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HAPPINESS AND THE GOOD LIFE. INTRODUCTION

AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

INTRODUCTION

Many people (perhaps especially readers of this journal) tendto believe that it is ultimately happiness that makes a life worthliving, i.e. that the good life is identical with the happy life. Thecentral theme of this special issue is whether this is a reasonableview: Is it plausible to claim that a person’s quality of life isdependent on one thing only, viz. how happy that person is? Itcan hardly be doubted that happiness plays a very central rolein the good life, it may even be assumed that happiness is themost central and important ‘‘prudential value’’ (cf. e.g. Hay-bron, 2000). Not everyone thinks that happiness is the onlyprudential value, however, i.e. there may well be other final val-ues besides happiness, e.g. friendship, self-knowledge, humandevelopment, or meaningful work. This alternative view hasalso been discussed in this journal, e.g. by Lane (2000) and Va-relius (2004). So the question arises: What exactly is the role ofhappiness in the good life, e.g. is it the only thing that has finalvalue (is good as an end) for us, or are there other final valuesbesides happiness?

THE QUESTION OF THE GOOD LIFE

The question of the good life (well-being, eudaimonia, orquality of life) is one of the classical questions in philosophy.This question has been formulated in somewhat different ways,e.g. ‘‘What makes a life good for the person who lives it?’’‘‘What does a person’s well-being consist in?’’ ‘‘What does ulti-mately make a life worth living?’’ or ‘‘What is ultimately in aperson’s interest?’’

Journal of Happiness Studies (2007) 8:1–14 � Springer 2006DOI 10.1007/s10902-006-9002-9

In order to make this question more precise, philosophershave formally defined the notion of the good life (well-being, orquality of life) in terms of what has final value for a person.There are three important aspects of this formal definition.First, to claim that a certain life is good, or that it is of highquality, is to evaluate it in a positive way. That is, the questionof the good life is a purely evaluative question. It is not a nor-mative question of how we ought to lead our lives, and neitheris it a descriptive or empirical question that can be answered byempirical methods. Second, the type of value that is of rele-vance in this context is value-for (or ‘‘prudential value’’). Whenwe say that someone has a good life, we do not mean that herlife is morally good, aesthetically good, or good for others, butthat it is prudentially good, i.e. good for her. That is, the ques-tion of the good life is a question about what kind of life that isgood for the person who lives it. And third, the relevant pruden-tial values are final values rather than instrumental values. Noteverything that makes a life good for a person belongs to herquality of life as such. For example, it is almost always goodfor a person that she earns a lot of money, or that she gets thenourishment she needs, but should these things really be in-cluded in her quality of life? Philosophers think not, and thereason for this is that these things are only good for us asmeans, i.e. that their value is merely instrumental. On this view,a person’s well-being is constituted by those things (situations,events, or states of affairs) which are good as ends, or alterna-tively put, which have final value for a person. This means thatthe question of the good life is really a question of what is goodfor us as ends rather than as means.1 To have a good life issimply to have a lot of positive final value (and little or no neg-ative final value) in one’s life.2

It is worth noting that this notion of quality of life (or well-being) cannot be identified with any of Veenhoven’s (2000)‘‘four qualities of life’’. We have already seen that it not identi-cal with the utility of life (lower left quadrant in Veenhoven’sscheme). What we are concerned with here is not what is benefi-cial for others, but with what is good for the person himself.Neither is a person’s quality of life (in the present sense) identical

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with her ‘‘life chances’’, i.e. the livability of her environment(upper left quadrant) or her life-abilities (upper right quadrant).The reason for this is that everything that falls under theseheadings are merely instrumentally valuable. This makes ittempting to identify the philosophical notion of quality of lifewith Veenhoven’s ‘‘subjective appreciation of life’’ (lower rightquadrant). This is not possible, however, for the simple reasonthat it remains an open question whether there are objective fi-nal values, e.g. whether there are external or relational condi-tions that can affect a person’s well-being directly and in apositive way even though the person himself does not appreci-ate this thing (cf. Varelius, 2004 as an example of a JOHS arti-cle that is devoted to this question).

