




































94 
 

ENGAGING THE IDEA OF SUSTAINABLE WELL-BEING THROUGH THE IDEA 

OF RELATIONAL WELL-BEING 

 

                                           Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi, Ph.D. 

Department of Philosophy, 

University of Abuja 

 

ABSTRACT 

The hypothesis that the work defends is that given the differences (biological, psychological, 

etc.) between individuals, the idea of well-being involves tensions and crisis among individuals 

on one hand, individuals and the social group, and between two social groups. The work then 

sets out to illustrate how this is the case and articulate how this problem can be resolved. It 

proposes the idea of relational wellbeing defined as the ability to initiate and sustain a valid 

relationship with others broadly conceived as a social group, other persons or institutions, etc, 

as a plausible option to add this problem. The method applied is textual review and intuitive 

deductions. 

Keywords: Sustainable well-being, relational well-being, personality theories, psychological 

traits, personal conflicts. 

 

INTRODUCTION 

The purpose of this work is to locate tensions that the idea of well-being and which affects 

sustainable interactional engagement at personal and social levels and attempts to resolve them. 

By this is meant the tension between the personal well-being and social wellbeing. The work 

holds that given the differences (biological, psychological, etc) between individuals, the idea 

of well-being involves tensions and crisis among individuals on one hand and individuals and 

the social group on the other and that these notions of well-being has enormous force and 

potential to affect  quality sustainable social advancement and  development. For this reason, 

a scholarly effort is required to demonstrate this tension, resolve the conflict implicated and 

harmonise the idea of well-being. The work addresses the following question: How can the 

idea of well-being be advanced to resolve the tensions and problems that are implicated in the 

idea of individual well-being and social well-being? 

To do this, the work will take on the ideas of personal well-being and social well-being and 

discuss the goals of the idea and how the goals lead to some tensions, many of which make the 

idea of personal well-being challenging. Thereafter, it will propose and apply the concept of 

relational well-being to resolve the tension identified and demonstrate how and why the idea 

of relational well-being should constitute a desirable discourse on the subject of well-being. By 

relational well-being, I mean the notion of well-being that looks at well-being in terms of its 

ability to maintain a desired emotional and physical equilibrium between the individual and 

the social group and provides the necessary virtues, values and habits that induce a quality of 

peace, understanding and harmony in the relationship between the individual and the social 

group as a basis for well-being. Relational well-being implies that well-being as a principle 

must emphasise and incorporate the capability and ability of the individual to relate with others 

irrespective of the circumstances in which the individual operates or the variable through which 

the idea of subjective well-being could be established. Such a relationship may include 



                                                                  Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 5 Issue 1, April 2025. 

                 ISSN: 2786-9792 

 
 

95 
 

tolerating and managing differences, minimising tensions in human relationships, cooperating 

with others, or communing with them as the situation demands. The argument that the work 

will propose and defend is that it is in being able to initiate and sustain a valid relationship with 

others broadly conceived as either a social group, other persons or institutions that well-being 

can be held to have served a worthy purpose for both the individual and for the group. For this 

reason, the idea of well-being must be anchored on the ability to sustain and maintain 

relationships. 

I will make use of textual analysis from philosophy, psychology and sociology to achieve the 

objective of the paper. I will apply critical methods of philosophical reasoning to explain the 

values and principles that the idea of well-being defends and the different demands of achieving 

well-being. I then apply theories of personality to explain the role of temperaments or attitudes 

in determining the terms of self-fulfilment and well-being. The effort to locate the theories of 

personality and the terms through which these personalities could achieve well-being would 

highlight the challenges of personal well-being. I then look at social wellbeing and by 

highlighting the notion of social wellbeing. I proceed to map out the challenges implied in the 

idea of social wellbeing. By looking at the two aspects of wellbeing I  locate certain variables 

that are inherent in the idea of personal  well-being  that  are capable of affecting social well-

being negatively and vice versa. Thereafter, I will defend the claim that a desirable notion of 

well-being must be able to serve the interest of both the individual and the social-group by 

formulating an idea of relational well-being that accommodates the two.  

