Well-being and flourishing in C21st



Overview

Faring well is a natural aim of any living being. For humans, happiness and what it means to live well is a rather more complex issue that often includes a variety of elements, such as overall positive mental states, the affordances of harmless pleasures, good friendships, a certain level of autonomy, and often also the chance of accumulating a level of understanding or important knowledge. Irrespective of the size of subjective satisfaction with one’s life, personal flourishing in contrast often includes a measure of meaningful achievements.

In philosophy, the Greek notion of eudaimonia has us focus on living a good, that is, mindful life and realising one's own potential as the ultimate good. Interestingly, this in turn seems to suggest that well-being and flourishing do not always align in content. For example, someone might feel they had led a ‘wonderful life’ despite enduring psychological hardship, cultural alienation, or significant suffering. On the other hand, individuals involved in criminal acts may report high psychological well-being but lack the virtues central to Aristotelian accounts of flourishing. On top of it, today the rapid deployment of digital technologies and their uptake by society has modified our relationships to ourselves, each other, and our environment. This introduces new challenges and affects how we achieve well-being and flourishing and what it means to live a life that is good for a human being.

Programme details

Courses starts: 21 Apr 2026

Week 1: What do we mean by well-being and flourishing today and how is happiness measured?

Week 2: Hedonism

Week 3: Desire-fulfilment

Week 4: Objective list of values and goods

Week 5: Aristotelian eudaimonism and the virtue aspect of flourishing

Week 6: Spiritual approaches from East and West

Week 7: How important are relationships and other people in our pursuits of happiness?

Week 8: Is pain necessarily bad for us, and how detrimental is self-deception to our ability to flourish?

Week 9: Why direct attempts to maximise happiness generally fail in achieving their goal

Week 10: Episodic versus life-long meaningfulness to personal flourishing

Certification

Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme (CATS) Points

Only those who have registered for assessment and accreditation will be awarded CATS points for completing work to the required standard. Please note that assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail. Please follow this link for more information on Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme (CATS) points

Digital Certificate of Completion 

Students who are registered for assessment and accreditation and pass their final assignment will also be eligible for a digital Certificate of Completion. Information on how to access the digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course attended. You will be able to download the certificate and share it on social media if you choose to do so.

Please note students who do not register for assessment and accreditation during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun.

Fees

Description Costs
Course fee (with no assessment) £300.00
Assessment and Accreditation fee £60.00

Funding

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, you are a full-time student in the UK or a student on a low income, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:

Concessionary fees for short courses

Tutor

Dr Julia Weckend

Julia has taught philosophy at the Universities of Reading and Southampton before joining Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education in 2014. She gives public lectures and regularly teaches weekly classes, short online courses, as well as courses for Oxford University Summer School for Adults and Oxford Experience. Her academic research focusses on issues in metaphysics and epistemology. She has published papers and edited two volumes in the history of philosophy, and she is a co-author of the Historical Dictionary of Leibniz’s Philosophy (2023).

Course aims

This course aims to familiarise students with key conceptions and long-standing philosophical questions concerning well-being, personal flourishing and happiness against the backdrop of a fast-changing world.

By the end of this course, students will be expected:

  • to understand the central tenets and arising issues in the philosophy of well-being and flourishing
  • to have developed at least some of their own thoughts and positions on these topics
  • to be able to construct a philosophical argument in support of their views, both verbally and on paper.

Teaching methods

Interactive PowerPoint lectures accompanied by extensive handouts. Students will occasionally be asked to read a relevant web article, philosophical paper or chapter from a book to gain an understanding of the status of the current debate, and to prepare for seminar discussions. 

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will be expected to:

  • have gained insight into classic philosophical theories of well-being and flourishing, and use these insights to engage with modern and emerging issues like digital well-being
  • be able to describe and articulate the main distinctions and ideas that exercise contemporary philosophy of well-being;
  • constructively respond to the positions that have been explored by taking up a position of their own. 

Assessment methods

Option A: Assessment will be by means of three mini essays of 500 words each. 

OR 

Option B: Assessment will be by means of a single project equating to an essay of 1,500 words. It is recommended to submit a plan, set of notes, or first draft of the assignment circa 500 words. 

OR

The student may give a 10-minute class presentation on a pre-arranged topic. You will have to hand in your presentation notes to make sure that we can recognise it as a course submission and guarantee accreditation. 

Only those students who have registered for assessment and accreditation will submit coursework.

Application

To be able to submit coursework and to earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £60 fee per course. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. Please use the 'Book now' button on this page. Alternatively, please complete an Enrolment form for short courses | Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

Students who do not register for assessment and credit during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.

Level and demands

The Department's Weekly Classes are taught at FHEQ Level 4, i.e. first year undergraduate level, and you will be expected to engage in a significant amount of private study in preparation for the classes. This may take the form, for instance, of reading and analysing set texts, responding to questions or tasks, or preparing work to present in class.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support