PARFIT’S THREE THEORIES

The different theories of the good life that philosophers haveformulated and defended over the years can be classified insomewhat different ways. Most of the modern discussion ofwell-being is based on Parfit’s (1984) distinction between threekinds of conceptions of the good life (or ‘‘theories of self-inter-est’’), viz. Hedonistic Theories, Desire-Fulfilment Theories, andObjective List Theories. This is how Parfit himself characterizesthese theories:

On Hedonistic Theories, what would be best for someone is what wouldmake his life happiest. On Desire-Fulfilment Theories, what would be bestfor someone is what [...] would best fulfil his desires. On Objective ListTheories, certain things are good or bad for us, whether or not we wantto have the good things, or to avoid the bad things. (p. 493)

These three theories have been further characterized by e.g.Griffin (1986), Scanlon (1993), Sumner (1996), and Brulde(1998). Here is a more detailed formulation of the three theo-ries, as well as a few alternative labels that have been suggested:

1. On the hedonistic theory, the good life is identical with thepleasant life. To have a good life is to feel good. The only thingthat has positive final value for a person is pleasant experience,and the only thing that has negative final value for a person is

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unpleasant experience. In short, the prudential value of a life is afunction of how much pleasure and displeasure (e.g. suffering)that this life contains. The more pleasure it contains, the better,and the more displeasure it contains, the worse. This is by far themost common type of ‘‘mental state theory’’, but non-hedonisticmental state theories are also conceivable, e.g. the cognitive ver-sion of the happiness theory (see below). This notion of hedo-nism (qua theory of prudential value) must be carefullydistinguished from hedonism as a way of life, characterized byopenness to pleasurable experience (cf. Veenhoven, 2003, p. 437).2. According to the desire-fulfilment theory (desire theory, orpreferentialism), a person has a good life if and only if she hasthe kind of life that she herself wants to have. The only thingthat has positive final value for a person is that her (intrinsic)desires are fulfilled, and the only thing that has negative finalvalue for a person is that her (intrinsic) aversions are fulfilled,i.e. that she gets what she does not want.3 This is not a mentalstate theory, since whether a desire is actually satisfied dependsin part on the state of the world.3. Finally, according to objectivist pluralism (the objective listtheory, or the substantive good theory), there are several objec-tive values (besides pleasure or happiness) that make a life goodfor a person, independently of what she herself thinks of thematter, and to have a good life is to have these values presentto a high degree. Classical examples of such alleged objectivevalues are knowledge, contact with reality, friendship, love,freedom, to function well (e.g. virtuously), personal develop-ment, meaningful work, and rational activity.

It is worth noting that the first and the third theory hadadvocates already among the classical Greek philosophers,whereas the second view is far more modern, probably from19th century economics.4

SUBJECTIVISM AND OBJECTIVISM. INTERNALISM

AND EXTERNALISM

Parfit’s (1984) classification is not the only possible classifica-tion, however. An alternative classification (closely related to

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Parfit’s) has been proposed by Kagan (1992), who suggests thattheories of the good life can be classified as subjective versusobjective, on the one hand, and as internalist versus externalist,on the other.

The difference between subjective and objective theories ofwell-being is a difference that concerns the source of prudentialvalue (rather than what objects that have final value for a per-son). Subjective theories make our well-being wholly and di-rectly dependent on what we ourselves evaluate or desire, i.e. onour desires and aversions, likes and dislikes, tastes and interests.Objective theories reject this claim, and hold instead that ‘‘vari-ous things are objectively good for a person to have, whether ornot he realizes it, and whether or not he desires it. Being well-off is simply a matter of one’s having the various objectivegoods’’ (Kagan, 1992, p. 170). This suggests that ‘‘an assess-ment of a person’s well-being involves a substantial judgementabout what things make life better, a judgement which mayconflict with that of the person whose well-being is in question’’(Scanlon, 1993, p. 188).

A fully developed objectivist view cannot simply reject thesubjectivist idea that the source of well-being is in our valuesand preferences, however, it also has to give an positive accountof the source of well-being. What all these accounts have incommon is that the source of prudential value is located some-where in our common human nature, e.g. in our basic needs or(as Aristotle suggested) in our human ergon, i.e. the characteris-tic activity that distinguishes us from the other animals andmakes us human (cf. Brulde, 1998, pp. 324–348).