 

ARTICULATING THE IDEA OF WELL-BEING 

In recent times, the subject of well-being has assumed an important place in scholarship. This 

attention is motivated by a number of reasons, one of which is the gradual shift from locating 

the development of a group from Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to Gross Domestic Happiness 

(GDH) and the location of Happiness in terms of Well-Being. The gradual shift from measuring 

the wealth of nations in terms of GDP to measuring it in terms of happiness has been called 

Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), which invokes the concept of well-being because GDP has 

been discovered to function as a “myth” that does not tell us about the health of an economy, 

let alone its sustainability and overall impact on human welfare (Fioramonti, 2018, p. 742). 

Thus, emphasis was shifted to well-being as a more realistic measurable way of locating the 

quality growth of a people that translates into a worthier life. This movement could be glimpsed 

through a number of works, such as Cummins (1997), Veenhoven (1996), Layard (2009) and 

Krueger (2009), and is motivated by the desire to find a better form that the world development 

agenda should take in order to serve a worthier purpose for mankind. The claim here is that 

while there is the belief that growth in the volume of the economy and in the physical structures 

of the society could provide a measurement of the development of a people, it is the final human 

dividend of this—how this has translated to a better quality of life—that the idea of 

development should be held to serve its purpose. This is what the focus on well-being is all 

about. 

But the idea of well-being itself is an amorphous and wide concept. An ordinary engagement 

with the idea or what we may call surface thinking about the idea of well-being may abstract 

from the two concepts that form the words to say that well-being amounts to being well. But 

being well is a concept that is applied to human beings, whereas well-being is a wider concept 



     Lawrence Ogbo                             Engaging the Idea of Sustainable well-being through the Idea… 

96 
 

that needs a broad interpretation and categorisation to explain it sufficiently. Well-being 

connotes a variety of meanings, such as the objective well-being of a group, subjective well-

being of an individual, and intersubjective well-being between the individual and the groupand  

may further be interpreted to imply mental and physical health, pleasure, engagement and 

meaning. It may also include those values that reflect the broad fundamental properties of the 

human entity—the physical, spiritual, social and personal demands of the human being. 

Wellbeing embodies harbouring all these items to function well and being in a good or optimal 

state and in good health. White (2010, p. 159) supports this view with an elaboration that for 

some, well-being “is about personal success or happiness, but for others it goes much further, 

posing questions not only about what is good for individuals and communities, but also the 

nature of the “good society.” White goes further to suggest three categories of well-being: 

material well-being, social well-being and human and material well-being: material well-being 

includes wealth and income and the satisfaction that comes from these, social well-being 

includes relations such as social stability, and human well-being includes human capabilities.  

From White’s categorization, which is a considerably elaborate illustration of the notion of 

wellbeing, we can map out two broad dimensions of well-being, namely social well-being and 

personal well-being. Social well-being demands social stability and the provision of those items 

that enhance the functioning of the society or environment in such a manner that it is preserved 

and allowed to promote social good. It demands the functioning of social   organs or structures 

in such a manner that they can serve the interest of her members in favour of the future. Social 

well-being involves and wellbeing of all aspects of life that connect man within a group and 

ensure that the social process is well and healthy. Another dimension of well-being that can be 

abstracted from the table above is personal well-being-that is wellbeing as it involved human 

inner needs and capabilities and attitudes. Personal well-being involves achieving the inner 

health of those qualities that make one an individual, and enabling the attainment of the bigger 

and deeper demands of the human entity, such as meaning in life, and happiness, spiritual 

stability and physical stability (interpreted to mean a certain balance in the spiritual and 

physical components of man), and the absence of lack, worry or disease, such as will make a 

human being have the quality of wellness. 

