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Towards a Widely Acceptable Framework for the Study of Personal Well-Being

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Well-Being in Contemporary Society

Part of the book series: Happiness Studies Book Series ((HAPS))

Abstract

Findings from the burgeoning study of personal well-being (PWB) are both interesting and important. The study of PWB is beginning to attract the attention of the media, laypersons and public policy practitioners. However, the ways in which PWB findings are prudentially relevant (i.e. related to well-being) are unclear and controversial. This is not a good situation for the study of PWB; in order for such findings to be used effectively and justifiably, we need a prudential framework that is widely acceptable. In this paper, I argue that a widely acceptable account of the prudential relevance of PWB must (at least for the time being) be theory-neutral with regards to the nature of well-being. Theories of well-being are controversial, and thereby not widely acceptable. I provide an account of the prudential relevance of PWB that does not rely on a particular theory of well-being. The theory-neutral account maintains that PWB tends to be (a) an indicator of well-being, (b) a value, and (c) a benefit. This account can provide us with widely acceptable (albeit limited) interpretations of findings from the study of PWB.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This use of terminology is in-line with the UK’s National Well-being Programme, which refers to subjective measures of well-being (which includes measures of SWB and EWB) as measures of “personal well-being” (Oguz et al. 2013).

  2. 2.

    PWB researchers may also aim to measure certain mental states that can be viewed as non-evaluative, such as chronic pleasures and pains. Such mental states may not consist in their subject having some kind of evaluative attitude towards their own well-being. Nonetheless, I think we can make the general claim that PWB researchers aim to measure a subject’s (affective and cognitive) evaluations of their own well-being.

  3. 3.

    Affect balance measures and life and domain satisfaction measures are typically referred to as measures of “subjective well-being” (Deiner & Biswas-Diener 2008). Eudaimonic measures are typically referred to as measures of “eudaimonic well-being” or “psychological well-being” (Ryff 1989; Keyes et al. 2002; Ryan and Deci 2001). As mentioned above, I will refer to all subjective measures of well-being as measures of “personal well-being”.

  4. 4.

    Measures of “flow”—the mental state associated with “optimal functioning”—can be viewed as a measure of eudaimonic well-being in this sense. States of flow are positive affective states related to successful performance in activities that are challenging, yet not too difficult. It is a particular sense of mastery that arises from the skillful exercise of one’s capacities (Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi 1992).

  5. 5.

    For instance, when measuring a subject’s general well-being, both affect balance and life satisfaction measures tend to be highly correlated. But, measures of affect balance are not significantly correlated with measures of religiosity, and measures of life satisfaction are not significantly correlated with measures of personality and locus of control (Chen et al. 2012).

  6. 6.

    See also Deaton (2010), Veenhoven and Hagerty (2006) and Stevenson and Wolfers (2008) for further critiques of the Easterlin Paradox.

  7. 7.

    Though Diener et al. (2006) show that individuals differ in the extent to which certain life conditions caused lasting changes in subjective well-being.

  8. 8.

    See, for instance, Haybron (2008) on the limits of self-reports in measuring happiness.

  9. 9.

    Of course, PWB may be normatively relevant in certain ways other than its relationship to well-being. For instance, increases in positive affect have been shown to make people more altruistic (Carlson et al. 1988). However, for the purposes of this paper, I restrict my focus just towards the prudential relevance of PWB, that is, the relationship between PWB and well-being.

  10. 10.

    See http://www.actionforhappiness.og.

  11. 11.

    See http://www.happycity.org.

  12. 12.

    See http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/user-guidance/well-being/index.html.

  13. 13.

    This is not to say that we necessarily care about our well-being, or that the promotion of our well-being provides us with reasons to act in certain ways. For example, Scanlon explains that, “If you ask me why I listen to music, I may reply that I do so because I enjoy it. If you asked me why that is a reason, the reply “A life that includes enjoyment is a better life” would not be false, but it would be rather strange.” (Scanlon 1998: 126) The things we care about (such as enjoyments, success in one’s main aims, and substantive goods such as friendship) are not necessarily desirable because they promote our well-being. These things all contribute towards well-being, but the idea of well-being plays little role in explaining why they are good. Thus, Scanlon labels well-being an “inclusive good”—one that is made up of other things that are good in their own right, not made good by their contributions to it (Scanlon 1998: 127).

  14. 14.

    I will follow recent work by well-being theorists (e.g. Woodard 2013; Fletcher forthcoming) in classify philosophical theories of well-being in relation to these two major disagreements. Note that this differs from the traditional method of classification—the tri-partite division of theories of well-being into mental state theories, preference-satisfaction theories and objective list theories—influentially outlined by Derek Parfit (1984).

  15. 15.

    These are the kinds of arguments offered by proponents of PWB in interpreting PWB findings such as the Easterlin paradox (Nussbaum 2000; Sen 1999).

  16. 16.

    For an excellent overview of the benefits of positive affect see Haybron (forthcoming).

  17. 17.

    See also Carver (2003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre (IDEA CETL), Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Sam Wren-Lewis

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Johnny H. Søraker

  2. Department of Philosophy and Economics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Jan-Willem Van der Rijt

  3. Department of Philosophy, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Jelle de Boer

  4. Institute for Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Pak-Hang Wong

  5. Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Philip Brey

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Wren-Lewis, S. (2015). Towards a Widely Acceptable Framework for the Study of Personal Well-Being. In: Søraker, J., Van der Rijt, JW., de Boer, J., Wong, PH., Brey, P. (eds) Well-Being in Contemporary Society. Happiness Studies Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06459-8_2

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