Abstract
First there seemed to be well-being. Then there were theories of well-being. Next came meta-theories of well-being. Now, in a final level of abstraction, there is a meta-analysis of meta-theories of well-being. This is it. In this thesis I present and justify a framework for sorting metaethical theories of well-being. I argue that this framework successfully maps onto, and in some places extends beyond, the existing landscape of the metaethics of well-being and can therefore be an invaluable tool for theorists exploring this area. I first argue for a ground-up method of construction for the framework and present the well-being literature used in this construction. Next, I provide an account of the metaethical assumptions behind much of the first-order well-being theorising. This is the ‘Standard Picture’: a metaethical theory of well-being. The Standard Picture is constituted by five positions:
SP1: the function of ‘good for’ in expressions of kind ‘X is good for S’ is variable.
SP2: among the functions of ‘good for’ in expressions of kind ‘X is good for S’, at least one uniquely relates to well-being.
SP3: for any subject S at any time t there is exactly one correct account of S’s well-being (conceptual monism).
SP4: well-being is fundamentally normative.
SP5: there is a single first-order account of well-being that applies to all subjects of well-being (well-being invariabilism).
Each position SP1-5 represents a central point of disagreement for theorists in the metaethics of well-being. I use SP1-5 to structure the framework and this thesis. I classify theories by the point at which they diverge from the Standard Picture in the framework. I argue that theories face localised problems because of their place of divergence from the Standard Picture. In some cases, I argue that particular classes of theories can respond better than others to these localised problems and in more ambitious cases, I argue that areas of the framework ought to be abandoned because of these problems. While justifying the framework as a tool for theorising I also present novel arguments for and against extant metaethical theories of well-being and present potentially fruitful parallels between the metaethics of well-being and other more established areas of philosophy.