Personal well-being has other peculiar dimensions emanating from the nature of the human 

person. For this reason, the need arises to make a distinction between two kinds of personal 

well-being: the individual and the subjective. Subjective well-being serves the interest of the 

person as the subject of well-being. It is about the person as seen and known by the other. It is 

about the person as a certain subject that demands and deserves certain rights, privileges, 

respect, autonomy, etc. that can lead to meaningful life and happiness. Individual well-being 

addresses the peculiar demands of an individual as a unique entity with some demands that 

may include (but not exclude the demands of subjective well-being). It is as a result of this that 

a certain tension arises from the idea of being a certain kind of person ( an individual with a 

certain uniqueness, temperament, dispositions and attitude that can affect the wellness of the 

person is realised). 

Personal wellbeing is widely emphasised in the human and social sciences. Four renown 

psychologists and experts on happiness—Ed Diener (1984, 2000), Seligman (2002) and 

Kahneman and Krueger (2006)—emphasise “well-being” as an index of happiness. The 

wellbeing implicated in the works of these scholars is personal wellbeing. Before them, 

Aristotle, in his theory of happiness, had applied several concepts to designate happiness, 

namely virtue, prudence, wisdom and pleasure. For him, each of these concepts has something 

to do with the idea of happiness, which he captured in full in his theory of eudaimonia, which 



                                                                  Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 5 Issue 1, April 2025. 

                 ISSN: 2786-9792 

 
 

97 
 

can be interpreted to mean personal well-being (Aristotle, 1966, 1098a2–19, 1099b25–28), 

…the best aspect of the soul […] when the soul is at its best” (1098a15–20).  

Because values and virtues, such as happiness and meaning, are significant to the notion of 

well-being, the affective component of the human person becomes a decisive factor in personal 

well-being and the discourse on personal well-being leads to the discussion on psychological 

well-being. Psychological wellbeing constitutes important aspects of personal wellbeing 

because it embodies human feelings, human emotions and all the inner factors and forces that 

foreground human thought and action. To highlight the relevance of psychological wellbeing, 

I shall next provide some views on psychological wellbeing in a separate section of the work. 

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AND ITS WIDER DEMANDS ON PERSONAL 

WELLBEING 

The emphasis on well-being in terms of personal well-being and the underlying emphasis on 

psychological well-being arises from the underlying psychological component of the human 

person. According to the APA guides (American Psychological Association, 2017), all 

individuals differ in patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving (Hicks and Mehta, 2018, p. 50) 

and this explains the unique demands of psychological wellbeing. A particular way of locating 

this is to locate the variations in the psychological make-up of human beings. To do this let me 

begin with the theory of temperaments. According to the theory of temperaments, there are 

four identifiable types of individuals: the choleric, the sanguine, the melancholic and the 

phlegmatic. 

These different temperaments affect psychological wellbeing in different ways. A closer study 

of the temperament theory of personalities shows that achieving individual well-being for the 

four personalities identified would depend on the extent to which temperamental traits are 

addressed. This is because well-being depends largely on inner well-being and how social and 

human variables fit into these personalities. To establish this claim, let us imagine a scenario 

where a sanguine personality (described above as highly talkative, enthusiastic, active, and 

social) functions among a social group that is repressive or among a religious community that 

is suppressive. Chances are that the well-being of this individual will be affected tragically, 

and despite the availability of the social or economic variables that might lead to personal well-

being, the option for the individual would be either to (i) engage the social group to ensure that 

it fits into the temperamental demands of the agent or (2) to change herself to fit into the needs 

of the social group. But either of these is a huge challenge because temperaments are hugely 

biological (Hans Eysenck (1916–1997) or at least have some connections with the neurotic 

make-up of the individual. Thus, it makes sense to suggest that the individual has very strong 

psychological challenges with underlying biological traits that will affect the well-being of the 

personality involved. 

For another illustration, (2) let us examine the case of a person whose temperament is choleric. 

