“The secret to happiness may be unhappiness”

Propelled ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Andreas Elpidorou
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
Emotional Adaptation ◽  
Positive Experiences ◽  
Conception Of The Good

The chapter explores the nature of the good life, articulates the role that happiness, pleasure, and positive emotions play in such a life, and considers the effects of emotional adaptation and emotional diversity on our well-being. By drawing upon both philosophical literature and research in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, it argues for a broad conception of the good life, one that does not identify the good life simply with the presence of positive experiences and the absence of negative ones. The chapter shows not only that negative experiences aren’t detrimental to our well-being, but that they are often necessary to achieve it.

Daily Positive Experiences and Health: Biobehavioral Pathways and Resilience to Daily Stress

2018 ◽  
pp. 154-172
Author(s):  
Nancy L. Sin ◽  
David M. Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Daily Stress ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
Stress Buffering ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Positive Experiences ◽  
Stress And Health

Positive emotions and minor positive events are more likely to occur in people’s daily lives than negative emotions and stressors. This chapter provides an overview of theoretical perspectives and previous research linking positive experiences with stress and health. A conceptual framework is proposed that describes constructs within the realm of “daily positive experiences.” The framework posits that daily positive experiences contribute to health through biological, behavioral, and stress-buffering pathways. The sociodemographic patterning of daily positive experiences by age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status is described. Multidisciplinary work is presented linking between-person differences and within-person (day-to-day) variations in daily positive experiences to stressor reactivity, inflammation, and diurnal cortisol rhythms. The chapter concludes with a discussion of unanswered questions and key areas for future discovery and innovation. The study of everyday positive experiences provides insights into health and well-being that go beyond what can be learned from focusing solely on negative experiences.

Flourishing and the Value of Authenticity

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Haybron
Keyword(s):  
Gene Editing ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Philosophical Literature

This chapter examines the role of authenticity in well-being, focusing on issues raised by biotechnologies like gene editing. It is argued that there are good reasons to view authenticity as an aspect of well-being, and the chapter discusses some implications of this view for gene-editing technologies. Also briefly surveyed is the philosophical literature on well-being. The chief goal is to make the case that authenticity merits serious consideration as an aspect of well-being. Even if one concludes that it has no role in the best theory of well-being, the notion of authenticity is deeply embedded in ordinary thinking about the good life and merits attention from policymakers and others if only for that reason.

“And you, what do you think of optimism?”

Propelled ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 132-148
Author(s):  
Andreas Elpidorou
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Positive Health ◽  
The Face ◽  
Positive Experiences ◽  
Positive Health Outcomes ◽  
Crucial Ingredient

The chapter illustrates the benefits (and in some cases, the dangers) of anticipation in the pursuit of the good life. It discusses how anticipation figures in decision-making, savoring, and optimism. It shows how anticipation can often boost our levels of subjective well-being and explains why anticipation is linked to numerous positive health outcomes. Anticipation also helps us to overcome life obstacles and remain resilient in the face of difficult challenges. Thus, anticipation is a crucial ingredient of the good life. In addition to its ability to prolong and amplify positive experiences, anticipation is a motivating mechanism that provides us with the emotional energy we need to pursue what we believe is significant and important.

Public Reason and Prostitution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Conception Of The Good

This chapter critically engages with the “sex work” approach to prostitution and argues that treating “sex work” like any other form of work is neither possible nor compatible with valuing the freedom and equality of women as citizens. Liberals often claim, erroneously, that liberalism’s commitment to a kind of neutrality among competing conceptions of the good life and its commitment to antipaternalism requires either decriminalization or legalization of prostitution. While arguments that rest on a particular conception of the “good” of sex or of the role of sex in a broader conception of the good are illegitimate grounds for state policy, it is argued that there are, nonetheless, good public reason arguments against decriminalization or legalization of prostitution. A defense of the Nordic model is offered.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of the ‘good life’: eudaimonic well-being is associated with insular cortex volume

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 615-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary J. Lewis ◽  
Ryota Kanai ◽  
Geraint Rees ◽  
Timothy C. Bates
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Insular Cortex ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
The Good Life

An Analysis of Prudential Value

Utilitas ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN M. CAMPBELL
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Good For ◽  
The Relationship

This essay introduces and defends a new analysis of prudential value. According to this analysis, what it is for something to be good for you is for that thing to contribute to the appeal or desirability of being in your position. I argue that this proposal fits well with our ways of talking about prudential value and well-being; enables promising analyses of luck, selfishness, self-sacrifice and paternalism; preserves the relationship between prudential value and the attitudes of concern, love, pity and envy; and satisfies various other desiderata. I also highlight two ways in which the analysis is informative and can lead to progress in our substantive theorizing about the good life.

A Critique of Raz’s Liberal Perfectionism: Morality and Politics

1996 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-364
Author(s):  
Bi‐Hwan Kim
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Objective Knowledge ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Joseph Raz ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Liberal Perfectionism

Joseph Raz Has Long Been Well Known as a Legal philosopher and theorist of practical reason. But it is only in the last decade that he has come to be widely identified as the most prominent defender of a distinctive interpretation of the liberal tradition. Raz wholeheartedly endorses the communitarian view that the individual is a social being, who needs society to establish his/her self-identity and to gain objective knowledge of the good, rather than a self-contained subject abstracted from any specific social experience. Unlike neutralist liberals, such as Rawls and Dworkin, he rejects ‘the priority of right over the good’, stressing the interdependent relationship between right and the good. Yet he remains very much a liberal in his commitment to the value of autonomy (or freedom) and argues powerfully for the desirability (or necessity) of incommensurable plural conceptions of the good life for the well-being of people, as well as for the liberal virtue of toleration, and for their attendant liberal democratic political institutions.

Toward the Pursuit of What People Value

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
Mendiola Teng-Calleja ◽  
Jose Antonio R. Clemente ◽  
Ma. Ligaya Menguito ◽  
Donald Jay Bertulfo
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Living Wage ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Initial Attempt ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Research And Policy ◽  
The Capability Approach

Abstract. This study sought to initiate conversations on the utility of the capability approach and a psychological lens in approximating a living wage. We put forth the concept of capability gap – defined as the difference between what one values and what one perceives as attainable. We used a set of valued domains of a good life that were identified based on well-being indicators in determining capability gaps. Five hundred workers (all breadwinners) belonging to households selected through stratified random sampling from purposively chosen middle- and low-income communities in the Philippines participated in the survey. From the data, we constructed a weighted capability measure that determines the capability gap, weighted by the perceived importance of each of the good life domains. We likewise derived an estimate of a living wage that yields a weighted capability that represents individuals' capabilities to achieve and pursue valued outcomes, freedoms, and entitlements. This initial attempt at estimating a living wage based on individuals' capability to achieve and pursue a good life is presented as the main contribution of the research. The limitations of the study as well as its implications to living wage research and policy are discussed.

Living the Good Life?

Waste ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 193-208
Author(s):  
Eiko Maruko Siniawer
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Financial Wealth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Affluent Society

With the ever increasing sense in the 1980s that Japan had arrived as an economic power, attention was newly focused on what beyond financial wealth and material abundance constituted an affluent life, on what constituted “true affluence” or an “affluence of the heart.” Affluence—and waste along with it—came to be conceived in more psychological, spiritual, and emotional terms than in the past, with an attention to a well-being and self-fulfillment which extended beyond the purely financial. What was often being sought was yutori, or leisure, relaxation, space, and unconstricted time. Financial and material prosperity made possible self-reflection about what a good life could and should be in an affluent society.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document