assumption of the powerful agent in thriving societies. Insights from literature on happiness in nations and gender beliefs enabled addressing the woman’s capability to exert agency, while acknowledging the influence of the context in which narratives are (...) embedded. In addition, the presence of a non-national interviewer appears to be an incentive for the interviewee’s compliance with cultural meta-narratives. The approach of well-being as ‘agential flourishing’ proved helpful in assessing the woman’s capability on a gendered career path in atypical employment to deal with precariousness. (shrink)

The concept of a good life is usually assumed by philosophers to be equivalent to that of well-being, or perhaps of a morally good life, and hence has received little attention as a potentially distinct subject matter. In a series of experiments participants were presented with vignettes involving socially sanctioned wrongdoing toward outgroup members. Findings indicated that, for a large majority, judgments of bad character strongly reduce ascriptions of the good life, while having no impact at all on (...) ascriptions of happiness or well-being. Taken together with earlier findings these results suggest that the lay concept of a good life is clearly distinct from those of happiness, well-being, or morality , likely encompassing both morality and well-being, and perhaps other values as well: whatever matters in a person’s life. Importantly, morality appears not to play a fundamental role in either happiness or well-being among the folk. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explain the conceptual connections between happiness and well-being. It first distinguishes episodic happiness from happiness in the personal attribute sense. It then evaluates two recent proposals about the connection between happiness and well-being: (1) the idea that episodic happiness and well-being both have the same fundamental determinants, so that a person is well-off to a particular degree in virtue of the fact that they are (...) happy to that degree, and (2) the idea that happiness in the personal attribute sense can serve as a ‘‘proxy’’ for well-being, i.e., that a person’s degree of deep or robust happiness approximates their degree of well-being. It is argued that happiness in both these senses is conceptually, metaphysically, and empirically distinct from well- being. A new analysis of welfare, well-being as agential flourishing, can explain welfare’s real connection to happiness in both the episodic and personal attribute senses. It predicts that such happiness is only directly beneficial when it is valued, when it is a form of valuing, or when it underwrites (i.e., serves as the causal basis for) the disposition to realize one’s values. It is therefore a necessary—but not sufficient—condition for especially high levels of well-being. This analysis of welfare integrates many insights from the eudaimonic tradition of welfare and happiness research in psychology, and also addresses common criticisms of these eudaimonic models. (shrink)

This book addresses a range of relevant theoretical issues, including the possibility of an interpersonally comparable measure of well-being, or “utility” metric; the moral value of equality, and how that bears on the form of the social welfare function; social choice under uncertainty; and the possibility of integrating considerations of individual choice and responsibility into the social-welfare-function framework. This book also deals with issues of implementation, and explores how survey data and other sources of evidence might be used (...) to calibrate both a utility metric and a social welfare function, and whether distributive goals are ever best pursued through regulation rather than the tax system. In working through this range of theoretical and practical issues, the book draws from a wide variety of literatures, including philosophical scholarship on equality, responsibility, the nature of well-being, and personal identity over time; the social choice literature within economics; applied economic literatures concerning the measurement of inequality and poverty; legal and policy-analysis scholarship on cost-benefit analysis, environmental justice, and the choice between regulation and taxation; and the burgeoning field of “happiness studies”. (shrink)

How should we evaluate the success of each person's life? Countering the prevalent philosophical perspective on the subject, Steven M. Cahn and Christine Vitrano defend the view that our well-being is dependent not on particular activities, accomplishments, or awards but on finding personal satisfaction while treating others with due concern. The authors suggest that moral behavior is not necessary for happiness and does not ensure it. Yet they also argue that morality and happiness are needed for (...) living well, and together suffice to achieve that goal. Cahn and Vitrano link their position to elements within both the Hellenistic and Hebraic traditions, in particular the views of Epicurus and lessons found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Written in an accessible style and illustrated with incisive vignettes drawn from history, literature, films, and everyday life, _Happiness and Goodness_ is a compelling work of philosophy for anyone who seeks to understand the nature of a good life. (shrink)

