Well-Being in contemporary society

This anthology examines the practical role of well-being in contemporary society. It discusses developments such as globalization, consumerism, and the rapid innovation and use of new and emerging technologies, and focuses on the significant impact of these developments on the well-being of people living today. The anthology brings together researchers from various disciplines, including psychology, economics, sociology, philosophy, and development studies. It provides concrete insight on the role and importance of well-being in contemporary society, using a mix of empirical grounding, philosophical rigour, and an emphasis on real-world applications. It is unique in that it seeks to understand the relation between well-being research and its application towards real problems.

Inflammation and fatigue dimensions in advanced cancer patients and cancer survivors: An explorative study

BACKGROUND: Inflammation may underlie cancer-related fatigue; however, there are no studies that assess the relation between fatigue and cytokine

The ruin of Homo Oeconomicus

In this paper it is shown that the most rational of all creatures, Homo Oeconomicus, can be enticed to freely engage in an activity that is guaranteed to lead to his ruin. It is furthermore shown that this is possible if and only if utility functions are unbounded. The paper thus develops an argument in favour of bounded utility functions

Transitivity, the Sorites Paradox, and similarity-based reasoning

A persistent argument against the transitivity assumption of rational choice theory postulates a repeatable action that generates a signi…cant benefit at the expense of a negligible cost. No matter how many times the action has been taken, it therefore seems reasonable for a decision-maker to take the action one more time. However, matters are so fixed that the costs of taking the action some large number of times outweigh the benefits. In taking the action some large number of times on the grounds that the bene…ts outweigh the costs every time, the decision-maker therefore reveals intransitive preferences, since once she has taken it this large number of times, she would prefer to return to the situation in which she had never taken the action at all. We defend transitivity against two versions of this argument: one in which it is assumed that taking the action one more time never has any perceptible cost, and one in which it is assumed that the cost of taking the action, though (sometimes) perceptible, is so small as to be outweighed at every step by the significant benefit. We argue that the description of the choice situation in the first version involves a contradiction. We also argue that the reasoning used in the second version is a form of similarity-based decision-making. We argue that when the consequences of using similarity-based decision-making are brought to light, rational decision-makers revise their preferences. We also discuss one method that might be used in performing this revision

The importance of assent : a theory of coercion and dignity

The view that persons are entitled to respect because they are moral agents is fairly standard in modern day philosophy. What exactly is entailed by respecting persons as moral agents is, however, far less uncontroversial. In this dissertation, one particular aspect of respect for the moral agency of persons takes centre stage: the idea that if people do indeed matter because of their moral agency, then their moral judgments concerning issues by which they are directly affected (in particular those concerning the way they are treated by others) must matter as well. In fact, they matter so much that it is problematic to override or dismiss them, even when they can be shown to be fundamentally flawed, mistaken or otherwise in error ..