Multi-component theories of well-being

Abstract

The 'adjustment strategy' currently seems to be the most common approach to incorporating objective elements into one's theory of well-being. These theories face a certain problem, however, which can be avoided by a different approach - namely, that employed by 'partially objective multi-component theories.' Several such theories have recently been proposed, but the question of how to understand their mathematical structure has not been adequately addressed. I argue that the most mathematically simple of these multi-component theories fails, so I proceed to investigate more sophisticated ways to formulate such a theory. I conclude that one of these - the Discount/Inflation Theory - is particularly promising. © 2012 The Author. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly © 2012 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.