The main purpose of this chapter is to present an explanatory account – a theory – of human wellbeing, what it is and how it works, building on ideas developed in Chapter 2. The direction we are headed, beyond this chapter, is to show how this account can serve as a foundation for further ideas on a most crucial question; how to build societies which truly place wellbeing at the centre of their values and practices. This way of working in steps toward addressing a political and practical question may seem long-winded, but there are good reasons for taking this approach. Thus, before setting out my proposed theory of wellbeing, I will try to briefly explain these reasons.

As introduced in Chapter 1, much of what our governments and communities do now to organise society, deploy financial resources, and so on is not theory-free. It already contains and is shaped by certain values, beliefs, ideas, and assumptions, operating as working theories – explanatory ideas – about human nature and behaviour, what is good or right for us, and what we should do to address problems and improve things. When it comes to public policy – the things that governments do – these ideas are referred to as a ‘theory of change’; that is, a set of working ideas embedded within this or that public policy which says, in effect, ‘if we do x (our planned actions) then, for these reasons, that will lead to y (our intended outcomes)’ (Connolly & Seymour, 2015). For example, when politicians allocate funding to mental health services (the action), they’re operating on assumptions that these will be effective in treating people with mental illness (the reason), and so prevalence of those conditions will be reduced (the outcome). These theories of change may be explicit or take the form of tacit assumptions. They may be newly designed or built into long-standing institutional structures. Their use may be influenced by political interests. They may or may not apply contemporary evidence.

With all that in mind, there are three reasons why an alternative theory of wellbeing is needed to inform political and social change. The first, just mentioned, is that these kinds of explanatory theories are already present anyway, shaping and constraining social activity and politics.