The most common cause of failure in life is ignorance of one's own True Will, or of the means to fulfill that Will. [...] A Man whose conscious will is at odds with his True Will is wasting his strength. (Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Part III) How can you be successful and live a good life? Well, don't waste your strength. That's simple volitional logic. But what is success? Success is subjective, and yet... you cannot define it for yourself. You can't determine what success means to you, just … [Read more...]
What Is Well-Being? And Is It All We Care About?
If we want to know what's good for us as individuals and as a society, we must know what personal actions and public policies maximize our subjective well-being. But before that, we must know what it means to be well in the first place. Is well-being a feeling? Something more lasting? Or maybe something deeper altogether? As scientists have found, well-being is all these things—and they are less different than we think. Economists have also investigated whether maximizing well-being truly … [Read more...]
Against Values & Principles
The Human Will Humans want to survive and flourish, to live and live well, to be and be well: Well-being is a combination of pleasure and meaning in life. Humans want to feel good and fulfilled. They want hedonic and eudaemonic happiness; some more of the pleasure part, others more of the meaning aspect. A good life is a positive well-being balance over a lifetime. If, on your deathbed, you were to look back at every moment you have lived, summing up all your pleasures and pains, all your … [Read more...]
Do You Have Meaning in Life? (Take This Quiz!)
Eudaemonic Well-Being There are two types of happiness: Pleasure is short-term happiness: the hedonic feeling we enjoy while we're present to the moment. Meaning is long-term happiness: the eudaemonic sense we enjoy while we're aware of our purpose and belonging in life. In this blog post, I want to introduce some recent research on meaning in life, which rests on one key conceptual distinction. But before I expand on the distinction, I want you to take a little quiz that shows you how it … [Read more...]
Is Progress Good for Humanity?
Introduction Historical progress is the advancement in science, technology, economics, politics, and quality of life over years, decades, and centuries. If human well-being has increased along with such improvement, that is moral progress and as such good for humanity. Part 1 of this article argues that historical progress is real. Humans have substantially improved their lives over the course of history. Part 2 investigates whether historical progress coincides with moral progress. Have … [Read more...]
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