Compare two theories of well-being from the following: subjectivism, objectivism, eudemonic well-being with a consideration of their different tenets and philosophical standpoints.
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Here is a structured philosophical comparison of subjectivism, objectivism, and eudaimonic well-being as theories of what makes a life go well.
Theories of Well-Being: A Comparative Analysis
Overview
Theories of well-being attempt to answer a foundational philosophical question: What is fundamentally good for a person? The three major frameworks — subjectivism, objectivism, and eudaimonism — give radically different answers, grounded in different metaphysical and ethical commitments.
1. Subjectivism
Core Tenet
A life goes well to the extent that it satisfies the individual's own psychological states — desires, preferences, or feelings of pleasure. The defining move is this: things are good for a person because they want or enjoy them. Value is conferred by the subject's attitudes, not discovered independently of them.
Major Variants
Hedonism (Bentham, Mill, Epicurus): Well-being consists in the balance of pleasure over pain. A life is good insofar as it feels good. The subject's conscious experience is the only currency of welfare. Modern psychological research on "subjective well-being" (Diener) largely operationalizes this through life satisfaction scores and affect balance.
Desire-Satisfaction Theory (Hume, later Rawls, Parfit): Well-being consists in getting what one wants. A stronger version holds that informed or idealized preferences — what a fully rational agent with complete information would prefer — constitute well-being. This addresses the obvious counterexample that satisfying some desires (e.g., harmful ones) seems bad for a person.
Philosophical Standpoint
Subjectivism aligns with empiricism and anti-paternalism: it respects individual autonomy, denies that any life-form is objectively superior, and fits naturally with welfare economics (preference satisfaction as the criterion for social welfare). It draws on Humean meta-ethics, where value is rooted in sentiment and desire rather than reason or nature.
Strengths
- Respects individual differences and self-determination
- Empirically tractable (measurable via surveys and reported affect)
- Avoids imposing external standards of the "good life"
Criticisms
- The experience machine objection (Nozick): If well-being were purely about subjective states, rational agents should plug into a machine that simulates any pleasurable life. Most people refuse, suggesting we value things beyond inner experience.
- Adaptive preferences: People can be conditioned to want very little — a slave who desires only their chains reports high satisfaction. Pure subjectivism cannot explain why this seems like a failure of well-being.
- Misinformed desires: Satisfying a desire formed on false beliefs (e.g., drinking from a poisoned cup thinking it is wine) doesn't plausibly benefit a person.
2. Objectivism
Core Tenet
Certain things are good for a person independent of whether they want them or take pleasure in them. Well-being has objective constituents — knowledge, achievement, deep relationships, health, virtue — that benefit a person regardless of their attitudes toward those goods. Things are desired because they are antecedently good, not good because they are desired.
Major Variants
Objective List Theories (Finnis, Griffin, Hurka, Parfit): There is a list of objectively valuable items — typically including knowledge, friendship, achievement, health, and autonomy — that constitute well-being. Different theorists propose different lists, but the structure is the same: these goods have intrinsic prudential value independent of any subject's preferences.
Perfectionism (Aristotle in one reading, Nietzsche, Hurka): Well-being consists in the perfection or full development of human nature. What is good for a person is determined by what the best version of a human being looks like — realizing one's essential capacities.
Philosophical Standpoint
Objectivism is grounded in moral realism and often in natural law or essentialist traditions. It holds that prudential value is part of the fabric of reality, not constructed by individual minds. Neera K. Badhwar (2014) argues that "the objective value of a life is partly constitutive of a life's prudential value, and that the idea of the highest prudential good for an individual entails the idea of an objectively worthwhile life."
Strengths
- Explains why adaptive preferences and satisfied-but-impoverished lives seem deficient
- Provides a ground for interpersonal and cross-cultural comparisons of welfare
- Can condemn exploitation and oppression even when victims report contentment
Criticisms
- Paternalism: If well-being can be imposed against a person's will, this risks authoritarian social policy — forcing people to pursue goods they don't value.
- List arbitrariness: How is the objective list justified? Different theorists produce different lists, raising the question of whose conception of the good prevails.
- Cultural elitism: Early objectivist accounts (Aristotle's view that manual laborers cannot truly flourish) expose a tendency to privilege one mode of life — typically intellectual or civic — as the human ideal.
- Alienation problem: An objective good that a person finds deeply alienating (e.g., forced religious devotion) seems to harm rather than benefit them, which pure objectivism struggles to explain.
3. Eudaimonic Well-Being
Core Tenet
Eudaimonism, rooted in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, holds that well-being (eudaimonia — often translated as "flourishing" or "happiness") consists not in pleasurable states or satisfied preferences, but in living and acting in accordance with one's highest human capacities — principally reason and virtue. A person flourishes by functioning well as the kind of being they are.
Key Aristotelian Concepts
- The Function Argument: Just as a knife's good is to cut well, the human good is determined by the characteristic function of human beings — rational activity in accordance with virtue (arete).
