ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the contemporary philosophical debate about well-being, examines at greater length the Buddhist understanding of well-being for both unenlightened and enlightened persons. There are three primary ways in which Buddhism is committed to an understanding of well-being. First, according to the doctrines of karma and rebirth, there is a sense of well-being in which, over time, a person's well-being is causally determined by person's moral virtue. Second, there is a higher form of well-being that is unavailable to persons in the cycle of rebirth, but is gained when persons attain enlightenment and thereby escape the cycle of rebirth. Finally, central Buddhist moral virtues such as compassion and loving-kindness involve the promotion of the well-being of all persons, presumably in both of the aforementioned senses of wellbeing. In general, mental-state and desire-satisfaction theories allow for more variation across individuals in what contributes to well-being than do objective-list and nature-fulfillment theories.
