Anarchy, state, and utopia

The morality of freedom

Women and human development: the capabilities approach

Measuring National Well-being: Inequalities in Social Capital by Age and Sex, July 2015 This article provides an analysis of inequalities in social capital by age and sex in the UK, using the latest available data. The data are based on 25 headline measures, which cover 4 key aspects of social capital: personal relationships, social network support, civic engagement and trust and cooperative norms.

Measuring National Well-Being

Natural Law and Natural Rights

Programmes for measuring national wellbeing are challenged by the fact that there are a number of competing theories of what wellbeing consists in, and there is no prospect that the debate between them will be resolved. Although different theories disagree about what constitutes wellbeing, I argue that there is substantial common ground on what I call the 'markers' of wellbeing: things that are either constitutive, productive or indicative of wellbeing. Whatever stands in one of these relations to wellbeing is potentially relevant to its measurement. Something that is constitutive of wellbeing according to one theory will often be productive or indicative of wellbeing according to another and thus, despite their differences, both theories may acknowledge it as a marker of wellbeing. This paper considers which markers of wellbeing are sufficiently widely shared between different mainstream theories that they could form the basis of a theory-neutral approach to the measurement of wellbeing for the purposes of public policy. The paper defines what would count as a marker of wellbeing in this context; sets out criteria that candidate markers would need to meet; and proposes a list of nine markers that I argue are consistent with a wide range of mainstream theories and with widely-held folk assumptions about wellbeing.

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The markers of wellbeing: A basis for a theory-neutral approach

Social scientists have been interested in measuring the prosperity, well-being, and quality of life of nations, which has resulted in a multiplicity of country-level indicators. However, little is known about the factor structure of these indicators. We explored the structure of quality of life, using country-level data on tens of subjective and objective indicators. Applying factor analysis, we identified three distinct factors that exhibited both overlap and complementarity. This structure was replicated in data from previous years and with a partially different set of variables. The first factor, ‘socio-economic progress’, is dominated by socio-political and economic indicators but also includes life satisfaction, which thus appears to reflect objective living conditions. The second factor, ‘psycho-social functioning’, consists of subjective indicators, such as eudaimonic well-being and positive affective states. The third, ‘negative affectivity’, comprises negatively-valenced affective states. The three macro-factors of societal quality of life demonstrated moderate intercorrelations and differential associations with cultural and ecological variables, providing support for their discriminant validity. Finally, country and regional rankings based on the three societal factors revealed a complex picture that cautions against over-reliance on any single indicator such as life satisfaction. The results underline the need for a broadly-based approach to the measurement of societal quality of life, and provide an empirically-derived multidimensional framework for conceptualizing and measuring quality of life and well-being at country level. This study is thus an initial empirical step towards systematizing the multiple approaches to societal quality of life.

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A multidimensional understanding of prosperity and well-being at country level: Data-driven explorations

A number of governments and international organisations have begun to adopt well-being as an explicit aim of public policy , and are setting up programmes to measure it . However, there are a number of rival philosophical accounts of well-being , and social scientists also make different assumptions about the nature of well-being, raising the question of what it is that should be measured. The main focus of disagreement between rival theories is on the explanatory question concerning what constitutes well-being . This chapter argues that, even though that disagreement is likely to continue, there is nevertheless a good prospect of identifying areas of common ground regarding the markers of well-being . It shows through examples that what is a constituent of well-being according to one theory may not be so according to another, but may nevertheless be acknowledged as something that tends to be productive of well-being, or to be an indicator of well-being , and thus will still be relevant for the purposes of measurement . Further work is needed to compare the implications of different theories and identify the extent of common ground. Consensus is likely be imperfect and incomplete, but the area of common ground may nevertheless be large enough to form the basis of a set of shared working assumptions about well-being that could underpin the choice of objective and subjective measures to inform public policy .