Retrospective subjective well-being (SWB) refers to self-reported satisfaction and emotional experience over the past few weeks or months. Two studies investigated the mechanisms linking daily experiences to retrospective SWB. Participants reported events each day for 21 days (Study 1) or twice a week for two months (Study 2). The emotional intensity of each event was rated: (1) when it had recently occurred (proximal intensity); and (2) at the end of the event-reporting period (distal intensity). Both sets of ratings (...) were then aggregated across events and used to predict retrospective SWB at the end of the study. Path analyses showed that proximal intensity predicted retrospective SWB whereas distal intensity did not. The effect remained even after controlling for trait happiness and neuroticism. These results suggest that daily experiences influence retrospective SWB primarily through abstract representations of the past few weeks or months (as measured by aggregated proximal intensity ratings) rather than the explicit recollection of individual events during the same period (as measured by aggregated distal intensity ratings). Retrospective SWB, in turn, mediated the effect of daily experiences on global SWB (i.e., self-reported satisfaction and emotional experiences in general). (shrink)

Life's Values offers new analyses of the nature of pleasure, happiness, well-being, and meaning in life. Recognizing how individuals have different priorities, Goldman explains what is of ultimate value in our lives and argues that making our desires rational - relevantly informed of what it's like to satisfy them - maximizes well-being.

It is a commonly expressed sentiment that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other. Typically such calls identify mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of science. We argue that the differences between philosophers and scientists thinking about well-being are more difficult to reconcile than such calls suggest, and that pluralism (...) is central to this task. Pluralism is a stance that explicitly drives towards accommodating and nurturing the richness and diversity of well-being, both as a concept and as an object of inquiry. We show that well-being science manifests a contingent pluralism at the level of methodology, whereas philosophy of well-being has largely rejected pluralism at the conceptual level. Recently, things have begun to change. Within philosophy, conceptual monism is under attack. But so is methodological pluralism within science. We welcome the first development, and bemoan the second. We argue that a joined-up philosophy and science of well-being should recognise the virtues of both conceptual and methodological pluralism. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in the well-being sciences, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophical debate. (shrink)

Business ethics has been emphasized throughout the past decade and organizations are aware of the influence it has on the organization’s performance. As a result, ethical leadership is important as it influences the employees profoundly. This study aims to address this issue and explore the influence ethical leadership has on employees by examining job satisfaction, subjective well-being at work, and life satisfaction. Two groups of independent data were collected and a multi-group analysis was conducted before pooling together for (...) a two-step structural equation modeling test. The results revealed that ethical leadership has a negative direct effect on employee well-being which offers significant findings for the meaning of ethical leadership in the Chinese culture. Useful managerial implications are provided for managers and supervisors at the end of this study. (shrink)

This paper is an empirical analysis of how culture, specifically tradition, affects well-being, i.e., happiness, life satisfaction, and financial satisfaction, along with socioeconomic factors in East Asia. Ordered probit regression model results show that women have higher happiness and satisfaction levels than men even in Confucian cultures in which men generally receive more favourable conditions than women. Additionally, marital status or the impact of religion had strong and positive effects on happiness and sometimes on life (...) satisfaction but not on financial satisfaction. Interestingly, tradition has a statistically significant and important effect on both life and financial satisfaction. Finally, the results show that individuals who value tradition greater also have higher levels of financial satisfaction. (shrink)

It is safe to say that in recent years there has been no dearth of publications on well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. That is true even if we disregard the psychological literature, and focus on philosophy. In 2014 alone, at least two other books have appeared with a similar purpose and purview as Badhwar’s: Paul Bloomfield’s The Virtues of Happiness and Lorraine Besser-Jones’ Eudaimonic Ethics: The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well . The renaissance of (...) virtue ethics, in particular the rise of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, has greatly stimulated renewed reflection on the concepts of happiness and well-being, on the relations between prudential value and moral goodness, the instrumental and intrinsic value of the virtues, and so on. In this context, it is not easy to come up with something that is both original and convincing. Neera Badhwar’s tightly argued Well-Being: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life goes a fair way towards being both, although I am n .. (shrink)

I once opened a fortune cookie containing the message, ‘All happiness is in the mind’; it is still affixed to my refrigerator. I did not put it there to signal.

