scholarly journals Wellbeing and Public Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Weijers ◽  
Phillip S. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Great Expectations ◽  
International Conference ◽  
The Third ◽  
New Zealanders

Delegates left the Third International Conference on Wellbeing and Public Policy with great expectations following three days of inspirational addresses by some of the world’s most prominent thinkers and policymakers. In this article we ask: what is required for a wellbeing approach to public expenditure to be successfully implemented and sustained? The wellbeing approach arose out of concerns about whether the current suite of measures used by policymakers provides sufficient information on the full range of contributors to or components of the good life. Sometimes divided on what wellbeing is and how to measure it, proponents of the wellbeing approach agree that the ultimate goal of public policy should be to improve wellbeing for all citizens. In order for this wellbeing approach to be successful, we believe it must address three main challenges: measurement, representation and engagement. We must be clear about how wellbeing will be measured, whose wellbeing we will assess, and the extent to which all New Zealanders are represented in the conversations that will determine the first two issues.

scholarly journals Health, Wealth or Wisdom? Religion and the Paradox of Prosperity

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Elaine Graham
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The West ◽  
Contributory Factors ◽  
Vexed Question

AbstractThe so-called 'happiness hypothesis', associated with the work of the economist Richard Layard, has attracted much public debate over recent years. Its main contention is that despite rising levels of material prosperity in the west, incidence of recorded happiness and greater quality of life has not increased accordingly. In considering the major contributory factors to happiness and well-being, however, Layard is not alone in identifying the significance of religious values and participation in religion for positive and enduring levels of happiness. In response, this article critiques some of the evidence correlating religion and well-being, as well as considering the broader and much more vexed question of how far public policy is capable of incorporating questions of belief and value into its indicators of happiness and the good life. Drawing on traditions of virtue ethics as the cultivation of 'the life well-lived', I ask whether specifically Christian accounts of human flourishing and the good life still have any bearing in the wider public domain, and what 'rules of engagement' might need to be articulated in any dialogue between Christian values and the discourse of theology and a pluralist society.

POLITICAL MORALITY AS CONVENTION

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 266-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Barry
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Remarkable Feature ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Linguistic Philosophy

A remarkable feature of contemporary political discourse is the dominance of morality. One legacy of logical positivism (which was dominant from the mid-1930s until the end of the 1960s) and analytical (or linguistic) philosophy was the reluctance of political theorists during the twentieth century to engage in substantive argument about appropriate social ends or individual rights and values. Philosophers were content to describe the linguistic framework within which related political proposals were discussed without offering any proposals themselves. It was felt that the philosopher was not especially qualified to give political advice or make any recommendations. The technical political theorist was properly confined to the second level of inquiry, that is, explanation of the meaning of concepts, not the first level, which was concerned with questions of how we ought to live, or issues of public policy. Economists and sociologists might have the technical skills appropriate for inquiries into public policy, but as to the big questions—such as the ends and purposes of man and society—almost anybody could make pronouncements. The important point was that reason was incapable of adjudicating between rival versions of the good life.

Telling Stories About Farming: Mediated Authenticity and New Zealand’s Country Calendar

2020 ◽  
pp. 152747642096675
Author(s):  
Susan Fountaine ◽  
Sandy Bulmer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Television Program ◽  
Rural Identity ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Primetime Television ◽  
Agricultural Politics ◽  
New Zealanders

Mediated authenticity in New Zealand’s Country Calendar ( CC) television program is explored from the perspective of its producers, and rural and urban audiences. Paradoxically, CC is understood as both “real” and “honest” television and a constructed, idyllic version of the rural good life in New Zealand. Techniques and devices such as a predictable narrative arc, consistent narration, invisible reporting and directing, and naturalized sound and vision contribute to the show’s predictability, ordinariness, spontaneity and im/perfection, mediating an authentic yet aspirational view of farming life. We elucidate how factual, primetime television contributes to a shared national sense of “who we are” while navigating different audience experiences and expectations. At stake is New Zealanders’ attachment to rural identity, which underpins public policy commitments to the farming sector, at a time when new agricultural politics are increasingly contested.

scholarly journals Making a Living: How Middle-Class Couples in Warsaw Start and Practice a Household

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 91-111
Author(s):  
Marta Olcoń-Kubicka ◽  
Mateusz Halawa
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
The Third ◽  
Relational Work ◽  
At Home

This article is a study of the domestic monetary and financial life of young middle-class couples in Warsaw, Poland, and its suburbs. We use ethnographic evidence presented as case studies to illuminate the practices in which our interlocutors actively appropriate, mobilize, and transform money and finance to pursue moral visions of the good life. The article focuses on the household understood in processual terms of ongoing negotiations between moral and market dimensions. The first section is focused on the ways in which young couples perform relational work aimed at achieving or maintaining moral order. Couples match the diverse possible uses of money at home to their changing notions of the kind of couple they are or wish to become. The second section proceeds from the observation of a widening gap between rising middle-class aspirations and economic possibilities in contemporary Poland and explores the practices of negotiating various forms of assistance from parental households. The third and final section argues that the incursion of technologies into domestic life means that artifacts like software or digital banking increasingly materialize and mediate morality and thus actively contribute to the shaping of the household as a project of a good life.

Moral pluralism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Weinstock
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Wide Range

Moral pluralism is the view that moral values, norms, ideals, duties and virtues are irreducibly diverse: morality serves many purposes relating to a wide range of human interests, and it is therefore unlikely that a theory unified around a single moral consideration will account for all the resulting values. Unlike relativism, however, moral pluralism holds that there are rational constraints on what can count as a moral value. One possible, though not necessary, implication of moral pluralism is the existence of real moral dilemmas. Some philosophers have deemed these to be inconceivable; in fact, however, they do not constitute a serious threat to practical reason. Another possible implication of moral pluralism is the existence within a society of radically different but equally permissible moralities. This poses a challenge for political philosophy, and might justify a liberal view that particular conceptions of the good life ought not to be invoked in the formulation of public policy.

scholarly journals Ars Vitae and Sport

2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-21
Author(s):  
Miloš Bednář
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Physical Activities ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The Third ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Art Of Life

Abstract Our study aims to contribute to the approach of leading an optimal life and especially to the role of sport and physical activities in this life. First, we have tried to find the optimal personal qualities which may be proper for the ars vitae (the art of life). Five of them (creativity, calculation, cooperation, concentration, and credibility) were chosen (on the empirical bases of long-time ethical seminars with students studying physical education) and annotated. This was done taking into account the practical applicability in sport. Further, we have focused on proper biodromal projects, which are based on some traditional models. We judge sport can significantly contribute to the study three of these; at the same time, they are very useful in the sphere of sport. Thus the opposites of the Dionysian and Apollonian tendency of life, and the authentic and inauthentic one, were chosen for closer analysis. The third proper model (hedonism versus asceticism) was examined in an earlier study. More attention has been paid to antagonistic and integrative models of authenticity, and our conclusion was that we ought to consider them in mixed form when periods of antagonistic authenticity are replaced with periods of integrative authenticity in real life. Concrete examples have been taken from the field of sport. Kretchmar’s structural model of the good life is connected with this field more firmly and has been critically examined in the last chapter. In conclusion, we name four conditions for the creation of optimal biodromal projects and for forming the real ars vitae.

Tensions Between the Good Life, the Good Profession, and the Good Society

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (10) ◽  
pp. 667-668
Author(s):  
Isaac Prilleltensky
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Good Society
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