Towards Consensus on Well-Being

When we talk about well-being we often also talk about what is "good for" a person. The fact that we use the term "good" suggests that there is a kind of value here. Philosophers tend to call this "prudential value" to distinguish it from value of other kinds, such as aesthetic value or moral value. Surprisingly little attention is given in the philosophical literature to the relationship between prudential value and well-being. Often, they are simply regarded as synonyms (in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example [Crisp 2008]). In this paper I shall argue that it is useful to make a distinction between these two separate, but closely related, notions and that a recognition of this distinction, and an increased focus upon prudential value in certain circumstances, would be beneficial in the context of public policy. The Distinction When we say that a person has a high level of well-being, we tend to mean that his life is going well for him overall. In some cases a judgment about well-being may concern a person's whole life, but it is more usual to talk about somebody's well-being at a particular time. Sometimes we talk about specific kinds of well-being, such as psychological or social well-being. In these cases we are concerned with how well a person's life is going in a particular respect, rather than on the whole. Nevertheless, a judgment about someone's level of psychological or social well-being is still a judgment about how well his life is going overall in that respect. By contrast, when we talk about prudential value, we do not necessarily make any overall evaluation of a person's life. We may, of course, talk about the prudential value of a person's life itself--whether it is a good life for that person. But lives are by no means the only things that we evaluate in this way. We talk about all sorts of things, including objects, people, events, and states of affairs as being good or bad for people. When we talk about something's being good for a person, we mean that this thing makes, or tends to make, that person's life go better for her. But making such a judgment does not imply any judgment about how well her life is going overall. Indeed, the judgment that something is good for some person is entirely consistent with a judgment that the person's life is going badly overall. Thus, for example, when a condemned man eats his favorite meal on the eve of his execution, it is plausible that in some small way his enjoyment of the meal is good for him: it makes his life go a little bit better for him than it would have gone otherwise. Nevertheless, this is consistent with the fact that overall his life is going very badly indeed. We might say that the meal has positive prudential value for him, but that his level of well-being is very low. We can sum up the distinction by saying that well-being is what someone has if her life is going well for her; whereas something has prudential value for someone if it contributes to making her life go well. Some Points about Prudential Value Prudential value is a kind of value alongside other kinds, such as aesthetic value. It has a particular property that helps distinguish it from other kinds of value. Prudential value is always relative to a person or other welfare subject: something that has this kind of value is good for someone (or something). Other kinds of value aren't usually seen as having this kind of relativity: things are good simpliciter, not good for someone (although there are philosophical views that hold that certain kinds of value may be relative in a different way: to a certain cultural context or sensibility). Prudential value also has certain properties that it shares with some other kinds of value. It can be positive or negative: things can be good for someone or bad for someone. "Bad," in this context, does not mean merely "not very good," but is the opposite of good: "bad for" is to "good for" as "concave" is to "convex," not as "big" is to "small. …

Well-being and Prudential Value

The fact that people adapt to changes in their life circumstances has had a significant impact on the debate about well-being and its relationship to public policy, leading some to reject the use of subjective well-being measures, while others continue to advocate them. This paper discusses the effects of adaptation upon subjective measures of well-being, the extent to which it can be regarded as a genuine influence upon well-being or as a distorting factor, and what this implies for the use of such measures. The extent to which adaptation can be seen as distorting will vary between different theories of well-being. However, the paper argues that, on any plausible theory, it will be true that adaptation sometimes has a distorting effect, but does not invalidate subjective measures and may sometimes be a genuine influence on well-being. The paper concludes by suggesting some steps that might minimise distortion affecting subjective measures, and argues for a broadly based approach to well-being measurement...

Tim E. Taylor

Papers

The markers of wellbeing: A basis for a theory-neutral approach

A multidimensional understanding of prosperity and well-being at country level: Data-driven explorations

Towards Consensus on Well-Being

Well-being and Prudential Value

Adaptation and the Measurement of Well-being