The choleric are usually held to be good leaders and to have personality traits that make for 

leadership. For this reason, the well-being of this individual will depend on the quality of 

leadership available in the society where the individual functions. Thus, this poses a number 

of challenges, especially in a society with bad leadership or one where leadership is a major 

problem. The psychological well-being of this personality would depend on how much they 



     Lawrence Ogbo                             Engaging the Idea of Sustainable well-being through the Idea… 

98 
 

show leadership or challenge bad leadership. If the individual is not recognised and allowed to 

exhibit this inner leadership trait, the individual would be forced to challenge bad leadership 

wherever they are and would end up much more as an activist or as a prisoner of conscience. 

Thus, because of the temperament trait of the choleric, the individual would desire to 

reconfigure the personality to fit societal standards, that is, accommodate the society that 

produces the leadership (whether it is good or bad) or to adjust the meaning of leadership to a 

fresh standard that would accommodate the personality trait harboured. The challenge of well-

being for a choleric may well be this: how do I live with leadership (good or bad) or 

compromise the visions and leadership traits that seek for expression in me? This prompting 

of the temperament would usually lead to a life of risks and which influences the notion of 

well-being. If this is the case, it may well mean that individual or personal well-being in relation 

to the choleric will depend on societies where the traits are valued and respected. 

Another way to look at well-being in relation to personality traits is to (3) look at the challenges 

that could affect the quest for individual well-being by the melancholic individuals who tend 

to be analytical and detail-oriented. Those who possess this personality trait would often 

function more in a society that respects scientific disposition to issues than one that arbitrarily 

assigns truth and meanings to issues without due consideration to the merits and demerits of 

this option. This kind of personality would function better in a society that respects people with 

great skills for organising facts than those that would not value such facts. The conflict that can 

arise from this scenario is such that a certain level of meaning and well-being would be 

truncated by the daily occurrence when such personalities function in a society that does not 

function for other personalities. These examples illustrate the challenges of personality traits 

in relation to psychological well-being especially how they affect the theory of temperaments. 

Other theories have been advanced to explain the human personality. They include the theory 

of the big five and the two-type theory of personality. The ‘Big Five’ theory is based on McCrae 

and Costa’s (2003) articulation of the five components of personality: extraversion, 

agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. This effort has 

been collaborated by John, O. P., & Srivastava, S.  (1999), who has suggested that the core set 

of dispositional traits within the big five are the most prominent aspects of personality. Another 

theory is the two-type theory of personality. This theory suggests that human beings can be 

located in terms of disposition to “perfectionism, honesty, and sensation seeking” Hicks and 

Mehta (ibid) and Type B personality who are “relaxed and easy going” (Kazmi, Amjad, & 

Khan, 2008).All these differences in personalities have different consequences for 

psychological wellbeing. 

The claim being made here is that a deeper study of the different human personalities in relation 

to the notion of well-being would show that the realisation of well-being differs and that the 

well-being of individuals cannot be realised in the same degree but according to different 

variations in their personalities. Considering the theories outlined and other theories that have 

emerged to explain the human personality, such as those of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, etc., 

it can be held that human beings function with some personality traits, many of which are 

favoured or disfavoured by the environment, and the personalities and individual traits of others 

within the society and that these are influential to the outcome of personal well-being. To this 

effect, it becomes important to interrogate the notion of well-being that can accommodate this 

challenge through a constructive engagement with different notions of well-being. Before I do 

that, I discuss the idea of social well-being. 

 



                                                                  Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 5 Issue 1, April 2025. 

                 ISSN: 2786-9792 

 
 

99 
 

WELL-BEING AS SOCIAL WELL-BEING AND THE CHALLENGES IMPLIED 

By social well-being is implied the well-being of the individual as a member of the social group 

and the wellbeing of the social group as an entity. By this is meant well-being that is in a 

position to harmonise the society and lead to a certain level of what we may call corporative 

cohesion. This quality of well-being (i) makes the social group to function to the advantage of 

the members; (ii) enables the individuals to function for the benefit of the social group; and 

(iii) enables the social group to harmonise the demands of inter-subjective well-being. White 

