scholarly journals Against Contextualism about Prudential Discourse

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (277) ◽  
pp. 699-720
Author(s):  
Guy Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Prudential Value

Abstract In recent times, there has been a surge of interest in, and enthusiasm for, contextualist views about prudential discourse—thought and talk about what has prudential value or contributes to someone's well-being. In this paper, I examine and reject two cases for radical forms of prudential contextualism, proposed by Anna Alexandrova and Steve Campbell. Alexandrova holds that the semantic content of terms like ‘well-being’ and ‘doing well’ varies across contexts. Campbell proposes that there are plural prudential concepts at play in prudential discourse (and in philosophical reflection upon such discourse) and that we find evidence of this in the conflicting commitments of prudential discourse. The negative aim of the paper is to show that Alexandrova and Campbell have not given us a good case for ambitious forms of contextualism about prudential discourse. The positive aim of the paper is to provide alternative, aspectualist, explanations of the features of prudential discourse that their discussions highlight.

Human Flourishing Versus Desire Satisfaction

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Arneson
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Desire Satisfaction ◽  
Individual Good ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
Good For

What is the good for human persons? If I am trying to lead the best possible life I could lead, not the morally best life, but the life that is best for me, what exactly am I seeking?This phrasing of the question I will be pursuing may sound tendentious, so some explanation is needed. What is good for one person, we ordinarily suppose, can conflict with what is good for other persons and with what is required by morality. A prudent person seeks her own good efficiently; she selects the best available means to her good. If we call the value that a person seeks when she is being prudent “prudential value,” then an alternative rendering of the question to be addressed in this essay is “What is prudential value?” We can also say that an individual flourishes or has a life high in well-being when her life is high in prudential value. Of course, these common-sense appearances that the good for an individual, the good for other persons, and the requirements of morality often are in conflict might be deceiving. For all that I have said here, the correct theory of individual good might yield the result that sacrificing oneself for the sake of other people or for the sake of a morally worthy cause can never occur, because helping others and being moral always maximize one's own good. But this would be the surprising result of a theory, not something we should presuppose at the start of inquiry. When a friend has a baby and I express a conventional wish that the child have a good life, I mean a life that is good for the child, not a life that merely helps others or merely respects the constraints of morality. After all, a life that is altruistic and perfectly moral, we suppose, could be a life that is pure hell for the person who lives it—a succession of horrible headaches marked by no achievements or attainments of anything worthwhile and ending in agonizing death at a young age. So the question remains, what constitutes a life that is good for the person who is living it?

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.

scholarly journals La valeur de la connaissance des émotions

Labyrinth ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Bertille De Vlieger
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Emotional Knowledge

The Value of the Emotional Knowledge Emotional knowledge is a form of self-knowledge which holds great interest for ordinary individuals. It is not obtained by any obligation but rather because we think it is crucial to obtain (Cassam 2017). In this article it is a matter of demonstrating that emotional knowledge holds an instrumental and a prudential value. By arguing that it can allow a control over our emotions, I shall maintain that emotional knowledge affects individual marginalization or acceptance in society. In addition, this type of knowledge is revealing of our personality by allowing us to identify our affective identities. Finally, I shall defend the idea that emotional knowledge contributes to the conduct of a good life. As such, my hypothesis could be viewed as incompatible with widespread ideas (Montaigne 2019), according to which the knowledge of our own emotions can trigger negative emotional states, e.g. mental rumination, anxiety, that do not contribute to our well-being.  

Well-Being and Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kraut
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Being And Time ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Over Time

A full defense is presented of the thesis that there are two orders of value, one incommensurably superior to the other. To see this, we must realize that the goods that comprise well-being do not diminish in value over time. Plato was therefore right to hold that we should want to possess the good eternally. Lives typically contain a combination of good and bad; a whole life should be counted good on balance by aggregating—adding the good and subtracting the bad. No period of life inherently has less prudential value than any other. Narrative factors should figure in our assessment of how well a life goes only when they affect our experience. There is some truth in Goethe’s line: “Only the present is our happiness” (Faust, Part Two). Aristotle’s notion that well-being needs a “complete” life contains both insights and errors.

What Is a Theory of Prudential Intrinsic Value?

