Taking the Morality Out of Happiness

Kneer, Markus; Haybron, Dan

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4350806

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Is she happy? A large body of research has found that this kind of information about the value of a person's activities influences people's judgments about happiness (Díaz & Reuter, 2020;Kneer & Haybron, 2023;J. Phillips et al, 2017;Prinzing & Fredrickson, 2022).…”

Section: Why Do Evaluative Judgments Affect Emotion Attributions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do evaluative judgments affect emotion attributions? The roles of judgments about fittingness and the true self

2023

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Section: Why Do Evaluative Judgments Affect Emotion Attributions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do evaluative judgments affect emotion attributions? The roles of judgments about fittingness and the true self

2023

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“…According to subjective theories of well-being, things are, other things equal, going well for the agent (Feldman, 2010;Heathwood, 2005;Tiberius, 2018), whereas according to a 'moralist' view, things are not going well for her (Badhwar, 1997;Bloomfield, 2014;Fletcher 2013;Foot, 2003;Rice, 2013). A number of existing studies have explored people's ordinary intuition about cases of this type (Bronsteen et al, 2022;Díaz & Reuter, 2021;Kneer et al, 2024aKneer et al, , 2024bPhillips et al, 2017;Prinzing & Fredrickson, 2023;Prinzing et al, 2022).…”

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confidence: 99%

Two Senses of Well-Being?

Tiberius,

Knobe

2023

Preprint

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Within philosophical work on the nature of well-being, there is a long-standing debate about cases in which an agent does successfully get what she wants but does not have a morally good life. In cases of this type, does the agent have high well-being? We report the results of a study of ordinary intuitions regarding this type of case. We find that participants tend to endorse a response of the form: “In one sense, it’s clear that things are going well for the agent, but in another sense, things are not going well for her at all.”

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Happiness and well‐being: Is it all in your head? Evidence from the folk

Kneer,

Haybron

2024

Nous

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Despite a voluminous literature on happiness and well‐being, debates have been stunted by persistent dissensus on what exactly the subject matter is. Commentators frequently appeal to intuitions about the nature of happiness or well‐being, raising the question of how representative those intuitions are. In a series of studies, we examined lay intuitions involving happiness‐ and well‐being‐related terms to assess their sensitivity to internal (psychological) versus external conditions. We found that all terms, including ‘happy’, ‘doing well’ and ‘good life’, were far more sensitive to internal than external conditions, suggesting that for laypersons, mental states are the most important part of happiness and well‐being. But several terms, including ‘doing well’, ‘good life’ and ‘enviable life’ were substantially more sensitive to external conditions than others, such as ‘happy’, consistent with dominant philosophical views of well‐being. Interestingly, the expression ‘happy’ was completely insensitive to external conditions for about two thirds of our participants, suggesting a purely psychological concept among most individuals. Overall, our findings suggest that lay thinking in this domain divides between two concepts, or families thereof: a purely psychological notion of being happy, and one or more concepts equivalent to, or encompassing, the philosophical concept of well‐being. In addition, being happy is dominantly regarded as just one element of well‐being. These findings have considerable import for philosophical debates, empirical research and public policy.

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Taking the Morality Out of Happiness

Cited by 3 publications

References 56 publications

Why do evaluative judgments affect emotion attributions? The roles of judgments about fittingness and the true self

Why do evaluative judgments affect emotion attributions? The roles of judgments about fittingness and the true self

Two Senses of Well-Being?

Happiness and well‐being: Is it all in your head? Evidence from the folk

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