http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/services/Feed ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:11450 Mainstream economists have recently discovered what heterodox economists have long known - that the study of psychology is useful in understanding human behavior and the success of socioeconomic policy. Many orthodox economists now accept that happiness exists, can be objectively measured, has important individual and social consequences and can be externally altered (Easterlin 1974; Kahneman 1999; Blanchflower and Oswald 2004; Layard 2005). The new research on well-being suggests that economics must now go beyond the nineteenth century psychological approach that characterizes neoclassical analysis, toward a more "Veblenian" or Humanistic approach to human psychology (Cordes 2005). The utilitarian (Benthamite) psychology that has dominated mainstream economic thought for the last century tries to explain and predict human behavior as the outcome of self interested action, which is manifest, ideally, in voluntary exchange. Yet, among other failures, this hedonistic psychology is largely incapable of explaining why economic growth has not improved well-being in the developed world; it sheds little light on the abundance paradox experienced in many rich countries today. The inability of economic growth to improve life satisfaction in the developed world is becoming increasing apparent. Given the social, psychological and environmental fallout of the last 50 years of economic growth, it is unclear whether "material abundance" in advanced nations is a reflection of social progress. Such questioning echoes the doubts of early socialist thinkers (such as Owen, Mill, Marx, and Keynes) that access to more goods will improve the human condition. Revealing the seamy side of growth, recent well-being research seriously questions whether the preponderant emphasis placed on production over the last 50 years has allowed individuals to "live wisely and agreeably well" (Keynes 1972). 2012-09-04T03:12:26.278Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:1692 This paper examines Pedro Tabensky's claims that rational human life has a single unifying purpose, and that there is an analogy between the skill of living and that of painting. It examines his arguments for the first claim, in particular the relation between rationality and different ways in which a life might be unified. For, in addition to the narrative or artistic unification which Tabensky favours, there is also (for example) the possibility of unifying one's life through the adoption of a so-called monolithic end, such as pleasure (assuming that pleasure is monolithic). The paper also investigates the implications of each of these modes of unification for how we should understand the skill of living. According to the narrative or artistic model, living will indeed be like painting; however, according to the monolithic-end model, living may be more like business management; and other models may make other analogies salient. All this will make a difference to our attitudes to events within our lives, for example, whether the inevitable disturbances within our lives are to be integrated or, rather, eliminated. 2010-04-27T06:10:42.667Z ]]>