2021 ◽  
pp. 63-76
Author(s):  
Dale Dorsey
Keyword(s):  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Prudential Value

There is little agreement among theorists concerning what we would like a theory of intrinsic prudential value to do. This chapter holds that such a theory is not meant to provide an account of a person’s well-being, life quality, or any other such notion, except derivatively. Instead, theories of intrinsic prudential value should provide (or offer a procedure to provide) a prudential ordering: those particular states, objects, or events that are intrinsic goods for a person, ordered by their comparative value.

Linguistic Synchrony Predicts the Immediate and Lasting Impact of Text-Based Emotional Support

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 1716-1723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Doré ◽  
Robert R. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Support ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Support Providers ◽  
Psychological Understanding ◽  
Emotional Recovery ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Lasting Change

Emotional support is critical to well-being, but the factors that determine whether support attempts succeed or fail are incompletely understood. Using data from more than 1 million support interactions enacted within an online environment, we showed that emotional-support attempts are more effective when there is synchrony in the behavior of support providers and recipients reflective of shared psychological understanding. Benefits of synchrony in language used and semantic content conveyed were apparent in immediate measures of support impact (recipient ratings of support effectiveness and expressions of gratitude), as well as delayed measures of lasting change in the emotional impact of stressful life situations (recipient ratings of emotional recovery made at a 1-hr delay). These findings identify linguistic synchrony as a process underlying successful emotional support and provide direction for future work investigating support processes enacted via linguistic behaviors.

The new wave of luxury: the meaning and value of luxury to the contemporary consumer

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannele Kauppinen-Räisänen ◽  
Johanna Gummerus ◽  
Catharina von Koskull ◽  
Helene Cristini
Keyword(s):  
Small Groups ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Multidimensional Construct ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Brand Product

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore what luxury represents to contemporary consumers in their own life contexts. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods qualitative approach was adopted that comprised individual, personal interviews and focused interviews with small groups. Findings The study contributes to the field of luxury research by highlighting consumers’ interpretations of luxury as highly subjective, relative and contextual; showing that according to consumers, luxury relates to both consumption and non-consumption contexts; illustrating the value of luxury as a multidimensional construct in both contexts; and demonstrating how luxury may relate to a consumer’s desire to be meaningful and genuine, thereby generating prudential value. In these cases, luxury is closely linked to consumers’ perceptions of meaningfulness and well-being. Practical implications For marketing managers, the findings suggest that the wave of new luxury – seeking meaningfulness – may serve as a novel means of branding. Originality/value This study demonstrates that the significance of the concept of luxury transcends commercial settings and offerings, i.e. the brand, product or service. The findings show that luxury may also be generated in non-commercial contexts and specific activities (e.g. running, gardening). Based on these findings, it is proposed that luxury in non-commercial settings is characteristic of the new wave of luxury, and that in such settings, luxury may contribute to personal well-being, thereby generating prudential value.

scholarly journals Valuing life and evaluating suffering in infants with life-limiting illness

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 179-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Wilkinson ◽  
Amir Zayegh
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Value Of Life ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Short Life ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Experience Pain

AbstractIn this paper, we explore three separate questions that are relevant to assessing the prudential value of life in infants with severe life-limiting illness. First, what is the value or disvalue of a short life? Is it in the interests of a child to save her life if she will nevertheless die in infancy or very early childhood? Second, how does profound cognitive impairment affect the balance of positives and negatives in a child’s future life? Third, if the life of a child with life-limiting illness is prolonged, how much suffering will she experience and can any of it be alleviated? Is there a risk that negative experiences for such a child (suffering) will remain despite the provision of palliative care? We argue that both the subjective and objective components of well-being for children could be greatly reduced if they are anticipated to have a short life that is affected by profound cognitive impairment. This does not mean that their overall well-being will be negative, but rather that there may be a higher risk of negative overall well-being if they are expected to experience pain, discomfort, or distress. Furthermore, we point to some of the practical limitations of therapies aimed at relieving suffering, such that there is a risk that suffering will go partially or completely unrelieved. Taken together, these considerations imply that some life-prolonging treatments are not in the best interests of infants with severe life-limiting illness.

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