In this paper I systematically criticise Feldman’s and Haybron’s theories of happiness as subjective well-being [SWB]. Having elaborated their trichotomy between SWB, welfare and virtue, I then outline Aristotle’s rival ethical schema, which construes these as aspects within an inextricable, organic whole, viz. eudaimonia. In order to vindicate this rival schema, I begin with four thought-experiments: Feldman’s Bertha, the indoctrinated housewife, Haybron’s ‘happy slave’, and two of my own. I argue that these demonstrate – contra Feldman and (...) Haybron, but in line with Aristotle – that happiness is essentially conditioned by objective welfare-goods. I then move on to how such goods are essentially conditioned, in turn, by the virtues. It follows that happiness itself is both logically and ontologically conditioned by the practice of the virtues. Although this Aristotelian conclusion faces charges of being moralistic and counter-evidential, it can overcome these, thereby securing – pace Feldman and Haybron – an authentic, sustainable conception of happiness. (shrink)

This study is designed to test the hypothesis that events like the Holly Bough service held in Liverpool Cathedral on the fourth Sunday of Advent that attracts a wide range of participants, including regular churchgoers and occasional (sometimes annual) visitors, contribute significantly to the psychological health and well-being of these participants. At the Holly Bough service held in 2019, a total of 383 participants (139 men, 229 women and 15 individuals who preferred anonymity) completed a recognised measure of (...) psychological health and well-being (the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire) whilst they were waiting for the service to begin and again during a 5-min organ improvisation just before the close of the service. The data demonstrated a significantly higher score on the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire at time 2 than at time 1, suggesting that the experience of the service functioned as an agent of psychological health and well-being. Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this paper confirms by means of a repeated-measure study that cathedrals promote psychological health; 383 participants at a Christmas service completed the same well-being measure before and after the service, with a significant increase in scores at time two. (shrink)

This paper analyses whether the aggregation of individual happiness scores to a National Happiness Index can still be trusted once governments have proclaimed their main objective to be the pursuit—or even maximization—of this National Happiness Index. The answer to this investigation is clear-cut: as soon as the National Happiness Index has become a policy goal, it can no longer be trusted to reflect people’s true happiness. Rather, the Index will be systematically distorted due to the (...) incentive for citizens to answer strategically and the incentive for government to manipulate the Index in its favour. Such a distortion would arise even if the measurement of subjective well-being correctly reflected actual happiness before the intervention of government. Governments in a democracy should establish the conditions enabling individuals to become happy. The valuable and important results of happiness research should be introduced into the political process. Each person should be free to pursue happiness according to his or her preferences. This process is supported by obedience to the rule of law, human rights and free media, as well as by extended political participation rights, decentralized public decision-making, an open and effective education system fostering upward mobility and the possibility to find suitable employment. (shrink)

In this dissertation I argue that while hedonism seems to be the correct theory of happiness, happiness does not seem to be the essence of welfare; after all, it appears that a person may be brainwashed over a given duration, may be happy over that same duration, but not also be well off over that duration, all things considered; this suggests that well-being consists of capacity-fulfillment. Hedonism about happiness, maintains that you are happy to (...) the extent that you have pleasure, unhappy to the extent that you have pain. Besides hedonism about happiness, there are three popular theories of happiness: desire-satisfaction, life-satisfaction, and emotional state. I judge these theories both by whether they accord with our commonsense intuitions and whether they have any internal problems. All three conflict with some of our intuitions and have internal problems. HH, however, accords with our intuitions and is not susceptible to the internal problems that the other theories are susceptible to. The relationship between happiness and well-being is a complex one. Happiness does seem intrinsically good for the happy: whenever you experience an episode of happiness, you seem thereby better off. By appealing to the case of brainwashing, however, I show that happiness seems neither necessary nor sufficient for welfare. Before introducing my own theory of welfare, I discuss five alternatives: desire-satisfaction, life-satisfaction, self-fulfillment, perfectionism, and objective list. The first four fail to accord with intuition in the case of brainwashing and the last three have internal problems. My own theory of welfare, capacity-fulfillment about welfare, maintains that you are well off to the extent that you successfully exercise your basic capacities. We possess four basic capacities: affection, cognition, conation, and locomotion. While CFW does not accord with some of our intuitions, it accommodates the case of brainwashing and incorporates some of the strengths of the welfare theories I criticize while remaining immune to the internal problems they have. (shrink)

