In Chapter 10 it was shown that despite wide differences in their foundations, three prominent styles of ethical theory interpret well-being across the generations to be the discounted sum of individual well-beings. We interpreted personal well-being to be the extent to which one’s informed desires are realised, and assumed it is a function of the individual’s standard of living. Realisation of informed desires applies to the cognitive component of happiness (some call it ‘contentment’), but not to the affective component (which can be called the ‘hedonic level of affect’) although it could have a bearing on affect. So, we now dig deeper into the content of well-being.367

In the formal models that were developed in previous chapters, the living standard was represented by the quantity of an all-purpose commodity to which the average person in society has access. We called the all-purpose commodity a consumption good. But the presumption that the sole factor in well-being is consumption may seem otiose.