Abstract
It is a commonly expressed sentiment that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other. Typically such calls identify mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of science. We argue that the differences between philosophers and scientists thinking about well-being are more difficult to reconcile than such calls suggest, and that pluralism is central to this task. Pluralism is a stance that explicitly drives towards accommodating and nurturing the richness and diversity of well-being, both as a concept and as an object of inquiry. We show that well-being science manifests a contingent pluralism at the level of methodology, whereas philosophy of well-being has largely rejected pluralism at the conceptual level. Recently, things have begun to change. Within philosophy, conceptual monism is under attack. But so is methodological pluralism within science. We welcome the first development, and bemoan the second. We argue that a joined-up philosophy and science of well-being should recognise the virtues of both conceptual and methodological pluralism. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in the well-being sciences, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophical debate.
Highlights
The idea that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other is well rehearsed
Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in wellbeing science, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophy
Using participant observation and extended interviews they unearth the local, culturally specific, and even individual categories that characterise good life for people they study. In recognition of these ‘manifest’ well-being constructs, we might add an extra row to Table 1: The above discussion attributes to the science of well-being a diversity that we shall dub ‘methodological pluralism’
Summary
The idea that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other is well rehearsed. Recent calls for more interaction between the two fields emphasise the inevitable normative assumptions involved in defining and measuring well-being in the well-being sciences, and the dependence of philosophical theories of well-being on empirical facts about ordinary linguistic usage and psychology (Angner 2013; Bishop 2015; Prinzing 2020) These calls list mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of. Monistic approaches are tempting for their simplicity and usability, but their prevalence will undermine the goals of well-being sciences We argue that this field would do well to preserve and to nurture a pluralist outlook. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in wellbeing science, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophy
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