(2010, p. 161) locates social well-being as an aspect of relational well-being and characterises 

it as “the social: social relations and access to public goods; and the human: capabilities, 

attitudes to life, and personal relationships.” But the characterisation of relational well-being 

as an aspect of social well-being is not appropriate because social well-being in my conception 

also presupposes the well-being of the group as a corporate entity; that is how the structures 

and organs of the group function to maintain a certain form of social stability that can be viewed 

outside the context of a relationship. My claim is that relational well-being is larger than social 

well-being. In another part of same work, White provides a more agreeable notion of social 

well-being with the view that:  

The social dimension of wellbeing comprises the classic “social capital” 

components of social networks, along with access to public goods—policing 

and the law, social and welfare services, the quality of the physical environment, 

and access to amenities. It also concerns social divisions and inequalities, and 

the forms of entitlement and domination codified in identities by class, caste, 

gender, religion, race, ethnicity, age, disability, or ritual responsibility. It 

considers whether people are subject to violence or other forms of social conflict 

and (in) security; and the political arena: the mechanisms and scope that people 

have for collective action on matters that concern them. White (2010, p. 163) 

Indeed the author suggests that the social dimension of well-being may have subjective and 

objective dimensions, and this agrees substantially with the position of this work (as earlier 

stated)—that social well-being has both interpersonal and pan-objective dimensions 

encompassing both individual to individual and individual to the group. Social well-being 

demands that the broader dimensions of social goods and services translate to private gains in 

terms of enabling an individual to realise the personality of the individual as a social being. 

We can further capture the concept of social well-being by looking at two theories that explain 

the social demands of human existence. The first is what we may call reverse life margin. The 

second is the capability approach to human development as articulated by the American 

philosopher Marta Nussbaum. The concept of reverse life margin is an abstraction from the 

concept of life margin—the view that there are variables that lead to or could lead to social 

exclusion. According to this view variables such as discrimination, marginalisation, and stigma 

in relation to social integration (Benbow, Forchuk, & Ray, 2011, pp. 689–690) could lead to 

forms of social exclusion. These forms of social exclusion places  “life on the margins.” As 

Lötter (2008, pp. 11, 17) notes, it makes the victims to become marginalised, experience poor 

health, become vulnerable to preventable deaths, and have poor mental and physical growth. It 

also deprives them of opportunities for personal growth and development. Reverse life margin 

then, is the view that a society should be inclusive enough to redress this problem. To achieve 

this state then  social well-being is a desired principle and it amounts to a state that leads to a 

provision that leads to a reversal of the “societal process that … holds back certain groups … 



     Lawrence Ogbo                             Engaging the Idea of Sustainable well-being through the Idea… 

100 
 

from meeting their full potential in society” (Benbow, Rudwick, Forchuk, Edward, 2014, p. 

1048). It is a social process that can enable all to achieve the fullest of the human possibility 

by providing or promoting a condition that can promote or encourage any member to aspire to 

their fullest potential. 

The second way to locate the concept of social well-being is that which enables the central 

capabilities of the human person as a social being. These capabilities are what should bring out 

the best and most useful talent in the individual and enables affiliation to different groups that 

are relevant to the optimal function of the person as a social being. The social thinker and 

philosopher Marta Nussbaum outlines these affiliations as: 

Affiliation (in the form of1) a. Friendship … b. Respect …; Other Species …; 

Play …; Control over one’s environment (in the form of) a. Political … b. 

Material …. (Nussbaum, 2002, pp. 129–130) 

Nussbaum’s view, which I believe could be applied to explain the idea of social well-being, is 

that a social and political process must aim at achieving central capabilities for its members as 

social citizens or as political members. Thus, the promotion of values and items that can lead 

to the realisation of these is what is expected of a social process that promotes well-being. 

