Abstract
Philosophers have long struggled to describe and conceptualize the phenomenon of eudaimonic well-being. These struggles only become exacerbated when the project turns to conceptualizing the science of eudaimonic well-being. While it is easy enough to provide boiler-plate descriptions of eudaimonia, such as a state of “well-functioning” or “flourishing”, moving past these general descriptors, and into the details that comprise this state is challenging. Doing so, however, is also essential to the successful science of eudaimonic well-being. In this chapter, I’ll explore these challenges as they occur on both the philosophical and psychological levels with the hope of developing a greater understanding of what is involved in the science of eudaimonic well-being (EWB).
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- 1.
Haybron (2008) criticizes Aristotle along these lines, charging that because Aristotle specifies well-being in terms of the species, rather than the individual, he thereby creates the potential for a gap between his theory of well-being and well-being as it is experienced by the individual.
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As noted, my interpretation of Aristotle draws on Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics. Some interpreters (e.g. McDowell 1998) find in Aristotle’s subsequent analysis of virtue a methodology more akin to the contemporary one I describe here.
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Vittersø’s own proposal is that both eudaimonic and hedonic feelings are essential to optimal functioning.
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Some psychological approaches take EWB to consist in more specific components of well-functioning such as a life of purpose or meaning (e.g. Steger, 2012). I worry that these formulations of EWB are misleading insofar as they focus on one specific aspect of well-functioning, as opposed to beginning with the general reflection on well-functioning that, historically, lies at the heart of EWB and allows for a more inclusive approach to determining what counts as well-functioning.
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Waterman (1990a) addresses some of these challenges.
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Besser, L.L. (2016). Conceptual Challenges for a Science of Eudaimonic Well-Being. In: Vittersø, J. (eds) Handbook of Eudaimonic Well-Being. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42445-3_5
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