The difference between internalist and externalist theories ofprudential value is a difference with regard to content ratherthan source. Internalist theories of well-being claim that a per-son’s level of well-being depends solely upon ‘‘facts internal tothis person’’, physical or mental. A theory of well-being is ex-ternalist if it rejects this idea, i.e. if it makes a person’s level ofwell-being directly dependent on other kinds of facts as well,viz. on ‘‘facts external to the person’’, or on ‘‘relational facts’’(cf. Kagan, 1992, p. 188). Kagan also points out that mentalstate theories – i.e. theories ‘‘which hold that an individual’s

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well-being consists solely in the presence of the relevant kindsof mental states’’ (ibid., p. 169) – ‘‘may be the most well-knownor the most plausible examples of the former type of theory,but they do not exhaust the class’’ (ibid., p. 188).

If we compare Kagan’s two distinctions to Parfit’s three the-ories, we can note that it is not only the objective list theorythat is objectivist in the present sense: hedonism is an objectivetheory as well. The connections between the two classificationscan be illustrated as follows:

FORMAL AND SUBSTANTIVE THEORIES

Kagan’s two distinctions are also closely related to the dis-tinction between formal and substantive theories of prudentialvalue. A theory of well-being is substantive if it makes substan-tive claims about what has final value for us, e.g. if it attributesprudential value to certain kinds of mental states, relationships,or the like. The difference between internalist and externalisttheories is a substantive difference in this sense. An account ofprudential value need not be substantive, however, it may alsobe formal. Instead of making substantive claims about what isgood and bad for us, a formal theory specifies some formal cri-terion that helps us determine what is good and bad for a per-son. For example, rather than telling us what a life must‘‘contain’’ (or ‘‘consist of’’) in order to be good, it may tell usthat the good life is the kind of life that a well-functioning (e.g.,rational, autonomous, or authentic) person would live underacceptable circumstances. In Griffin’s (1986) terminology, a for-mal account of the good life is an ‘‘account of the modes of ap-proach that will fix on the [good] life’’ (p. 63), i.e. an accountthat specifies some ‘‘procedure’’ or ‘‘method’’ that (if followed)

Internalism Externalism

Subjectivism (Restricted desire

theories)

The desire theoryqua formal theory

(cf. below)

Objectivism Hedonism The objective list theory

Figure 1. An illustration of how Parfit’s and Kagan’s classifications arerelated to each other.

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will generate correct substantive views on what has final valuefor different persons.5

To get a better grasp on the distinction between substantiveand formal theories, let us consider two possible interpretationsof the desire theory, viz. the satisfaction interpretation (which isa substantive theory) and the object interpretation (which is aformal theory). As we have already seen, the desire theoryclaims (roughly) that the only thing that has final value for aperson is that his intrinsic desires are fulfilled, where a desire isfulfilled if and only if its object (the situation desired) obtains.But even though there is a very intimate connection between thecircumstance that a person’s desire is satisfied, one the onehand, and the object of the desire, on the other, we still have todistinguish between the two (cf. Rabinowicz and Osterberg,1996, p. 2). This makes it possible that one of these two factshas final value for a person but not the other: it may have finalvalue for the person that his desire is fulfilled, but not that theobject obtains, or vice versa. So the question arises: When a de-sire theorist claims that it has final value for a person to havehis desires fulfilled, to what (exactly) does he attribute final pru-dential value? ‘‘Is it (i) the circumstance that our (intrinsic) de-sires and preferences be satisfied, or is it rather (ii) those statesthat are the objects of our (intrinsic) preferences and desires?’’(ibid., p. 2). To believe that (i) is the right interpretation of thedesire theory is to adopt the satisfaction interpretation of thetheory, and to believe that (ii) is the case is to adopt the objectinterpretation (cf. ibid., pp. 2–3). That is, the satisfaction inter-pretation of the theory makes a straight-forward substantiveclaim about what has final value for a person, and it must(therefore) be regarded as a substantive theory. The objectinterpretation of the desire theory, on the other hand, claimsthat a situation has final value for a person if and only if (andbecause) this person has an intrinsic desire that this situationholds. This is a formal criterion of prudential value rather thana substantive claim about what has value for a person, and theobject interpretation of the theory must thus be regarded as aformal theory.

