Passing of Temporal Well-Being

<p>The philosophical study of well-being concerns what makes lives good for their subjects. It is now standard among philosophers to distinguish between two kinds of well-being:</p><p>· <i>lifetime</i> well-being i.e. how good a person’s life was for him or her considered as a whole and</p><p>· <i>temporal</i> well-being i.e. how well off someone was or how they fared at a particular moment in time (<i>momentary</i> well-being) or over a period of time longer than a moment but shorter than a whole life say a day month year or chapter of a life (<i>periodic</i> well-being).</p><p>Many theories have been offered of each of these kinds of well-being. A common view is that lifetime well-being is in some way constructed out of temporal well-being. This book argues that much of this literature is premised on a mistake. Lifetime well-being cannot be constructed out of temporal well-being because there is no such thing as temporal well-being. The only genuine kind of well-being is lifetime well-being.</p><p><i>The Passing of Temporal Well-Being </i>will prove essential reading for professional philosophers especially in moral and political philosophy. It will also be of interest to welfare economists and policy-makers who appeal to well-being</p>