After a study of the idea of social well-being, it is important to emphasise that personal well-

being must function alongside social well-being for the optimal realisation of the gains inherent 

in well-being. If personal well-being or what we might call the private aspects of well-being 

functions in conflict with the social or what we might call public aspects of well-being, there 

is bound to be a conflict. Thus, the need arises to articulate the possible areas of conflict that 

can arise between personal well-being and social well-being. To achieve these objectives, I will 

locate certain variables that are inherent in the idea of personal well-being and are capable of 

affecting social well-being negatively. Thereafter, I will locate the certain variables that are 

inherent in the idea of social well-being and affect the quality of individual well-being 

negatively. I will then propose the idea of relational well-being, defined as well-being that 

harmonises personal well-being and social wellbeing. 

 

TENSION BETWEEN PERSONAL AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING AND THE IDEA OF 

RELATIONAL WELL-BEING 

In the earlier part of the work, I have outlined certain tensions that exist within the idea of 

personal well-being. I explained them in terms of a conflict between the subject and the 

individual, the tensions that arise within the individual and the conflict that arise when one 

person is interacting with another. In this part of the work, I discuss the tension that exists 

between personal well-being and social well-being and then proceed to map out a possible 

solution through the idea of relational well-being. 

Personal well-being and social well-being could generate a number of tensions such that given 

the differences (biological, psychological, etc.) between individuals, the idea of well-being 

cannot be realised without understanding and addressing these tensions. For instance, the 

various talents, skills and capabilities human beings have amount to self-fulfilment relative to 

the individual to which they are ascribed, it follows that the desire for wellbeing and inner 

peace may be influenced by these. 



                                                                  Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 5 Issue 1, April 2025. 

                 ISSN: 2786-9792 

 
 

101 
 

To explain the conflict inherent between personal well-being and social well-being, I invoke 

the notion of well-being implicated in the notion of development postulated by the Indian 

economist Armataya Sen. Sen articulates the idea of development as freedom characterised by 

a number of indices, such as the following: 

1. The importance of real freedoms in the assessment of a person’s advantage; 

2. Individual differences in the ability to transform resources into valuable activities; 

3. The multi-variety nature of activities giving rise to happiness; 

4. A balance of materialistic and nonmaterialistic factors in evaluating human welfare; 

5. Concern for the distribution of opportunities within society. 

A close study of these measures that define development shows that they border on those values 

that enable a person to function without economic or social inhibitions while allowing the other 

person to function differently to realise the same: one that respects the uniqueness and 

differences in the capacity of individuals, respecting the principle of equity and ensuring that 

these differences are respected and valued in their positive forms and gains. They emphasise 

the different dimensions of needs and interests that need to be addressed differently—a holistic 

notion of the individual that does not emphasise one aspect of the person at the expense of the 

other—and the equitable distribution of opportunities and resources. The realisation of all these 

suggests various measures that can be conflictual between personal well-being and social well-

being. It would mean that providing the variety of activities that can lead to happiness might 

mean that some social standards may be compromised to allow as many people as possible to 

experience happiness. But when standards are compromised and adjusted, there are reasons to 

expect that social values and the institutions that administer them would also suffer some loss 

in terms of quality and standard, which could affect their well-being. 

The conflict that can affect well-being can be seen through what may be called psycho-social 

conflict and psycho-rational conflict. Psycho-social conflict can be conceived as conflict of the 

person with their social environments. It is also psycho-rational conflict given that reason is 

advanced and validated through a course of action, but such reason seems to be in conflict with 

the inner demands and qualities of the individual. Psycho-social and psycho-rational conflicts 

between the personal well-being and social well-being can function through a false sense of 

the self—what is broadly characterised as schizophrenia, such as the instrumentalisation of 

society for individual ends through grafts, the looting of the state and prebendal politics. Here, 

we witness a case of where well-being is desired through social unwellness or at an inverse 

proportion to the well-being of the society. If someone, for instance, were to opt to be a 

politician when in essence the desire is purely to amass wealth from the society or from those 

that power will be exercised upon, it is because wealth is seen to be desirable and power is seen 

as an avenue to this. But while wealth is desirable, the exercise of political power should not 

be seen as an avenue to generate wealth. So here, we see the instance of reason functioning 

rightly seeking wealth, and wrongly by exploiting the public to serve the psychology of the 

individual. 

