A Personal-Projects Approach to Well-Being and Virtue: Philosophical and Psychological Considerations

Abstract

Philosophical theories of well-being are diverse and often in disagreement, but we believe progress can be made by starting from an assertion that we think all such theories can agree on—namely, that success in at least some of one’s personal projects (such as in relationships, occupation, or education) is crucial for well-being. We also believe that a useful perspective on virtue is that it reflects qualities that aid one in pursuing personal projects or in helping others to pursue theirs (taking into account possible conflicts between these two options). We marry this philosophical approach to a psychological investigation of the development of virtue and its association with well-being. We use a new theory of personality (Cybernetic Big Five Theory) to specify the psychological contents of personal projects, which we measure using Personal Projects Analysis (PPA), a method specifically designed to assess individuals’ idiosyncratic projects. We are studying 200 undergraduates assessed three times over two years, in an attempt to answer two questions. (1) What are the proximal mechanisms underlying the development of virtue? Does commitment to virtue-involving personal projects (such as friendship) make young adults more likely to develop the virtues that are related to those projects? How do culturally constrained goals (such as being a good friend) get translated into action; do these actions include the development of virtues as subgoals or higher-order goals? (2) How is virtue tied to changes in well-being? Does virtue lead to greater success in personal projects or to the adoption of more virtuous personal projects, and are these outcomes associated with greater subjective well-being? We will discuss the challenges we have faced in conceptualizing and designing the study, as well as our progress thus far.