Daniel Haybron’s recent book, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, includes a defense of a normative notion of well-being. Haybron’s main contribution is to argue that a central component of well-being is the fulfillment of one’s “emotional nature,” that is, fulfillment as a unique individual who is such as to find happiness in some things rather than others. We argue that the contrast he draws between his view and “Aristotelian” views of well-being is problematic in (...) two ways. First, Haybron says that unlike the self-fulfillment theory, Aristotelian theories of well-being are “perfectionist” theories; we argue that Haybron’s concerns about “perfectionism” should be distinguished from Aristotelian eudaimonist theory. Second, Haybron’s self-fulfillment theory makes an individual’s well-being wholly dependent on that individual’s make-up, and we argue that that is a bad fit with our considered convictions about well-being. (shrink)

We have noted some fundamental distinctions between types of goodness or value. There is usefulness, or merely instrumental goodness, the value that something may have as a means to something else that is good or that is valued. Usefulness has an obvious importance, and connects with significant philosophical issues about instrumentality and probability; but more fundamental issues for ethical theory are posed by the goods or ends that the useful is to serve. Within the realm of what is good for (...) its own sake, and not just instrumentally good, most contemporary ethical thought focuses mainly on well-being or welfare-that is, on the nature of human flourishing or what is good for a person. The theory developed here, however, gives a primary place to excellence-the type of goodness exemplified by the beauty of a sunset, a painting, or a mathematical proof, or by the greatness of a novel, the nobility of an unselfish deed, or the quality of an athletic or a philosophical performance. It is the goodness of that which is worthy of love or admiration, honor or worship, rather than the good (for herself) that is possessed by one who is fortunate or happy, as such (though happiness may also be excellent, and worthy of admiration). (shrink)

Desire satisfaction theorists and attitudinal-happiness theorists of well-being are committed to correcting the psychological attitudes upon which their theories are built. However, it is not often recognized that some of the attitudes in need of correction are evaluative attitudes. Moreover, it is hard to know how to correct for poor evaluative attitudes in ways that respect the traditional commitment to the authority of the individual subject's evaluative perspective. L. W. Sumner has proposed an autonomy-as-authenticity requirement to perform (...) this task, but this article argues that it cannot do the job. Sumner's proposal focuses on the social origins of our values and overlooks the deep psychological roots of other evaluative attitudes that are just as problematic for welfare. If subjective theories of welfare are to be at all plausible they may need to abandon or modify their traditional commitment to the authority of the individual subject. (shrink)

Well-being studies is an exciting and relatively new multi-disciplinary field, with data being gathered from different domains in order to improve social policies. In its reliance on a truncated account of well-being based implicitly on neoclassical economic assumptions, however, the field is deeply flawed. Departing from reductive accounts of well-being that exclude the normative or evaluative aspect of the concept and so impoverish the attendant conception of human life, this book offers a new (...) perspective on what counts normatively as being well. In reconceptualising well-being holistically, it presents a fresh vista on how we can consider the meanings of human life in a manner that also serves as a source of constructive social critique. The book thus undertakes to invert the usual approach to the social sciences, in which the research is required to be objective in terms of methodology and subjective with regard to evaluative claims. Instead, the authors are deliberately objective about values in order to be more open to the subjectivities of human life. Happiness, Flourishing and the Good Life thus seeks to move away from economic considerations' domination of all social spaces in order to understand the possibilities of well-being beyond instrumentalisation or commodification. A radical new approach to the human well-being, this book will appeal to philosophers, social theorists and political scientists and all who are interested in human happiness. (shrink)

