From the monthly archives:

January 2007

Well-Being as Nature-Fulfillment? WTF?!

January 10, 2007

What are happiness and well-being? No need to make it complicated. Dan Haybron is correct:
The short answer, according to me
Happiness is best understood as consisting in a person’s overall emotional condition. This includes moods, many emotions, and a person’s mood propensity, or tendency to experience various moods (which varies considerably over time). To [...]

Read the full article →

Best Happiness Paper Ever: The Ready-to-Be-Disappointed Danes

January 10, 2007

The bar is extremely low, but this paper in the BMJ, “Why Danes Are Smug: Comparative Study of Life Satisfaction in the European Union,” is easily the funniest happiness research paper ever. Here are the concluding paragraphs:
Our analysis points to two explanatory factors. The Danish football triumph of 1992 has had a lasting impact. This victory [...]

Read the full article →

Free Kareem! Rally Tomorrow in Support of Jailed Egyptian Blogger

January 10, 2007

Thursday, January 11, 12:00 pm
Egyptian Cultural and Educational Bureau
1303 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

DC Coalition for Blog Freedom
Rally Info
Kareem FAQ
Case Primer

I’ve never been much of a placard-waving activist, but conversation with my colleague Tom Palmer, international ambassador of liberty, who knows about such things, has made me deeply concerned about the case of [...]

Read the full article →

Metaphysics is Boring When You Know the Answers

January 2, 2007

I took a huge number of metaphysics courses during grad school and, over time, I changed my mind about pretty much everything, other than my dogged commitment to the law of non-contradiction. Then I stayed stuck, because, of course, I eventually landed on the correct answers. I thought the NYTM article on free will was [...]

Read the full article →