ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 outlines the preliminaries for a framework for understanding well-being. Contrary to contemporary misconceptions, well-being is a rich evaluative concept that can be given an empirical specification without recourse to reductive accounts such as rational preference or pleasure theories. Another common misconception includes the failure to separate what constitutes well-being from what causes it. A third error consists in identifying the definition of well-being with how it is measured. To explicate the normative framework, we specify the relevant value-making facets of human life in terms of four structural features. First, our lives are composed of various experiences, activities and processes. Second, we are aware of those constituents of a life in ways that can be more or less appreciative of their valuable nature. Third, these activities (etc.) are relational in nature: we are always interacting with things and persons. Fourth, in these activities, we are also aware of ourselves; we are self-conscious. The core idea is that being well is constituted by intrinsic goodness along these necessary dimensions of our (human) way of being. This framework is illustrated throughout the book using our life-narrative interviews with 50 persons regarding their well-being.
