Abstract
After outlining and defending its overall philosophical approach, this chapter starts by exploring the main political reasons why well-being has become a key global indicator of ‘social progress’, paralleling the growing international discontent for using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the same measure. It then focuses on the principal philosophical and political controversies in understanding and promoting human well-being as a social value, from which it outlines the book’s main argument, The Ontology of Well-being Thesis (TOWT). Specifically, the book identifies and explores six ontological features of the human condition, which are, in no prioritised order, human embodiment, finiteness, sociability, cognition, evaluation, and agency. Examining these ontological features uncover conflicting characteristics of the human condition, which can enhance or diminish the ability to experience enriching and multi-dimensional aspects of well-being. Notably, conflicting experiences of time, emotion, and self-consciousness are explored, which, it is claimed, must be accommodated for in any comprehensive epistemological and normative account of human well-being. Subsequently, such accounts can also be usefully applied to a range of social policies and welfare practices, explored throughout the book.
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Notes
- 1.
The book does not explore non-human well-being, concerning, for example, animals, plants, or non-living objects. The scope of well-being may be extended this far, but here the focus is only on human well-being.
- 2.
According to Stephen Campbell: “When contemporary philosophers write about well-being, they are typically pre-occupied with the search for the best substantive theory of well-being. Substantive theories of well-being purport to tell us what ultimately makes something good or bad for an individual and, more broadly, what makes a life go well or poorly for the one who is living it” (Campbell 2016, p. 401, his emphasis).
- 3.
If Campbell is right (see footnote 2 above), with the focus largely being on defending substantive theories of well-being, then epistemological questions and issues are more likely to be addressed, which risks ignoring or at least marginalising ontological questions and issues relating to well-being. So, for Campbell, the “standard clarifications” around well-being unduly narrows the scope of discussions about well-being, where questions concerning “what sort of beings have a well-being?” have little light shed on them (Campbell 2016, p. 404). This is not to say that there has been no focus on these ontological questions. For example, according to what Campbell calls, rational care analyses (see Darwell 2002), and suitability analyses of well-being (see Kraut 2007), within their substantive theories, they often address questions concerning human ontology. However, following Campbell, it seems reasonable to conclude that epistemological concerns have dominated well-being debate, despite raising and addressing at least some of these ontological questions and issues.
- 4.
Exploring human ontology is typically an existentialist preoccupation (West 1996, pp. 117–153; Schmitt 2000, pp. 3–30; Aho 2014). For example, Martin Heidegger, often seen as the founder of twentieth century existentialism, in his book Being and time (1996, originally published in 1927), spoke of how philosophy has profoundly neglected asking and addressing ontological questions. According to Heidegger, those questions which relate to being or existence, especially what it is to be a human being, have often been ignored in philosophy. The central premise of this book is that a similar neglect has occurred in wider academia and in social policy and welfare practice debate, concerning our understanding and promotion of human well-being. In Chap. 2, this Heideggerian starting point is explored further, relating especially to the ontological features of finiteness, sociability, and agency, reflected in the existentialism of, for example, Friedrich Nietzsche and John Paul Sartre (and see West 1996, pp. 117–153). However, as explored in more depth in Chaps. 8 and 9, the further argument here is that while this book might start with this existentialist focus, it certainly doesn’t finish with existentialism, as very different philosophies and traditions of thought are also reflected in the pluralist understanding of well-being explored and defended throughout.
- 5.
Theories of human nature reflecting understandings of human capabilities and notions of flourishing, are ontological insofar as they describe certain aspects of the human condition while contributing to well-being (Bradford 2016, p. 125; cf Philippa Foot 2003, p. 51 cited in Bradford 2016, p. 194: “… to determine what is goodness and what defect of character, disposition, and choice, we must consider what human good is and how human beings live: in other words, what kind of living thing a human being is”). However, the ontological argument here, because it is more open-textured, is unlike eudemonic theories, as it is neutral concerning how these ontological features might contribute to both the increase or diminishment of well-being – and see Chap. 2 for a further exploration of these and related issues.
- 6.
Alicia Hall and Valerie Tiberius explore how different understandings of ‘the subject’ and their relationship to theories of well-being “draw[s] our attention to issues sometimes obscured by thinking of theories as either subjective or objective” (Hall and Tiberius 2016, p. 183). The claim here is that these theoretical understandings of ‘the subject’ directly relate to ontological considerations which do not rely on sharply distinguishing the so-called subjective/internal world and the so-called objective/external world.
- 7.
For many philosophical commentators, these epistemological tools developed by the science of well-being (concerning what we know about well-being, and how to measure it), are derived from epistemic, metaphysical, and normative assumptions that are philosophically controversial, and so also need acknowledging (Alexandrova 2016, pp. 389–401, 2021; and see discussion throughout the book).
- 8.
The IHS is a very large survey conducted by the ONS collecting a range of data from approximately 400,000 individuals living in various types of households.
- 9.
Guy Fletcher explores how objective lists are not necessarily paternalistic as such a list may include strong anti-paternalistic conditions which, say, protect and enhance individual autonomy and decision-making (Fletcher 2016b, pp. 156–157). However, the point here is that objective lists in political practice are often paternalistic.
