Ill-Being: Philosophical Perspectives

Abstract It is commonly accepted that a complete theory of the prudentially good life, broadly understood, must include both a theory of well-being and a theory of ill-being. While well-being has been the subject of significant philosophical inquiry, however, ill-being has received far less attention. The handful of philosophers who have considered ill-being have challenged the common belief that ill-being is the symmetrical counterpart of well-being, and argued that deriving accounts of ill-being from existing theories of well-being is more complex than it appears. The present collection, comprising fifteen original essays, offers an in-depth exploration of the philosophical issues surrounding ill-being. Issues covered include the role of ill-being in everyday practice, the aggregation of goods and bads, degrees of well- and ill-being, how existing theories of well-being can account for ill-being, the role of adaptive preferences in ill-being, and how to understand the badness of pain. By examining the relation of ill-being to a variety of connected phenomena, such as unhappiness, negative emotions and affects, pain, disability, disease, and failure, the essays help not only to illuminate a notion that has high practical import, that of ill-being, but also the more frequently studied notion of well-being.