Thoughts on Philosophy and the Science of Well-Being

A Reformed Division of Labor for the Science of Well-Being

“…TBAs prescribe a sharp division of labor whereby philosophers should provide general theories of well-being and empirical scientists should develop measures of well-being grounded on philosophers’ theories (e.g. Hassoun, 2019; Sumner, 1996; Van der Deijl, 2017a). On TBAs, philosophers should specify which goods/experiences enhance well-being and in virtue of what properties or features these goods/experiences enhance well-being, whereas empirical scientists should determine what factors are causally and statistically related to such goods/experiences.…”

“…the theories that most accurately track ‘what we think or feel or know about well-being’ (Sumner, 1996, p. 11) and most plausibly ‘explain why well-being is good for the person who has it’ (Tiberius, 2007, p. 373; also Kagan, 1992, p. 185) – and that ‘the proper measure of well-being […] will depend on traditionally philosophical [theories]’ (Angner, 2011, p. 128). As Hassoun puts it, ‘scientists should start from a well-justified theory of well-being and then try to operationalize it to arrive at a measure adequate for their purpose’ (2019, p. 524; also Van der Deijl, 2017a, p. 229, claiming that ‘clear constraint on the measurement of well-being can be derived from broadly shared philosophical views’) 2…”

“…The worry is not just that well-being has a normative valence that is lacked by physical magnitudes such as temperature and mass. Rather, the main concern is that – pace leading CAs’ claim that philosophy neither is ‘in the driver's seat’ nor is ‘purely a passenger’ (Alexandrova, 2017a, p. xxxvii) – philosophical theories of well-being justifiably play an indispensable role in the science of well-being and that scientists who lack descriptively and normatively adequate philosophical theories of well-being often ‘use the wrong measures for the wrong purposes [or even] fail to measure what matters’ (Hassoun, 2019, p. 524; also Fumagalli, 2021).…”

“…2 TBAs have been widely endorsed by philosophers (e.g. Hassoun, 2019;Sumner, 1996;Van der Deijl, 2017a). Still, TBAs face a number of challenges.…”

“…First, theory-based approaches (henceforth, TBAs) prescribe a sharp division of labor whereby philosophers should provide general theories of well-being, whereas empirical scientists should develop measures of well-being grounded on philosophers’ theories (e.g. Hassoun, 2019; Sumner, 1996; Van der Deijl, 2017a). Second, evidence-based approaches (henceforth, EBAs) hold that the science of well-being should be grounded on ‘direct measures’ of well-being and take ‘as a prime objective the quantitative study of the determinants of well-being’ (Layard, 2010, p. 535; also Frijters et al, 2020; Seaford, 2011).…”