- 10.
See https://www.futuregenerations.wales/about-us/future-generations-act/. Again, as Fletcher argues (2016b, pp. 152–153), most pre-theoretical understandings of well-being, promoted in legislation and in common prudential advice, often rely on presumed objective lists, and therefore reflect, what Fletcher calls, commonsense morality: “objective list theory is … analogous to commonsense morality in being a kind of widely held starting point when thinking about well-being. It thus seems to function as the view that one holds before and until one is persuaded to adopt one of the other philosophical theories of well-being … That is to say, one might argue that our pre-theoretical judgments – judgments reflected in the prudential choices we make, the way in which give prudential advice, and the way in which we care for family and friends – are defeasible evidence in favor of objective list theories” (Fletcher 2016b, p. 152 – his emphasis). As Fletcher also explains, opponents might claim that these lists are naïve and often inaccurate which leads to questions concerning how much we can trust these commonsense, intuitive judgments (Fletcher 2016b, pp. 152–153). These lists also are in danger of becoming ‘alien’ from the individual subject, if a person does not desire or otherwise relate to what is on the list. Moreover, this alienation argument underpins the subjective proponents’ criticism of objective lists, claiming instead that theories of well-being must, in some way at least, be subject-dependent (Fletcher 2016b, pp. 156–158; and see Hall and Tiberius 2016, pp. 175–186).
- 11.
- 12.
MSWPP’s definition of subjective experience here is relatively narrow, associating experience with feelings only, excluding other possible dimensions of subjective experience, for example, reflecting how individuals may experience cognitive perceptions and interpretations of their feelings. See below for a further discussion of how these, and other, different understandings of experience reflect various conceptions of well-being promoted in philosophy, and in social policy and welfare practice debates. Unless otherwise stated, the term experience is defined here more widely than MSWPP, related to the six conflicting ontological features of the human condition explored and defended in TOWT.
- 13.
Paralleling the arguments defended here, Anna Alexandrova (2016, pp. 392–397), refers to the pluralism of the science of well-being as ‘construct pluralism’, where the social and psychological sciences construct plural measurements of well-being. That is, based on a scientific assumption, which is unobservable, namely, that no single conception of well-being persists across disciplines and projects, but taken together, have various and plural manifestations that are observable (and see Alexandrova 2021). This ‘construct pluralism’ reflects the assumptions of MSWPP leading to the possibility of political consensus as identified here. Theoretical pluralism, on the other hand, according to Alexandrova, is based on the philosophical claim that a coherent conception of well-being can be articulated that is itself plural, and which is also defended here. This latter conception reflects the above philosophical ambiguities and indeterminacies concerning the essentially contested meanings of well-being. And see Eden Lin (2016, pp. 331–341) for an exploration of how plural and monistic theories of well-being can be distinguished and combined. Also, Christopher Woodard (2016, pp. 161–174) for an exploration of what he calls ‘hybrid’ theories of well-being, combining objective and subjective accounts of well-being. Hybrid theories, for Woodard, combine complex aspects of well-being and so are usually conceived as plural theories. However, he argues that plurality does not necessarily combine objective and subjective elements to enhance well-being, contrary to claims made by hybrid theorists. For example, a plural holistic account of well-being may concede that well-being can increase by promoting ether subjective or objective components, while still maintaining that these components when promoted at the same time, further increases well-being. Importantly though, for Woodard, holism does not require combining objective and subjective elements of well-being to increase well-being in all cases, unlike hybrid accounts. These issues, and others besides, are also explored further in Chap. 2.
- 14.
These ontological conceptions refer to the philosophy of David Hume and Immanuel Kant writing in the eighteenth century (and see Blackburn 1996, pp. 179–180; and pp. 205–207). It is important to note that a number of contemporary commentators, influenced by Kant and Hume, have directly associated well-being promotion with freedom, and have subsequently focused on promoting and defending individual rights. For example, see Alan Gewirth 1981, 1986, 1988a, b 1998, 2001, who argues that freedom and well-being are ‘necessary goods’ (i.e., goods which all agents would rationally seek to possess for the pursuit of any kind of good life). According to Gewirth, given these are ‘necessary goods’ they should therefore be promoted as a matter of rights and entitlements which others have a duty to protect. Also see Michael Boylan (2014), who connects the capacity for agency with what it is to be a human being, which, for Boylan, in turn imply what he calls ‘natural rights’. These and related issues will be explored in more detail in Chaps. 2, 3 and 4.
- 15.
Other philosophical understandings, found, for example, in nineteenth and twentieth century existentialism, would not make such rigid distinctions between rational will and experience, but would also advocate non-determined agency-based conceptions of ontology (and see Martinez 2002). These and related issues will also be explored in Chaps. 2, 6, 8 and 9 here.
- 16.
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Smith, S.R. (2023). The Politics and Philosophy of Human Well-Being. In: The Ontology of Well-Being in Social Policy and Welfare Practice . Library of Public Policy and Public Administration, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18142-9_1
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