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A new well‐being atomism
Author(s) -
Hersch Gil,
Weltman Daniel
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/phpr.12900
Subject(s) - atomism , hedonism , epistemology , value (mathematics) , moment (physics) , variety (cybernetics) , philosophy , computer science , physics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , machine learning
Many philosophers reject the view that well‐being over a lifetime is simply an aggregation of well‐being at every moment of one's life, and thus they reject theories of well‐being like hedonism and concurrentist desire satisfactionism. They raise concerns that such a view misses the importance of the relationships between moments in a person's life or the role narratives play in a person's well‐being. In this article, we develop an atomist meta‐theory of well‐being, according to which the prudential value of a life depends solely on the prudential value of each moment of that life. This is a general account of momentary well‐being that can capture different features of well‐being that standard atomistic accounts fail to capture, thus allowing for the possibility of an atomism that is compatible with a variety of well‐being theories. Contrary to many criticisms leveled against momentary well‐being, this well‐being atomism captures all of the important features of well‐being.