A second way to explain the conflict that can arise between personal well-being and social 

well-being is through social egoism. Here, the social process is a way to defend its status and 

standard imposed on another social process that presides over a different kind of individual and 



     Lawrence Ogbo                             Engaging the Idea of Sustainable well-being through the Idea… 

102 
 

by doing this imposes values and ideals that are at conflict with the individual’s own ideals. 

Here, a society expresses formal unwillingness to respect social and personal differences 

between itself and another society and the individuals within that society. Thus, we witness 

oppression and suppression as a formal way of relating with the other. A good illustration of 

this was the colonial experience in Africa. 

Colonialism was out to recreate Africa in the image and likeness of Europe, and this was 

predicated on a wrong assumption of cultural superiority. This wrong assumption, which led 

to contempt for the African personality, can be illustrated by the French version of colonialism, 

which was anchored on the policy of assimilation. This policy, which meant the cultural 

absorption of Africans living in French colonial territories, implied that Africans of the 

Francophone world should be transformed into French people. This phenomenon demonstrates 

that colonialism was an invasion of African humanity and the denial of the cultural heritage of 

African people and its displacement with wrong or faulty principles and policies. And these all 

go to demonstrate that this phenomenon is dangerous to the well-being of Africans and the 

ruination of social wellbeing at its worst. The deficiency of this social and political process is 

aptly captured in the words of Olusegun Oladipo, who believes that: 

Colonialism, by making Africa an appendage in a world centred on Europe, 

denies Africans that autonomy which they required of making self-conscious 

choices in different areas of human life—economic, politics, religion, education 

and culture. Also by causing Africans to lose pride in themselves as worthy 

human beings inferior to none, colonialism obstructed the very confidence 

necessary for national restoration and development. (Oladipo, 1998) 

This form of unhealthy relationship illustrates the crisis of wellbeing. It explains the 

multidimensional crisis that defines the quest for wellbeing, first within the person(s) involved 

in the quest for wellbeing, secondly between the persons involved in the quest for wellbeing, 

thirdly between the person and the social structure or process that provides wellbeing and 

fourthly between two social groups that interact when one social group seeks for the wellbeing 

of her members such as the instance of colonialism illustrated above. These make it urgent that 

a form of well-being should be invoked and developed to address this challenge. I call this 

relational well-being. I turn to the next part of the work to highlight this idea of well-being. 

 

THE IDEA OF RELATIONAL WELLBEING 

By relational well-being, I mean the notion of well-being that looks at well-being in terms of 

its ability to maintain a desired emotional and physical equilibrium between the individual and 

the social group and between one group and another and provides the necessary virtues, values 

and habits that induces a quality of peace, justice, understanding and harmony in the 

relationship between the individual and the social group as a basis for well-being. Relational 

well-being holds that well-being as a principle must emphasise and incorporate the capability 

and ability of the individual to relate with others irrespective of the circumstances in which the 

individual operates or the variable through which the idea of subjective well-being is 

established. Such relationship may include tolerating differences, managing differences, 

minimising tensions in human relationships, cooperating with others, or communing with them, 

etc., as the situation demands. 



                                                                  Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 5 Issue 1, April 2025. 

                 ISSN: 2786-9792 

 
 

103 
 

The principle of relational well-being  is the ability to initiate and sustain a valid relationship 

with others broadly conceived as either a social group, other persons or institutions, etc., that 

well-being can be held to have served a worthy purpose both for the individual and for the 

group. For this reason, the idea of well-being must be anchored on the ability to sustain and 

maintain relationships. This position holds that there is the need for personal well-being and 

social well-being to aspire to serve the interest of collective well-being with the understanding 

that collective well-being brings both personal and social well-being together by serving the 

interest of the moral, social and political institutions that maintain the group. Collective well-

being in this instance is one that will be capable of harmonising and maintaining the delicate 

but desirable balance between individual and the  social group. 