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It is worth noting that even though hedonism is almost al-ways regarded as a substantive theory (that attributes pruden-tial value to certain kinds of mental states), it has also beenconceived of as formal (e.g. by various economists, but cf. alsoSumner, 1996). On the formal interpretation of hedonism, pru-dential value is not attributed to the pleasant experiences them-selves, but to the different objects in which the subject takespleasure.

It is somewhat complicated to relate the distinction betweenformal and substantive theories to Kagan’s two distinctions, buthere is a rough picture:

PURE HAPPINESS THEORIES OF THE GOOD LIFE

So, where do the different happiness theories of well-being fitinto this picture? This depends on two things, namely (a) onwhat conception of happiness we accept, and (b) on whether wehave a pure or modified happiness theory in mind. Accordingto the pure happiness theory, a person’s quality of life is depen-dent on one thing only, viz. how happy that person is. Nothingbut happiness has final value for a person.6 This implies that ifhappiness is conceived of as a mental state, all pure happinesstheories are mental state theories, since they claim that the pru-dential value of a person’s life is wholly dependent on whatmental state this person is in.

Internalism Externalism

Subjectivism Object interpretation of the desire

theory; hedonism qua formal theory

Objectivism Hedonism qua

substantive theory

Satisfaction interpretation of the desire

theory

Figure 2. An illustration of how different formal and substantive theories ofwell-being are related to Kagan’s two distinctions. I am somewhat reluctantto put the satisfaction interpretation of the desire theory in the lower rightquadrant, however, since it is rather unclear what the objective source of thisvalue would be.

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Whether a pure happiness theory is not just a mental statetheory, but also a hedonistic theory, depends on what concep-tion of happiness is incorporated into the theory. There are atleast four conceptions of happiness that may be of relevance inthis context, namely (1) the cognitive (or attitudinal) view, (2)the hedonistic view, (3) the mood view, and (4) the hybrid view,according to which happiness is a complex mental state consist-ing both of an affective and a cognitive component.7

1. The cognitive view. On the pure cognitive (or attitudinal)view, happiness is regarded as a cognitive state, or more specifi-cally, as a positive attitude (in the philosophical sense of thisterm) towards one’s life as a whole. On this view, happiness hasno affective component, i.e. the positive value judgement neednot (at least not by definition) be accompanied by any pleasantfeeling. To be happy is simply to evaluate one’s own life in apositive manner, to approve of it, or to regard it favourably. Ahappiness theory of the good life that incorporates this concep-tion of happiness is clearly not a version of hedonism, but ra-ther a kind of mental state theory that attributes final value toother mental states besides pleasure. The difference between thecognitive version of the happiness theory and the desire theoryis that the former does not make a person’s well-being dependon the state of the world. It is sufficient that the subject believesthat his life is going the way he wants it to go. That his life isactually going the way he wants it to go is not essential forwell-being.

On the pure affective view, happiness is a kind of affectivestate. To be happy is (roughly) to feel happy. On this view,happiness has no cognitive component, i.e. it doesn’t essentiallyinvolve any positive evaluation of one’s life as a whole. Thereare at least two different versions of this view, versions that dif-fer with regard to what kind of subjective well-being one thinksof as constitutive of happiness.2. On the hedonistic theory of happiness, happiness is best re-garded as a favourable balance of pleasure over displeasure. Ifhappiness is understood in this way, the pure happiness theoryis identical with hedonism (qua theory of well-being).

