Happiness: From Subjectivity to Objectivity

L.W. Sumner argues that there are no objective standards for well-being, because neither prudential values nor moral or perfectionist values can serve as such standards. Prudential values cannot do the job because it is circular to say that the objective requirement for well-being is that the life be truly prudentially valuable, and moral and perfectionist values cannot do it because there is a conceptual gap between these and prudential values. I show that these arguments fail, hence there is no conceptual or other barrier to the idea of an objective standard for well-being. Moreover, Sumner’s own conception of well-being as authentic happiness is highly implausible, for it allows even paradigmatically inauthentic people to count as authentic. A plausible, descriptively adequate conception of authenticity must be understood in terms of the individual’s attitudes in important areas of her life. Understood thus, I suggest, authenticity serves as an objective standard for a worthwhile life. It thus serves as a standard for authentic happiness as the highest prudential good.