Journal
THEORIA-A SWEDISH JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Volume 74, Issue 3, Pages 219-238Publisher
BLACKWELL PUBLISHING
DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-2567.2008.00019.x
Keywords
happiness; whole life satisfaction; welfare; well-being; prudential value; eudaimonism; Richard Brandt; Wayne Sumner; Elizabeth Telfer; Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz
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The most popular concepts of happiness among psychologists and philosophers nowadays are concepts of happiness according to which happiness is defined as satisfaction with life as a whole. Such concepts are Whole Life Satisfaction (WLS) concepts of happiness. I show that there arc hundreds of non-equivalent ways in which a WLS conception of happiness can be developed. However, every precise conception either requires actual satisfaction with life as a whole or requires hypothetical satisfaction with life as a whole. I show that a person can be happy (in any familiar sense that might be relevant to eudaimonism) at a time even though lie is not actually satisfied with his life as a whole at that time. I also show that a person can be happy at a time even though it is not correct to say that if lie were to think about his life at that time, lie Would be satisfied with it as a whole. My thesis is that if you think that happiness is the Good, you should avoid defining happiness as whole life satisfaction.
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