Sebastian Östlund

Promoting well-being is a central concern in both private and public life. Yet, what that amounts to is contested and the disagreements run deep. In this dissertation, I argue that analyses of well-being should take into account more features of doing well and doing badly than is typically recognised. I put special emphasis on hitherto under-researched ideas about what makes a life go badly, thereby identifying further well-being policy interventions. To arrive at my conclusion, this dissertation contains an introductory chapter and four articles that relate to well-being. In the introductory chapter, I first give an overview of my arguments. Second, I present my analytical framework: the capability approach. Third, I detail general features of well-being theories. Fourth, I introduce the most traditional well-being theories. Fifth, I compare the traditional theories to analyses of well-being based on my chosen framework. The framework, i.e., the capability approach, focuses on genuine opportunities, beings, and doings. An opportunity to a being or doing, X, is considered genuine when a person satisfies conditions that are jointly sufficient to achieve X if she chooses to do so. I use these concepts to identify what well-being is. I contribute to four debates. Namely: (1) the extent to which expert opinions and public opinions on well-being policies can be reconciled, (2) whether doing badly is fully accounted for by failures to attain well-being goodness, (3) the different ways in which a person can be doing badly, and (4) whether well-being is one single thing. My four main contributions are as follows. First, I argue that, and show how, expert opinions and public opinions that diverge can be equitably reconciled. Second, I argue that, and show how, prudentially negative beings and doings should be assessed, by analysing cases of homelessness. Third, I argue that the capability approach can be used to offer a complementary account to the predominant philosophical analyses of addiction, taking into account that it can arise in various ways. Fourth, I defend a view stating that well-being is context-sensitive and that different analyses apply in different contexts. It is my firm, considered, belief that theoretical analyses of well-being and practical policy work should be done in tandem and influence each other. Through my series of arguments, I conclude that, in order to promote well-being, we need more conceptual tools and a clearer view of specific life situations than what is standardly acknowledged in the literature.

Typically, philosophers analysing well-being’s nature maintain three claims. First, that well-being has essential properties. Second, that the concept of well-being circumscribes those properties. Third, that well-being theories should capture them exhaustively and exclusively. This predominant position is called well-being monism. In opposition, contextualists argue that no overarching concept of well-being referring to a universally applicable well-being standard exists. Such a standard would describe what is good, bad, and neutral, for us without qualification. Instead, well-being research is putatively about several central phenomena. If several phenomena are central, a proliferation of concurrently acceptable well-being theories and operationalisations is expected. However, contextualists are challenged to explain how those analysing well-being are not systematically talking past each other. In this paper, I address that challenge. The upshot is that contextualist well-being theories can be justifiably context-sensitive and applied to tailor-made policy-making efforts. I illustrate the benefits by connecting contextualism to the capability approach.

Addiction is a widespread problem affecting people from different regions, generations, and classes. It is often analysed as a problem consisting in compulsion or poor choice-making. Recently, however, integrated analyses of compulsion and choice have been called for. In this paper, I argue that the capability approach highlights the well-being loss at stake in cases of addiction, whether they are described as stemming from compulsion, poor choice-making, or some combination thereof. The relevant capabilities obtain when combinations of individual, socio-political, and environmental factors jointly facilitate abstention. On this complementary evaluative analysis, people’s capabilities to abstain are shown to be undermined by how different kinds of factors interact with each other. The upshot is that without committing to an empirical view of the nature of addiction that must capture each case, the capabilitarian analysis helps highlight a central goal of addiction-related well-being policy-work, namely to promote people’s genuine opportunities to abstain.

This dissertation contains an introductory chapter and four articles. In section 1 of the introductory chapter, I provide an overview of my argument. In section 2, I do five things. First, I show that well-being is subject-relative, meaning that well-being is always present in a life if it is present at all. Second, I restrict the discussion to people as welfare subjects. Third, I describe the levels of generality that well-being theorising can take. Fourth, I show well-being’s relations to other values. Fifth, I describe the distinction between having or not having positive well-being and enduring ill-being. In section 3 of the introductory chapter, I outline the main philosophical well-being theories. I highlight their strengths and weaknesses, before moving on to section 4 where I describe the conceptual framework I use in my articles: the capability approach. The capability approach focuses on genuine opportunities, beings, and doings. The opportunities, beings, and doings can be specified in different contexts as needed. Hence, capabilitarian analyses focusing on different opportunities, beings and doings, are available. In my articles, I argue for four things regarding those well-being analyses. First, I argue that, and show how, expert opinions and public opinions can be reconciled in well-being policy-making situations. Second, I argue that, and show how, prudentially negative beings and doings should be assessed by analysing cases of homelessness. Third, I argue that the capability approach can be used to offer a complementary account to the predominant philosophical analyses of addiction which mainly focus on its descriptive nature. My complementary analysis highlights further targets for policy-making efforts. Fourth, I argue that well-being is context-sensitive. To that end, I bolster the capability approach by refining a view called contextualism. I defend this view against counterarguments and consequently both contextualism and the capability approach are made more viable.

Political practices often aim to reach valuable outcomes through democratic processes. However, philosophical considerations and democratic deliberations sometimes support different conclusions about what a valuable outcome would be. This paper contributes to a research agenda that aims to reconcile recommendations that follow from these different bases. The setting for this research agenda is capabilitarian. It affirms the idea that what we should distribute are substantive freedoms to be and do things that people have reason to value. Disagreements about these valuable outcomes become particularly problematic in urgent situations such as pandemics, floods, and wildfires. These situations are urgent since they are time-sensitive and involve an impending loss of well-being. A method of compromise would help mitigate losses of well-being while respecting the aim of reaching valuable outcomes through democratic processes. I thus offer an equitable and decisive method of compromise that helps integrate philosophical considerations with democratic deliberations.

Central capabilitarian theories of well-being focus exclusively on actual opportunities to attain states of being and doing that people have reason to value. Consequently, these theories characterise ill-being and disadvantage as deprivations of such opportunities and attainments. However, some well-being aspects are inherently negative. They make up the difference between not being well and being unwell in that they constitute ill-being. While disadvantage can be plausibly captured by deprivations, ill-being cannot be fully captured by them. I support this claim by analysing cases involving inherently negative aspects of homelessness that are not mere deprivations of opportunities to attain beings and doings that people have reason to value. I conclude that ill-being is not only about what one cannot be and do, but also about one’s enduring, and opportunities to avoid, negative beings and doings. Theories and policies should reflect this to get things right, and to do right by people.