The theory of well-being tells us the rough outlines of a good life and it explains why this life is good for one person while a different life is good for someone else. But the theory does not identify a good life in detail; this is something that must be done through the practice of living by engaging in reflection, planning, gaining experience, observing the effects of these experiences, and so on.
Valerie Tiberius
University of Minnesota
Valerie Tiberius is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, where she has taught since 1998. She earned her B.A. from the University of Toronto and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work explores the ways in which philosophy and psychology can both contribute to the study of well-being and virtue. She is the author of The Reflective Life: Living Wisely With Our Limits (Oxford 2008), which examines how we ought to think about practical wisdom and living a good life given what we now know about our psychological limitations from research in psychology. Her last book, Moral Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge 2015), brings together traditional philosophical approaches and new empirical approaches in order to investigate topics such as moral motivation, moral responsibility, and reasons to be moral. Her newest book develops the value fulfillment theory of well-being and will be published by Oxford next year. She has also published numerous articles on the topics of practical reasoning, prudential virtues, well-being, and the relationship between positive psychology and ethics, and has received grants from the Templeton Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is currently the President of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association.