Tiberius, Well-being, Meaning and Love

There are two main types of philosophical and psychological theories of well-being. Firstly there are subjective theories based on people getting what they want in some way, for instance feeling satisfied or simply experiencing more pleasure than pain. Secondly there are objective theories based on people obtaining certain goods from an objective list. This list might contain such things as having good health, education, friends and perhaps even having children. Valerie Tiberius proposes a compromise theory based on values, see Journal of Practical Ethics . She proposes a value fulfilment theory of well-being, referred to from now on as VFT. This theory proposes that how well someone’s life goes depends on how well she pursues and fulfils her values. Tiberius adds a further condition that these values should be suitable ones. In this posting I want to examine Tiberius’s proposal.

One problem with VFT is Tiberius’s additional requirement that these values should be suitable ones. Good health ought to be something we value yet someone has no reason, based solely on her values, to include good health among the things she values. If we insist that someone’s values must suitable ones then in normal circumstances these values must include elements such as good health. Accepting the above means that VFT differs only slightly from objective list theory. In order to examine the additional requirement of Tiberius I will now examine what it means to value something.

Bennett Helm believes our values are connected to our well-being. In addition Helm believes values are connected to our feelings of pride and shame,

 “for something to have value for one is for it to be the focus of a projectible pattern of felt evaluations. Because what is at stake in one’s values are oneself and one’s own wellbeing as this person, and because values involve an implicit understanding of the kind of life it is worth one’s living, the felt evaluations constitutive of this pattern …. are emotions like pride and shame.” (1)

However it seems to me I have no reason to be either proud or ashamed of my health. It follows if we accept Helm’s position that we need not value good health. It further follows if our well-being is based only on the pursuit and fulfilment of our values that good health does not contribute to our well-being.

Let us now examine what Tiberius means by valuing something?

“To value something is, in part, to be motivated with respect to it; desires and values are similar in this respect. But values have a special status in our planning and evaluation, they have greater stability than mere preferences and they are emotionally entrenched in ways that desires might not be.”

In what follows I will argue that valuing something as defined by Tiberius is akin to loving or ‘caring about’ something and that values so defined need not rely on her additional condition that they must be suitable ones.

What do I mean by ‘caring about’ or loving? I am not talking about romantic love. According to Harry Frankfurt love is roughly defined as follows.

“Roughly speaking, then, when I refer to love I am referring to a concern for the well-being or flourishing of a beloved object – a concern that is more or less volitionally constrained so that it is not a matter of entirely free choice or under full voluntary control, and that is more or less disinterested.” (2

In what follows loving something will mean to ‘care about’ the object loved, the beloved. This means someone is hurt when her beloved is damaged and benefits when her beloved benefits. It means someone identifies with her beloved. Now according to Tiberius values have a special status in our planning and, they have greater stability. According to Frankfurt if someone loves something this means his love,

“has less to do with how things make him feel, or his opinions about them, than the more or less stable motivational structures that shape his preferences and guide his conduct.” (3

)

Accepting the above means loving something is akin to valuing something because both valuing, as defined by Tiberius and loving as defined by Frankfurt, are concerned with caring about something in a persistent way. If we don’t love something then we don’t value it. However whilst we must love everything we value not everything we love is a value though of course it is of value. We may love our partners, children, wisdom and even buildings as well as being just.

Let us accept that our values are determined by what we love in the sense used above. I now want to argue if values are determined by our love, ‘caring about’ then we must value certain things. I will firstly argue that anyone who loves anything must love himself. It is important to remember I am referring to love as defined above and not to narcissistic or even romantic love. According to Frankfurt,

 “Caring about oneself is essential to being a person. Can something to whom its own condition and activities do not matter in the slightest properly be regarded as a person at all. Perhaps nothing that is entirely indifferent to itself is really a person, regardless of how intelligent or emotional or in other respects similar to persons it may be. There could not be a person of no importance to himself.” (4)

What are the implications of accepting Frankfurt’s position? I would suggest if someone doesn’t value herself she can’t value anything because it is impossible to have values without a valuer.  Of course I accept it is possible for someone to have a love/hate relationship with herself nonetheless it seems to me anyone who values anything must love, ‘care about’, value herself at least to some small degree. In practice this means she must value her health and the things that she believes help her flourish as a human being. It follows if someone has values that these values must include some essential values that there is no need for Tiberius’s additional qualification that these values must be suitable ones. Of course such a person may be weak and follow her values poorly but any associated problems are connected to a lack of motivation rather than a lack of values.