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3. According to the mood theory (or emotional state theory),happiness is a certain kind of positive mood state (or ‘‘thymicstate’’; cf. Haybron, 2001), a state that need not be about any-thing in particular. If this notion of happiness is incorporatedinto the pure happiness theory, the resulting theory has to beregarded as a restricted version of hedonism. The reason why itis not a pure form of hedonism is that it conceives of certainkinds of pleasant experiences (viz. pleasant moods) as moreconducive to happiness (and therefore as more valuable) thanothers, e.g. transient pleasant sensations.4. On the hybrid view, happiness is regarded as a complex men-tal state, in part cognitive and in part affective. To be happy is,roughly, a matter of (a) cognitively evaluating one’s life as awhole in a positive manner, and (b) to feel good. That is, a per-son’s level of happiness is a function of two things, namely (a)how satisfied or dissatisfied he is with his life (as he himselfperceives it or conceives of it), and (b) how good or bad hefeels. (This type of view is sometimes called the life satisfactionview,8 and it has been shared by many thinkers, e.g. Tata-rkiewicz, 1976; Veenhoven, 1984; Nordenfelt, 1991; Sumner,1996; Brulde, 1998.) If we incorporate this view into a purehappiness theory, we get a mental state theory that is in parthedonistic, but which also makes a person’s level of well-beingdepend directly (and not just causally) on how satisfied she iswith her life.

To conclude, no matter which version of the pure happinesstheory we have in mind, it is obviously a mental state theory,i.e. it claims that the quality of a person’s life is wholly depen-dent on the person’s mental states, and not at all on the state ofthe world (except in a causal sense).

MODIFIED HAPPINESS THEORIES

There are also modified happiness theories, however, e.g. theidea that a life cannot be really good for the person who lives itunless the cognitive part of her happiness (the positive valuejudgement) is informed and autonomous (this is Sumner’s (1996)view), or the idea that a state of happiness is more valuable for

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the happy person if the relevant value judgement is based ontrue beliefs about her own life (this is a central part of my ownview; cf. my other article in this issue). On these mixed views(which are all based on the hybrid view of the nature of happi-ness), the presence of a happy mental state is necessary but notsufficient for maximal well-being, i.e. these theories require thatthe happiness in question must satisfy certain further criteria. Itis worth noting that some modified happiness theories aremental state theories, whereas other theories (e.g. my own the-ory) also regards the state of the world as directly relevant forwell-being.

THE DIFFERENT CONTRIBUTIONS

Most of the contributions in this special issue purport to pro-vide some kind of answer to the general question of the goodlife. Tannsjo argues that classical hedonism is the most plausi-ble theory of the good life, and this makes him the only mentalstate theorist among the contributors. All the other contributorsassume that there is more to well-being than happiness, butthere are some differences between the alternative views that aresuggested. For example, Brulde argues that a certain kind ofmodified happiness theory is to be preferred, whereas Chekolaargues that there are at least two prudential values besides hap-piness, namely rationality and autonomy. No contribution sug-gests that the happiness theory should be abandoned altogether,however, i.e. everyone agrees that happiness is an importantand crucial component in the good life.

Even though four of the five contributors reject the pure hap-piness theory of well-being (in all its forms), there is still somediscussion of which version of this theory that is most reason-able. Or alternatively put, the question of what notion of happi-ness that makes happiness most valuable (and most morallysignificant) for us is thoroughly discussed in several of the con-tributions. For example, Haybron, Griffin, Brulde, and Chekolaall seem to agree that the cognitive (attitudinal) view and thehedonistic view should both be rejected in this context, but thereis some disagreement on which conception of happiness that

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yields the strongest connection between happiness and well-being.

It is worth noting that Tannsjo is the only contributor whodoes not explicitly talk about happiness. Instead, he formu-lates and defends a certain interpretation of the classical hedo-nistic theory of well-being. He also defends a certain moraltheory which incorporates this view, however, namely (narrow)hedonistic utilitarianism.

