Announcements

International Wellbeing and Public Policy Conference
The International Journal of Wellbeing is hosting a major conference on wellbeing and public policy in mid June 2012. For more information click here.

For Wellbeing Researchers
The International Journal of Wellbeing is a new open access interdisciplinary academic journal on wellbeing. See our first two issues and learn how to submit your quality wellbeing research here.

Wellbeing Survey!
The International Wellbeing Survey is the largest longitudinal survey on wellbeing. We need both philosophers and non-philosophers to take part. For more information please click here (if you are a philosopher) or here (if you are are not a philosopher).

Latest News

16 March 2012:
I received a Victoria Doctoral Completion Award for finishing my PhD on time.

12 March 2012:
I submitted my PhD today. You can see the version that was sent to examiners here: Link

7 March 2012:
My 2-page solution statement for the 2 April high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on 'Happiness and Wellbeing: Defining a New Economic Paradigm' is now available from the official website for the event. Other contributors include Martin Seligman, Felicia Huppert, and Carol Graham. Link

16 February 2012:
I have recently enjoyed the honour of commenting on, and being mentioned in, a chapter of the World Happiness Report for the UN meeting on Happiness and Wellbeing. The chapter is entitled The State of World Happiness and is authored by John F. Helliwell and Shun Wang.

10 February 2012:
Simon Keller, Nick Agar, Isobel Cairns, and I have just finished a report for the Ministry of Social Development on the ethics of data mining.

Old News:
See all the news from this website in the News Archive. Link

Biographical Information

Profile:
I am a fixed-term lecturer in the Philosophy Department at Victoria University of Wellington and in the Politics Department at Massey University (both in New Zealand). I have recently submitted my PhD. My primary supervisor was Nick Agar and my secondary supervisor was Ramon Das.

Research Interests:
Mainly interdisciplinary research on wellbeing. Also a wide variety of topics in analytic philosophy, notably including: Wellbeing, Hedonism, Happiness, Normative Ethics, Moral Psychology, Experimental Philosophy, Philosophy of Psychology, Political Philosophy, Public Policy, Applied Ethics, Climate justice, Bioethics, Neuroethics, Philosophy of Economics, Business Ethics, Metaphysics, Social Epistemology, and Prediction Markets.

Current Academic Roles:

Founding co-editor of the International Journal of Wellbeing. Link
Expert scientific adviser on assessing wellbeing for the Wellbeing in Healthcare group from the Leiden University Medical Centre and Tilburg University
Member of the editorial review board for the International Journal of Technoethics.
Peer-reviewer for Ethical Theory and Moral Practice and Philosophical Frontiers.
Official collaborator in the International Wellbeing Study (Philosophy cohort). Link

Current Projects/Research:

Making revisions to some manuscripts as requested by reviewers
Thinking about a paper on using insights from psychology and behavioural economics to help solve some of the problems involved with global poverty
Putting together an empirical paper comparing the happiness of philosophers to non-philosophers (it doesn't look good for philosophers!)
Organising a major conference on Wellbeing and Public Policy (13-15 June 2012) in Wellington
Organising an edited book on subjective well-being and public policy
Developing a tool for in-depth online wellbeing assessments

PhD Topic:
My PhD (entitled Hedonism and Happiness in Theory and Practice) examines various topics at the intersection of happiness and philosophy. Most chapters are interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from psychology, economics and other disciplines. A chapter outline follows:

Section 1:

Chapter 1: Hedonism: An Encyclopaedic Overview

Chapter 2: The Experience Machine Objection to Hedonism
Chapter 3: The Case for Status Quo Bias in Experience Machine Scenarios
Chapter 4: We can Test the Experience Machine
Chapter 5: Reducing Status Quo Bias and Other Confounding Factors from Experience Machine Scenarios

Section 2:

Chapter 6: Theories of the Meaning of Life: Optimistic Naturalism and Infinite Happiness
Chapter 7: Happiness and Climate Change: How Should the Responsibilities of Adaptation and Mitigation be Shared?
Postscript for Policymakers: The Science of Happiness for Policymakers

My Most Recent Publications:

Weijers, Dan (forthcoming). National Accounts that Make Governments More Efficient by Making Them More Accountable, Rio +20 Special Issue, Solutions. Also available from the official Bhutanese government's website for the UN meeting on 'Happiness and Wellbeing: Defining a New Economic Paradigm'. Link
Weijers, Dan (forthcoming). Intuitive Biases in Judgements about Thought Experiments: The Experience Machine Revisited, Philosophical Writings. Link
Weijers, Dan (forthcoming - June 2012). We Can Test the Experience Machine: Reply to Smith, Ethical Perspectives, 19(2). Link
Weijers, Dan (2011). Hedonism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available from: http://www.iep.utm.edu/hedonism/
Weijers, Dan, (2011). The Experience Machine Objection to Hedonism, in Just the Arguments, Edited by Michael Bruce & Steven Barbone, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 229-231. Link
Weijers, Dan (2011). Reality Doesn't Really Matter, in Inception and Philosophy, Edited by D. Kyle Johnson, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 92-107. Link
Weijers, Dan (2011). National Accounts of Well-Being: What Should We Put in the Census?, Social Europe Journal, 15 February 2011. Link
Weijers, Dan & Jarden, Aaron (2011). Wipe that Smile Off Your Face, The Philosopher's Magazine, 52: 53-58. Link
See the full list here

Contact

Email:
danweijers[at]gmail[dot]com

Phone:
+64-4-463-5233 ext. 8651

Address:
Dan Weijers
Philosophy Programme,
Victoria University of Wellington,
PO Box 600,
Wellington 6140,
New Zealand

Why Contact Me?
Please feel free to contact me. I'm more than happy to discuss philosophical and wellbeing-related matters with anyone.

Of particular interest to me is making contact with other wellbeing researchers. Especially for the following reasons:

- If you are interested in being a peer reviewer for or potential contributor to the International Journal of Wellbeing

- If you are an editor of a philosophy or wellbeing-related project looking for a contributor

- If you are interested in collaborating on theoretical, interdisciplinary, or empirical wellbeing research

- If you are a non-philosopher and want to discuss philosophical aspects of wellbeing

Are there any problems with this page?
Please let me know if there are!

email: danweijers[at]gmail[dot]com

key words: Dan Weijers, philosophy, wellbeing, well-being, happiness, expert, philosopher, happy, academic, Daniel Weijers, Dan M Weijers, Daniel Michael Weijers, Dan Turton, Daniel Turton, New Zealand

Dan Weijers