Western Historical Traditions of Well-Being

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief historical overview of western philosophical views about human well-being from the eighth century BCE to the middle of the twentieth century. Different understandings of the concept of well-being are explained, including our preferred understanding of well-being as the subjective states and objective conditions that make our lives go well for us. While this review is necessarily incomplete, we aim to discuss some of the most salient and influential contributions to our subject. To that end, we discuss some key views from ancient Greece, including the aristocratic values that were considered central to leading a good life, notions of personal and more expansive harmony as they key to well-being, and the idea that the experience of pleasure is all we should really care about. We also explain some of the major religious conceptions of the good life, and their progression through the middle ages and beyond. More recent secular conceptions of wellbeing, including several views on the importance of personal and public happiness. Finally, we discuss views to the effect that happiness is not enough for the good life and that we should strive for loftier goals.

A global history of happiness

“…The Enlightenment pursuit of happiness was not as decisive a break with the past as has often been supposed. For instance, historians increasingly acknowledge that the mainstream of the age included thought that was profoundly religious (Sorkin, 2008;Michalos & Weijers, 2017). For every convinced atheist, there were many rational Christians who remembered that earthly happiness could never compare to the heavenly variety.…”