The Bright Eye and the Gleaming Coat? A Stoic Challenge to Haybron on Wellbeing and the Preconditions of Happiness

Part 1 of this paper shows how Haybron’s discerning emotional state theory of happiness, in contrast to other recent positions, expressly draws upon the Stoics (a) in his central/periphery distinction used to critique hedonism, and (b) in his phenomenology of happiness as involving good affects of attunement, endorsement, and engagement. Part 2 then sets out two departures of Haybron from the Stoic philosophers: (a) claiming that happiness is one part, the emotional element, of wellbeing, as against being its epigenetic byproduct; and (b), charging ancient eudaimonisms, including the Stoics, of being falsely objectivist and externalist in their conception of wellbeing, whereas a veridical account would recognise the internalist contours of well-being, which differs between individuals. Part 3 presents a Stoic critique of Haybron’s claims. It argues (a) that wellbeing and the cultivation of virtues (strengths of character, led by courage, moderation, wisdom, and justice) is the precondition for Haybron’s happiness, as an emotional state based upon fundamental existential security; and (b) that Haybron’s criticism of ancient eudaimonisms as deleteriously objectivist, and unable to accommodate the individual contours of different peoples’ wellbeing is demonstrably false, and based upon a limited understanding of the ancient philosophers of the Porch.