What are the practical consequences for well-being that flow from well-being being based on values and values being dependent on the ability to love? Firstly some people seem to love or care about very little in life, in previous postings I have characterised such people as suffering from the unbearable lightness of simply being . Such people have few values and are likely to lead a life driven mostly by their immediate desires and the situations they find themselves in much the same way as children do. It might be argued because such people find themselves in much the same position as children and because most children thrive that such people should also thrive. I would counter argue that most children have a life structured by their parents’ values and are in the position of acquiring values of their own. Most adults have acquired their own values or accepted their parent’s values as their own. Adults who have acquired few values of their own are likely to lead unstructured chaotic lives. It follows if our well-being depends on our values as proposed by Tiberius that such people will have low well-being. I would further suggest that such people’s lives will lack meaning see meaning love and happiness . Secondly some people will have an inconsistent set of values. For instance it is possible to imagine someone who values being a hands on mum and also values pursuing a full time career.  Such a set of inconsistent values is likely to lead internal conflict which will lower her well-being. Thirdly some people are likely to have a set of inappropriate values. For instance someone might value athletic prowess even though she does not have the requisite physical attributes whilst possessing greater intellectual attributes which would permit her to lead a successful academic career.

In the light of the above it might appear that if we can help some people acquire some values, help other people sort out their inconsistent values and lastly help others to change or lose their inappropriate values that we can increase well-being. Tiberius holds that if we are to do so we must overcome two difficulties. The first difficulty is an epistemic one. How do we know which values someone holds? Of course we might simply ask them. Unfortunately some people might pretend that they hold better values than they do in practice. Even more worrying is that some people might be unware of their own values. Someone may believe she values x but when she comes to act she may find she values y more. Nonetheless it seems to me that provided we are careful to control our epistemic arrogance that we can ascertain some of the values others hold.

Let us assume that we can become aware of other people’s values. Let us further assume we are aware that some people’s values are inconsistent or inappropriate. If someone’s values are inconsistent then we might hope increase her well-being by pointing out this inconsistency. A more consistent set of values would reduce someone’s internal conflict and hence increase her well-being. However if someone’s values are inappropriate then a second difficultly arises according to Tiberius. The difficultly in,

“ascertaining whether it is desirable (in terms of the goal of promoting well-being) to discount, ignore or override a person’s actual current values. let’s call this the interpersonal challenge.”

The question to be answered is this. If we can help someone to change her values can be we be reasonably sure that this change would be beneficial. Clearly if someone’s values are damaging ones we should intervene as Tiberius points out we should do in the case of someone addicted to drugs. Other cases are not so clear cut and if we do intervene we must ensure we are in an epistemic position to do so and that when we do so we respect someone’s autonomy before acting beneficently . It seems to me that in the case of people we love we cannot help but intervene due to the nature of love. According to Frankfurt,

“the nature of a lover’s concern that he is invested in his beloved. That is, he is benefited when his beloved flourishes; and he suffers when it is harmed. Another way of putting it is that the lover identifies himself with what he loves. This consists of accepting the interests of his beloved as his own.” (5)

In this posting loving means ‘caring about’ as outlined above. It follows if friends or family members have inappropriate values which harm them that we will naturally try to change these values for reasons of love. However persons are shaped by their values sometimes we must accept the person for who she is and not attempt to reshape her values.

I accept Tiberius is right in her contention that how well someone’s life goes depends on how well she pursues and fulfils her values. However I now want to argue even if we accept Tiberius proposed VFT, but without her additional condition that someone’s values must be suitable ones, that our scope for intervention is limited. According to VFT well-being is dependent on our values. I have argued that our values depend on what we love. According to Frankfurt the lover,

“is not free. On the contrary, he is in the very nature of the case captivated by his beloved and his love. The will of the lover is rigorously constrained. Love is not a matter of choice.” (6)

It follows we can’t just simply decide to change our values. Indeed if we could do so it would seem our values would become valueless. It follows changing someone’s values to improve her well-being is difficult. The above leads to the rather pessimistic conclusion that if we believe someone has a set of inappropriate values the best we can do is simply to point her to situations that challenge these values.

1.      Bennett Helm, 2010, Love, Friendship and the Self, Oxford, page 109.

2.     Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press. Page 165.

3.     Frankfurt, page 129.

4.     Frankfurt, page 90.

5.     Frankfurt, 2006, Taking Ourselves Seriously, Stanford University Press, page 41.

6.     Frankfurt, page 135.