| Popis: |
While various authors have tried to merge happiness and sustainability together in such concepts as sustainable happiness and sustainable well-being, among others, the link is tenuous as the theories built around these concepts are incomplete. In this work, I strive to fill this gap by integrating further conceptualizations of the value of life. While happiness and sustainability are not one in the same, since someone can be happy in unsustainable ways and since something can be performed sustainably without causing happiness, I reflect on the overlap where happiness and sustainability come together. This overlap seems to be the most meaningful and purposeful notions of the terms and the sense in which they have their most normative force. I will attempt to identify the overlap to define both happiness and sustainability as the promotion of life. I will evaluate whether and how this stipulative, working definition for these terms can be useful for practical guidance in real projects in an attempt to bridge theory and application. I review the place of happiness and positive psychology in well-being philosophy and recent advances incorporating sustainability into well-being theory. I also discuss various conceptions of the value of life. I then incorporate these preceding philosophies together to form a conceptual map of the variety of assessments of life that exist. From these concepts, I develop preliminary principles that might serve as a guide for practical living, for happier, more sustainable, and more ethical lives. |
