Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)

A Critical Look at The Good Life, Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being

Document Type : Research

Author

Hamidreza Mahboobi Arani

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Tarbiat Modares University

Abstract
Philosophers defend theories of what well-being is but ignore what psychologists have learned about it. Psychologists learn about well-being but lack a theory of what it is. In The Good Life: Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being, Michael A. Bishop marries these complementary investigations under what he regards as an “inclusive approach” and the result is a new framework for understanding well-being and the good life, that is “the network theory”. This theory identifies well-being with instantiating a self-sustaining network of positive feelings, attitudes, behaviors, traits, and accomplishments: a positive causal network. When doing well, you are embedded in a self-reinforcing web of positive internal and external states and events; when doing badly, you are caught in a "rut" or "vicious cycle" of negative interactions. Well-being is not just one component of a positive causal network, such as pleasure, desire-fulfillment, or virtuous activity. Well-being is the network itself. The current paper introduces the book with an emphasis on these two main foci. Then, it conclude with some objections to both methodology and substantive aspect of theory which mainly concerns its power of normativity.

Keywords

Well-being
Philosophy
Positive Psychology
Inclusive Approach
the Network Theory

Subjects

حق‌شناس، علی‌محمد و دیگران (1389)، فرهنگ هزاره، تهران: فرهنگ معاصر.
Bishop, Michael, A. (2015), The Good life, Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being, Oxford University press.
Bishop, Michael A. (2012), “The Network Theory of Well-Being: An Introduction, The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition”, Logic and Communication, vol. 7, no. 0.
Bishop Michael, A. and J. D. Trout (2005), Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, Oxford University Press.
Crisp, Roger (2017), “Well-being”, <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being>.Haybron, Dan (2011), “Happiness”, <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ happiness>.
Haybron, Dan (2016), “The Good life, Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being”, Notre Dam Philosophical Reviews, <http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/he-good-life-unifying-the-philosophy-and-psychology-of-well-being>./
Kornblith, Hilary (2002), Knowledge and Its Place in Nature, New York: Oxford University Press.
Parfit, D. (1984), Reasons and Persons, New York: Oxford University Press.
Sumner, L. W. (1996), Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)
Volume 18, Issue 7 - Serial Number 59
December 2018
Pages 273-287

  • Receive Date 13 June 2018
  • Revise Date 13 August 2018
  • Accept Date 23 August 2018

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