NOTES

1 Notice that I do not make any references to intrinsic value here. The rea-son for this is that is rather irrelevant in the present context (and perhaps inall other normative contexts as well). That something has intrinsic valuemeans that its value is based on its intrinsic properties, i.e. that is has valuein isolation. That something has extrinsic value, on the other hand, meansthat its value is based on e.g. its relational properties. The distinction be-tween intrinsic and extrinsic value is not always carefully distinguished fromthe distinction between final and instrumental value, e.g. it is still quite com-mon in the philosophical literature that instrumental value is contrasted withintrinsic value rather than with final value. This is a mistake, however, e.g.that something is desirable as an end does not imply that its value is basedon its intrinsic properties (cf. Kagan, 1992; Brulde, 1998).2 The circumstances which are only of instrumental value for the final hu-man good can be called ‘‘quality of life determinants’’, and once we havedecided what a person’s well-being consists in, the question of what thesedeterminants are can of course be investigated empirically.3 What is bad for a person is (on this view) not really to have one’s desiresfrustrated – i.e. not to get what one wants – but to have one’s aversions ful-filled – i.e. to get what one does not want. Desire frustration and aversionfulfilment do not always appear together, e.g. it is not always the case that adesire for the presence of something is accompanied by an aversion againstits absence.4 It is worth noting that Parfit’s classification is not really complete, i.e. thatthere are several logically possible views that do not fit into the classification,e.g. the idea that nothing but love has final prudential value. However, if werestrict our attention to theories which have actually been held by variousphilosophers, the classification is pretty complete.5 Here are some examples of formal theories in other parts of ethics: (i)Nozick’s idea that a distribution of resources is just if and only if (and be-cause) it has been generated by a ‘‘fair procedure’’; (ii) the Kantian idea thatan action is morally right if and only if it is in accordance with some validnorm, where a norm is valid if and only if we can consistently will that it

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should become a universal law; (iii) Elster’s idea that a desire (or belief) isrational if and only if (and because) it has the right kind of history.6 This is not to deny that happiness also has instrumental value, e.g. that itis also good because it has positive affects on e.g. health and social behav-iour, which in turn may affect happiness favourably.7 These are not the only possibilities, however. For example, the conceptionendorsed by Mark Chekola in this special issue is not included in this list.8 It is worth noting that both Dan Haybron and Mark Chekola use this phrasein a different way. In their terminology, the life satisfaction view is more or lessidentical with what I have called the cognitive (or attitudinal) view.

REFERENCES

Brulde, B.: 1998, The Human Good (Acta Universitatus Gothoburgensis,Goteborg).

Griffin, J.: 1986, Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Impor-tance (Clarendon Press, Oxford).

Haybron, D.M.: 2000, �Two philosophical problems in the study of happiness�,Journal of Happiness Studies 1, pp. 207–225.

Haybron, D.M.: 2001, Happiness and Ethical Inquiry: An Essay in the Psy-chology of Well-Being (Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of NewJersey, New Brunswick, NJ).

Kagan, S.: 1992, �The limits of well-being�, in E.F. Paul, F.D. Miller, Jr. and J.Paul (eds), The Good Life and the Human Good (Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge), pp. 169–189.

Lane, R.E.: 2000, �Diminishing returns to income, companionship – andhappiness�, Journal of Happiness Studies 1, pp. 103–119.

Nordenfelt, L.: 1991, Livskvalitet och Halsa: Teori och kritik (Almqvist &Wiksell, Falkoping).

Parfit, D.: 1984, Reasons and Persons (Oxford University Press, New York).Rabinowicz, W. and J. Osterberg: 1996, �Value based on preferences: On twointerpretations of preference utilitarianism�, Economics and Philosophy 12,pp. 1–27.

Scanlon, T.: 1993, �Value, desire, and quality of life�, in M. Nussbaum and A.Sen (eds), The Quality of Life (Clarendon Press, Oxford).

Sumner, L.W.: 1996, Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics (Clarendon Press, Ox-ford).

Tatarkiewicz, W.: 1976, Analysis of Happiness (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague).Varelius, J.: 2004, �Objective explanations of individual well-being�, Journal ofHappiness Studies 5, pp. 73–91.

Veenhoven, R.: 1984, Conditions of Happiness (D. Reidel, Dordrecht).Veenhoven, R.: 2000, �The four qualities of life: Ordering concepts and mea-sures of the good life�, Journal of Happiness Studies 1, pp. 1–39.

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Veenhoven, R.: 2003, �Hedonism and happiness�, Journal of Happiness Studies4, pp. 437–457.

Author for Correspondence:BENGT BRULDEDepartment of PhilosophyGoteborg University,200SE-413 18, Goteborg,Sweden.E-mail: bengt.brylde@phil.gu.se

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