Good Life Does Not Depend on Objective Values - Essay Sample

Introduction

Many people believe that it is eventually happiness that makes a good life and a life that is worth living, i.e. that the good life is equal to a happy life. On the untainted version of this perception, happiness does not merely play a core role in the good life (well-being); It is also a believed that there are no other ultimate prudential values aside from happiness. On this view, nevertheless, things such as friendship, love, meaningful activity, human development, freedom, or appreciation of true beauty are just instrumentally valuable for one i.e. they are not good as the end but just as means to the only thing that is good as an end, namely happiness. Therefore, as one is highest personal or prudential good a person well-being gives them a purpose to cultivate certain traits and act in a certain manner and not others.

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According to some or maybe many individuals, the principle by which they assess their lives as worth living or satisfactory requires not themselves pass muster by some objective principle of worth, because there are no objective standards of worth for meaningful life. Those who live by subjective value believe that well- being is the uttermost sensible good for a person as a human being; wellbeing must realize both the individuals' own principles and specific objective standard of worth. Alternatively, on this perception, the personal own standards must pass muster by an objective value of worth. Therefore, objectives theory claim that, objective value of a life is relatively constitutive of a life's prudential value and the notion of the uppermost prudential good for an individual comprises of the concept of an objectively worthwhile life. In the Well-Being; Happiness in a Worthwhile life (2014) point that a satisfactory conception of well-being must attain the correct specification of the highest prudential good as the amplest, self- reliable, and, choice worthy good for a person. The core idea is that the highest prudential good for a person is the life that is greatly pleasing and worth living. Hence, objective value provides what is required to make life worth; an understanding of the significant elements of one's own life and human life in overall and the qualities that are vital for attaining such understanding and act accordingly.

However, this view has been opposed in the philosophical; subjectivism regarding the prudential good has been on the dominance, gaining strength and decorum from its alliance with empirical studies of subjective well-being. Subjectivism appears to be aligned with the preference view of welfare economics. According to the theory of subjectivism, objectivist theories of well-being are elitist providing short shrift to a person's own point of view of his/ her life and objective value ignore the individual difference. Further, objective theories confuse the prudential value of life with scopes of value. Finally, an objective value can lead to paternalism that is the imposition of the objectivist's preferences on others against their will.

Objective theories tend to ignore the individual's own viewpoint on her life. A good life must be good based on her own perspective. Objective theories have also been criticized for ignoring the individual's own point of view on her life, the fact that her good must be her good from her own perspective counterintuitive view. The theories of objectives claim that enjoyment or deep pleasure of goods is crucial to well-being, therefore, an individual who has no pro-attitudes towards good has no more well-being than who lack both of them.

Richard Arneson acknowledges the significance of the individual's own feeling towards an assessment of his life when he stated that life of objective well-being is a life "that has lots of pleasure, especially when this comes by way of enjoyment of what is truly excellent, a life that includes sustained and deep relationships of friendship and love, a life that includes significant achievement in art or culture or systematic scientific understanding, a life that includes significant and sustained meaningful and interesting work--these features of a life inherently make it a better one for the one who lives it" (Arneson, 113-142). However, objective list theory does not offer this kind of view of good life yet an individual perspective on her life and her positive assessment of it crucial for wellbeing. The theory of insofar suggests that everyone's well-being needs and can be improved by cultural or intellectual accomplishment and appreciation of beauty among others. It has a shallow view of the kinds of lives, which can be worthwhile or happy. All the objectives theory uses Aristotle's conception on which it supports the idea that a life of manual labor is a life that no one would choose freely and the life of a philosopher is the most flourishing. Such conception are wrong since, someone who has well-being as the uttermost prudential good owns the trait essential for a worthwhile life( reality- oriented and autonomy), comprehends imperative elements of his own life and human life in general and follows those worthwhile goals that rhyme with his particular nature- those pursuits in which he/she realizes happiness. According to Masterman (726), someone activities must engage his/ her interest and passions to be satisfying. Such views recognize that as such as human are alike, they also very different in terms of talents, tastes, and, abilities. Moreover, these differences joined with differences in our social conditions, results in differences in the sort of lives different people need for their own happiness.

In addition, according to some of the philosopher such as Sumner, consider of objective theories relies on a basic confusion of the prudential value of a life with other values. According to summer, such a standard cannot be prudential because of it unclear to claim that objective condition for wellbeing is that life should be handled as purely as prudentially valuable. However, the principle be neither good nor perfectionist. For instance, Sumner (164-165) imagine someone who is a model of virtue or who has improved his/ her core human abilities to a typical level failing to realize happiness in his perfectionist and ethical excellence. Further, Sumner (20- 25) call for thinking of a honest, generous, and, a just man who fails to fulfill his dreams, losses his wealth to his fake friends, and his wife to his amazing neighbor or an isolated genius , who dies never having experience the simple pleasure of hanging out with the simple pleasures of hanging out with drinking associates or the affection of romantic love or for that matter, of the self-governing and reality-oriented, but unhappy individual. Therefore, virtue and perfection do not assure well-being. Sumner argued that there is there is an intangible gulf between prudential values, on the one hand, and moral or perfectionist values, on the other. Thus, well-being is exclusively subjective.

Work Cited

Arneson, Richard J. "Human flourishing versus desire satisfaction." Social Philosophy and Policy 16.1 (1999): 113-142

Kashdan, Todd B., Robert Biswas-Diener, and Laura A. King. "Reconsidering happiness: The costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia." The Journal of Positive Psychology 3.4 (2008): 219-233.

Masterman N. Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Volume I: Autobiography and Literary Essays. Modern Language Review. 1986;81(3):726-727.

Sumner, Leonard Wayne. Welfare, happiness, and ethics. Clarendon Press, 1996.