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that events such as the Christmas Eve Carol Services at Liverpool Cathedral that include some regular churchgoers (people who attend services most weeks) and much larger numbers of occasional visitors (who may attend church only once or twice a year) make a significant impact on the psychological health and well-being of the participants. Using a repeat-measure design, participants were invited to complete a copy of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire while (...) they were waiting for the service to begin and then to complete a second copy during a five-minute organ improvisation just before the close of the service. Data provided by 802 participants who completed both copies of the instrument demonstrated a significantly higher score on the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire at time two than at time one, suggesting that attendance at the service had exerted a positive impact on psychological health and well-being. Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this article demonstrates by means of a repeated-measure study that cathedrals can make a significant impact on the psychological health and well-being of the wider community served by them. The same well-being measure was completed by 802 participants at the Christmas Eve Carol Services before and after the event, with a significant increase in scores at time two. (shrink)

This article gives a practice-based and theoretical overview of the transformation from a traditional hierarchical organization in the care and cure sector towards a so-called Community-driven organization providing human happiness to 6000 elderly people. The actual case study is intertwined with conceptual information for better understanding of the innovative transition which took place at Humanitas. The case description includes its initial situation, its new core values, mission and objectives and shows the sequence of emerging policies and interventions that resulted (...) in a stakeholder oriented business model for the care sector. The selected concepts are Graves' Emerging Cyclical Level of Existence Theory (or Spiral Dynamics), Ken Wilber's Four Quadrant Model, Roberts Simons' Four Levers of Control and various elements from the European Corporate Sustainability Framework sponsored by the European Commission. The conclusion marks the match between theory and practice in transforming Humanitas Rotterdam into providing cure, care, housing and well-being to elderly people. (shrink)

Pets are truly great companions. Some individuals feel that owning a pet can help them prepare for a growing family by giving them a taste of what it would be like to have children. This study also looks into the psychological well-being and life experiences of LGBT fur parents. Employing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the findings of this study were: (1) With the presence of fur babies, participants had the ease to overcome stressful events, especially the ones that (...) affect their mental health. With these, they have the desire to take care of their fur babies under all circumstances because they see their fur babies as family members. Fur babies are excellent sources of motivation, confidence, and happiness for fur parents. They are treated as family members because they contribute to the mental and emotional aspects of fur parents. Moreover, the majority of respondents valued their pets far more than their actual family members, however, some didn't spend as much time with their relatives and friends. This study comes to the conclusion that a stronger bond with one's dog was also linked to higher anxiety about being unloved and rejected by family members and people surrounding us, which was linked to a heavier impact on one's psychological well-being. In reality, fur parents, especially LGBT parents, offer their fur babies a lot of love and attention compared to other things. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that we should revise our understanding of physical fitness to include preparation for challenging physically mediated life experiences—such as aging, disability, illness, reproduction, and death—as an important goal of physical activity. Such a revision is needed because the messages about fitness we encounter through “fitness ideology” can undermine the cultivation of skills and perspectives important for finding meaning, equanimity, and even happiness in light of such experiences. Because one of the ways that fitness ideology (...) undermines personal growth and well-being is through the promotion of fear and denial of our mutability and mortality, I focus on death, generally the most... (shrink)

Happiness is currently the topic of a wide range of empirical research, and is increasingly becoming the focus of public policy. The interest in happiness largely stems from its connection with well-being. We care about well-being – how well our lives are going for us. If we are happy it seems that, to some extent, we must be doing well. This suggests that we may be able to successfully measure well-being (...) through measuring happiness. The problem is that both happiness and well-being are elusive and their measurement is far from uncontroversial. What exactly does information about happiness tell us about well-being? Is there more to well-being than happiness? If so, to what extent is happiness connected to well-being? These are controversial questions, but answers to them must be given if we are to make progress in the measurement of well-being. I argue that we should view happiness as an indicator of changes in well-being. I call this the Indicator View. According to this view, someone can be doing badly yet be happy insofar as their well-being is improving (and vice versa). More precisely, the Indicator View is the view that happiness is a defeasible indicator of local changes in well-being. Thus, we can successfully measure an important aspect of well-being through measuring happiness. I argue in favour of this view on the basis of an understanding of well-being that is widely acceptable. The Indicator View, therefore, has the potential to unite divided opinion over what happiness research can tell us about well-being. (shrink)