CFP: Philosophies - Special Issue on the Philosophy of Human Well-Being

Human well-being has been a central philosophical topic throughout the history of philosophy, though it has temporarily been out of fashion. It has recently achieved new prominence, partly as a reaction to the boom in empirical studies of, and public interest in, the nature and conditions of well-being. Philosophers have tried to improve the conceptual and methodical foundations of well-being research, though with mixed success.

Philosophy itself has had difficulties moving beyond the stalemate between subjectivist and objectivist views, and between the “big three” (hedonism, desire satisfaction, and objective list theories), and there are doubts about the real-world applicability or usefulness of abstract notions of well-being. New ideas for hybrid, holistic, dynamic, or contextualist theories of well-being have been put forward, but neither sufficiently developed nor widely discussed.

This Special Issue aims to advance the state of the art of philosophical theorizing about human well-being, by focusing on, for example

- how to incorporate or otherwise respond to empirical findings

- how to develop new and more refined concept and methodologies for accurately measuring well-being

- how to synthesize or move beyond the dominant conflicting approaches 

- how to respond more adequately to standard objections to the dominant approaches

- how to construct theories of more specific forms of well-being or well-being in particular groups or contexts

- the role of meaning and authenticity in well-being 

- the role of cultural differences and culturally embedded notions and practices in human well-being, and the study of it

Submissions and questions regarding the publication (suggestions for contributions, or abstracts, are also welcome) should be sent to the guest editor prof. Søren Harnow Klausen, University of Southern Denmark ([email protected])