Well-Being Contextualism and Capabilities

Sebastian Östlund ()
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Sebastian Östlund: Umeå University

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2024, vol. 25, issue 1, No 11, 18 pages

Abstract: Abstract Typically, philosophers analysing well-being’s nature maintain three claims. First, that well-being has essential properties. Second, that the concept of well-being circumscribes those properties. Third, that well-being theories should capture them exhaustively and exclusively. This predominant position is called well-being monism. In opposition, contextualists argue that no overarching concept of well-being referring to a universally applicable well-being standard exists. Such a standard would describe what is good, bad, and neutral, for us without qualification. Instead, well-being research is putatively about several central phenomena. If several phenomena are central, a proliferation of concurrently acceptable well-being theories and operationalisations is expected. However, contextualists are challenged to explain how those analysing well-being are not systematically talking past each other. In this paper, I address that challenge. The upshot is that contextualist well-being theories can be justifiably context-sensitive and applied to tailor-made policy-making efforts. I illustrate the benefits by connecting contextualism to the capability approach.

Keywords: Well-being; Contextualism; Monism; Pluralism; Capability approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s10902-024-00718-x

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