Neera Badhwar's Neo-Aristotelian Well-Being: A Stoic Response

In her 2014 monograph, philosopher Neera Badhwar develops a neo-Aristotelian account of well-being according to which well-being consists in happiness in an objectively worthwhile life. An objectively worthwhile life is a life that is virtuous, but virtue is not enough for well-being: a person also must find pleasure and purpose in what the ancients called "external goods," that is, goods "external to the soul" like wealth, health, and friendships. Badhwar argues that these goods contribute to well-being directly, and she rejects the Stoic view that they are valuable only as the instruments and material of virtue. In this paper, I defend the Stoic view she rejects and make the case that if one claims that virtue is primary in well-being, as Neo-Aristotelians like Badhwar do, then one should adopt the Stoic view that well-being consists only in virtuous activity. While Badhwar and others dismiss that view as implausible, I defend its plausibility by arguing that its critics misunderstand it.