Craig Minns:
“I'm not sure that I agree with you that a well-lived life is beyond our subjective judgement”.

It’s not merely that our contemplation of a well-lived life is constrained within existing ideological constructs, but that prevailing material conditions preordain and enforce those limits. Further, that the prevailing system is not conducive to a well-lived life in any qualitative sense that is also ethical and sustainable. As you’ve implied yourself elsewhere, the system within which we must attempt to live the good life is riven by disparities which are fundamental to its partial and uneven prosperity. As things are, a well-lived life must remain a privileged condition in the now global context.
Looking at the remainder of your post, you illustrate my point in that your social engineering ideas fail to address the root of all our social and material woes: the mode of production. The system in which we strive for a well-lived life is fundamentally unethical and unsustainable, making the cherished object untenable.
This is not to take a Marxist stance except in recognising his insight that the mode of production remains idealistically untouched. Thus, all progressivisms to date have sought to address the ugly social consequences of an economic rubric which ‘demands’ them.
If anyone can offer a plausible scenario whereby the magic pudding continues to get bigger in a finite system, or whereby equality and prosperity among our leavening populations is finally achieved (to say nothing of ethical glitches like the Anthropocene mass extinction, or destruction of the biosphere generally, and ultimately ourselves), I’ll rethink it. The reality is that inequality is growing and set to soar (again), and no amount of positive psychology can foster a well-lived life under these conditions—unless it’s based on renunciation.
Thus my unfortunate predicament in having to preach cynicism to my own kids, in wishing them worldly success yet despising them for it—or rather, hoping they’ll season it with modesty, ‘genuine’ thoughtfulness and a refusal to give in to Panglossian logic.
I’m not calling for revolution but economics based on husbandry; rather than arbitrary generation of wealth.

Killarney, while I accept that there is an expense involved in this, you have to ask yourself, what's more important, costs, or caring for kids, because after all, wasted welfare effects kids more than anything else. They can't (little ones) fend for themselves and rely 100% on being born to caring, loving parents.

Now if they're not, then they need all the help we the community and tax payer can give, in exchange, we ask that our welfare dollars not be wasted.

Is Mise, this is not about monitoring dole recipients, it's about trying to broach the often generational problem of children being brought up where parents, even if they do care, can't possibly support them while on the dole. So the very least they can do is distribute the kind (compulsory) tax layers donations in an appreciative manner.

Perhaps one out there idea would be to take non working fathers, who abandon their kids, or this who simply refuse to pay support, and place them in some type of publicly run detention centre where they are cared for, in exchange for their benefit and remain there until one, they get a job, and two, they take responsibility for the children they fathered by way of finical support.

Now if they don't like it, then they simply have to pay for their kids and, if they claim they can't due to not having a job, then detain them so at least they can't create any more kids to abandon.

The problem is, having kids and abandoning them is just too easy.

Thanks Squeers, another interesting and provocative post, although I'm not sure that it addresses the same discussion, necessarily :). I'll set out the things I think are not in contention first.

Prevailing defining material conditions are not optimal and are a limiting factor in generalising opportunity to enjoy a well-lived life.

The mode of production is a critical factor. I agree with this, but I think my reasons are different. See below.

A continual growth model is not tenable long-term. As above.

A conservative, consumption-limited ethos is a pragmatic necessity.

So where do we differ?

Primarily, I think in the way we see the functional role of materiality and the effect that has on the way we weight the importance of distributive fairness on the one hand and access to the fruits of production on the other.

While I don't disagree that a life without fear of material want is something we would all aspire to for those we love, there is no strong evidence I am aware of that supports an argument as to the causal nature of material satiety and having a life that is subjectively perceived as worth living for its own sake. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that materiality as a predictor of subjective evaluation of quality of life is not much chop.

Most generally, that a well-lived life is dependent on anything but the interaction of individuals within a community [family, village, workplace, etc] motivated by mutual goodwill to act to identify and satisfy intrinsic needs, with some extrinsic challenges that are tough but doable with effort.

In other words, it is the way we think about things which makes us able to live a life well or in some cases, tragically, to give up without trying because we've been taught to be helpless.

Rehctub, unfortunately it is different now, having come from an era where the male who fathered a baby out of wedlock was expected to help keep that baby, or either of the family, that is parents, both the male and female were probably intending to get married anyway, the scenario today is for all and sundry males to take advantage of females, but these females seem to not care if they get pregnant, not knowing who the father is, that is the difference from past situations to now. Having viewed many females and the way they are dressed late at night I can understand from a male point of view, they are easy meat, but then "I can dress as I like"if your boobs are just covered and your dress or pants just cover your bum, what really is it saying to a horny male.

Squeers, Craig Minns, time to come out of the kindergarten & into the real world kids. Perhaps you might notice people aren't equal. If you are less competent, or productive, you are of less value, & have no right to expect others to pick up your slack.

It has always been such, just a damn sight harder & more direct in days of yore.

The less competent fisherman, or hunter, & his family had less to eat than the better performer.

The family of the less competent farmer, or finder & digger of roots was likely to starve in hard times, along with her family.

In todays much kinder western world, we feed clothe & house the incompetent, & even give them money for TVs, cars, & medical treatment. Now you expect us to fund their breeding, so as to produce more incompetents for us to fund.

Russia & China tried this under communism, & million starved when the competent got sick of providing, & decided to do no more than the growing bludger class.

The seeds of our destruction are in your constant demands for increasing handouts for the useless.

Hi Hasbeen,
Sadly, I haven't been a kid for a long time.

I think you may have misunderstood my argument, so please accept my apologies for not being clearer. I'd also appreciate it if you could give me your opinion on how I could do that.

I like your argument from evolution, but I think it's incomplete. Man has prospered to the extent that we are a group species. The noble savage struggling alone against a savage nature was never a part of the human success story. All our closest relatives among the higher primates are group species, so it's not a new invention.

What I am suggesting is that as a group species, our evolutionary past tells us the best way to address the problem of people who have a bad start to life is to teach them how to make the most of what they have and the confidence in themselves to have a go. From what I've read of your values here, having a go is pretty high on the list, as it is on mine.

A society based on the harsh utilitarianism in your first paragraph is one that hasn't moved on from its roots as a dumping ground for the human waste products of 18th Century Britain's rapid industrialisation and social decay. It's a pretty poor result for nearly 250 years of having a go, don't you reckon?

Tennyson said it better even if, like me, you aren't religious.

"Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law-
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed-

Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him."