ABSTRACT
The highly individualistic character of what constitutes a "good" life purports to the need for an orientation not: on happiness directly, but: on possibilities – on livelihood and life chances. In the likely diversity that good lives would take, related to the diversity that is inherent in what needs and values are most important to different people, there is a positive correlation with the necessity for diversity as an evolutionary precondition to ongoing development. This presents the confluence that is repeatedly the case: Any one factor taken per se can probably not be satisfied in a perfectly "positive ecological" way. Ultimately, however, creating ways of living that constitute an integrated and even ecologically restorative economy, even if ignored so far, by and with an orientation shifting from mere short-term profit derived from natural capital and by the psychology of the stock market to sustainably living off the interest will become necessary if a positive development is to be achieved.
