Well-Being
Happiness in a Worthwhile Life
Neera K. Badhwar
Reviews and Awards
"Badhwar's overall argument and her portrayal of the highest prudential good is powerful, rich, and worth serious consideration." -- Richard Kim, Journal of Moral Philosophy
"Badhwar's theory contains many other riches-and not only the provocative ideas I have been discussing. Her work deserves the attention of all students of value theory." -- Richard Kraut, Philosophical Review
"There is much to admire in this book. Badhwar has refined several important arguments against subjectivist accounts of well-being. She has challenged the subjectivist to explain precisely what is objectionable about tying well-being to her non-Moorean form of objective value. Badhwar's discussion of autonomy is subtle and original. She persuasively argues that self-direction requires reality-orientation...Her critique of Stoic eudaimonism ... is absolutely devastating." -- Jason Raibley, Ethics
"The renaissance of virtue ethics, in particular the rise of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, has greatly stimulated renewed reflection on the concepts of happiness and well-being, on the relations between prudential value and moral goodness, the instrumental and intrinsic value of the virtues, and so on. In this context, it is not easy to come up with something that is both original and convincing. Neera Badhwar's tightly argued Well-Being: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life goes a fair way towards being both..." -- Anders Schinkel, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
"This is an ambitious and important book. It manages to clear a commonsensical path through the non-commonsensical stretches of various eudaimonistic theories of virtue and happiness--while remaining squarely in the Aristotelian tradition, construed broadly. It resists the (aspirational) Aristotelian impulse to cast virtue in terms of fixed global traits of character. It resists the Stoic insistence on collapsing the account of the good into one thing--virtue itself--with everything else being at most a preferred indifferent...For all these reasons, this work is bound to be an important resource for further work on virtue ethics generally, whether within the eudaimonistic tradition or not." -- Lawrence C. Becker, Professor Emeritus, College of William and Mary
"[C]onsistently engaging, colorful, and intricately argued." -- Jean Kazez, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"In addition to her incorporation of the philosophical literature, Badhwar shows how her thesis is complementary with ongoing research into experimental psychology. Her informed and nuanced treatment of the empirical evidence throughout the text is not simply philosophy playing 'catch-up' with science, or related to it in any superficial way. Rather, a great strength of the work is its ability to show how philosophy and empirical psychology can inform and support (and deeply criticize) one another." -- Seamus O'Neill, Philosophy in Review
"Neera Badhwar has given us a rich, subtle and humane philosophical portrait of human flourishing, marrying the critical bite of Aristotelian theories with the subjective attractions of modern accounts, and providing an exceptionally thoughtful discussion of the significance of autonomy and reality-orientation for human well-being (Badhwar 2014). It is an important contribution to the debate regarding Aristotelian theories of well-being, which for my money are the most formidable of the traditional players in philosophical debates about well-being." -- Daniel Haybron, Journal of Value Inquiry
"This wonderful book opens up the topics of well-being, happiness and virtue from fresh angles, and stimulates thinking about the relation of happiness to virtue, as well as the importance of circumstances and the nature of vice. Anyone interested in these topics should read this book." -- Julia Annas, University of Arizona