- Virtues: Both intellectual virtues (practical wisdom, phronesis) and moral virtues (courage, justice, temperance) are constitutive of flourishing, not merely instruments to it.
- Contemplation: Aristotle places the contemplative life (bios theoretikos) as the highest form of eudaimonia, though a secondary eudaimonia is available through the excellent exercise of civic and moral virtues.
- External Goods: Aristotle acknowledges that flourishing requires a minimum of external conditions — health, friendship, material resources — since severe misfortune can undermine even the most virtuous life.
Modern Eudaimonic Psychology
Carol Ryff operationalized eudaimonia into six psychological dimensions: self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, autonomy, and positive relations with others. Richard Ryan and Edward Deci's Self-Determination Theory (SDT) reformulates eudaimonia around three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This strand distinguishes eudaimonic well-being from hedonic well-being empirically as well as conceptually.
Philosophical Standpoint
Eudaimonism sits at the intersection of objectivism and a qualified subjectivism. It is objectivist insofar as it posits a determinate human nature whose actualization constitutes flourishing, independent of what individuals happen to desire. But it also insists that genuine flourishing involves the agent's own activity and engagement — one cannot be flourishing passively or coercively. This is why some philosophers (e.g., Badhwar) see eudaimonism as the best synthesis: it ties objective worth to the individual's own rational nature rather than to an externally imposed checklist.
Strengths
- Integrates virtue, meaning, and character — not just momentary experience
- Explains why a comfortable but idle, vice-ridden life fails to constitute well-being
- Empirically supported by research showing that eudaimonic engagement predicts better health, resilience, and meaning even independent of hedonic affect
Criticisms
- Teleological presupposition: The function argument relies on the idea that humans have an essence or telos — a metaphysical claim many modern philosophers reject.
- Narrow ideal: The classical account privileges intellectual and civic life, marginalizing alternative ways of living well.
- Cross-cultural applicability: The content of "virtue" and "rational activity" varies across cultures, making it difficult to apply universally without cultural imperialism.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Dimension | Subjectivism | Objectivism | Eudaimonism |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source of value | Subject's desires/feelings | Mind-independent facts | Human nature/function |
| Key criterion | Pleasure, preference satisfaction | Objective list of goods | Virtuous rational activity |
| Role of desire | Constitutive of well-being | Irrelevant or incidental | Important but not sufficient |
| Risk | Adaptive preference, alienation | Paternalism, elitism | Teleological dogmatism |
| Philosophical roots | Hume, empiricism, liberalism | Moral realism, natural law | Aristotle, virtue ethics |
| Autonomy | Central | Secondary | Integrated but structured |
| Cross-cultural scope | Universal (all preferences count) | Claims universality via human goods | Claims universality via human nature |
| Empirical link | Hedonic psychology (Diener) | Capability approach (Sen, Nussbaum) | Eudaimonic psychology (Ryff, Ryan & Deci) |
Points of Deep Philosophical Disagreement
1. The Euthyphro-style question (Plato's framing, applied here by Heathwood & Sobel): Are things good for us because we want them, or do we want them because they are good for us? Subjectivists take the first horn; objectivists and eudaimonists take the second. The direction of grounding is the central divide.
2. The role of the subject's perspective: Subjectivism gives the subject's own viewpoint absolute authority. Objectivism can override it entirely. Eudaimonism tries a middle path — the agent's own engagement and rational endorsement matter, but not every preference counts.
3. Paternalism vs. alienation: Objectivism risks paternalism (imposing goods against a person's will); subjectivism risks validating alienated or impoverished lives. Eudaimonism attempts to dissolve this tension by arguing that genuine human flourishing, once understood, is something agents can and should endorse — but this risks circular reasoning.
4. Metaphysical commitments: Subjectivism is compatible with moral anti-realism. Objectivism requires some form of realism about prudential value. Eudaimonism typically requires an essentialism about human nature that many post-Darwinian philosophers find dubious.
Synthesis and Contemporary Relevance
Martha Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach represents a sophisticated objectivist-eudaimonic hybrid: flourishing requires the actual ability to exercise a set of central human capabilities (life, health, emotional development, practical reason, affiliation, play, and more). This addresses the alienation problem by insisting that capabilities must be genuinely available to the agent, not merely imposed.
The tension between subjectivism and objectivism remains live in applied contexts — debates over quality of life measurement in health economics, disability rights (do people with disabilities have lower well-being, or have they adapted to different conditions of flourishing?), and the design of social welfare policy all hinge on which theory of well-being one adopts.
References
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Books I and X
- Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia (experience machine argument)
- Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and Persons, Appendix I
- Badhwar, N.K. (2014). Well-Being: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life
- Ryff, C.D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Ryan, R.M. & Deci, E.L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials. Annual Review of Psychology
- Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating Capabilities
- Sobel, D. & Wall, S. (2025). The Subjective/Objective Distinction in Well-Being. Ethics
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