Given that there are various degrees to which different personalities can achieve self-fulfilment, 

assuming that opportunities and resources are evenly distributed, there is the inner challenge 

that confronts the effort to achieve well-being and how to manage such a challenge. These 

challenges include anger, threats, and personality clashes, such as when people work in an 

environment in which they find it difficult to accommodate the personality traits they carry. 

Such oppressed personality needs to adjust to or confront the demand for well-being through 

the idea of relational well-being. Relational well-being  therefore further demands resolving 

the inner challenges that shape life, such as the challenge of choice and freedom and the 

challenge of locating the best terms in which the will and desire for well-being could be 

harmonised. For this reason, relational well-being invokes the need for what I call “an inner 

technical balance” in the notion of well-being. Inner technical balance demands a determined 

interest and attention to four principles in the effort to realise well-being. These are the 

Relationship between various organs of the society in addressing the desire for well-being; 

Interest in the measure and worth of any approved items that are desired for well-being and 

weighing them according to their cogency and worth; Proper attention to the question of 

difference among different persons, institutions and organs in the quest for well-being; 

Negotiation of meaning and constructive engagement with the other in the desire for well-

being. 

These items constitute the demands of inner technical balance. They demand that well-being 

should emphasise acquisition and application of five different kinds of intelligences: three 

which relates to harmonising social well-being, namely: (i) social intelligence, (ii) corporate 

intelligence and (iii) managerial intelligence and two which relates to harmonising personal 

wellbeing namely, (iv)interpersonal intelligence and (v) intrapersonal intelligence.. While 

social intelligence enables the individual to fit into the group, corporate intelligence enables 

the agent to function within a given institution and to apply an institution to change itself. 

Finally, managerial intelligence enables the individual to coordinate others and the 

environment—however it is—to serve the interest of one’s well-being. It enables the use of 

two other forms of intelligence: interpersonal intelligence, which enables one to understand 

others and interact with them effectively, and intrapersonal intelligence, which illustrates one’s 

capacity to understand oneself and one’s thoughts and feelings. The claim of the work is that 

the application of these forms of intelligence can enable the inner technical balance that can 

promote relational well-being. 

 

 



     Lawrence Ogbo                             Engaging the Idea of Sustainable well-being through the Idea… 

104 
 

CONCLUSION 

This work has tried to locate tensions that the idea of well-being generates and has also 

attempted to resolve them. By this is meant the tension between the well-being of a group and 

the well-being of an individual. The hypothesis that the work defends is that given the 

differences (biological, psychological, etc.) between individuals, the idea of well-being 

involves tensions and crisis among individuals on one hand, individuals and the social group, 

and between two social groups. The work has tried to locate these challenges with the claim 

that they emanate majorly between the inner difference among human beings and the resultant 

effect on human institutions, which are themselves different. The work has proposed the idea 

of relational well-being, which it explains in terms of well-being that is in a position to 

harmonise the tensions that well-being generates. It is hoped that this effort could lead to a 

more critical look into the policies that promote well-being. Every policy is built on some 

assumptions. However, when issues that relate to the desired outcome of the policy are 

explained in a wider domain, it becomes possible to experience a shift in policy direction. It is 

therefore hoped that efforts would be made to articulate not just policies that can lead to 

personal well-being and social well-being but those that will anticipate the challenges and 

conflicts that emanate from both. This would then lead to more emphasis on the idea of 

relational well-being. 

 

 

REFERENCES 

 

American Psychological Association (2017), Personality, Retrieved from 

http://www.apa.org/topics/personality 

Benbow, S., Forchuk, C., Ray S. (2011). Mothers with Mental Illness Experiencing 

Homelessness: A Critical Analysis‟. Journal of Psychiatric and  Mental Health Nursing 18 

(8), 687 – 695. 

Costa, T. Jr. & McCrae, R. R. “The five-factor model, five-factor theory, and interpersonal 

psychology” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286535058 Article · March 2012 DOI: 

10.1002/9781118001868.ch6 (Accessed May 2020) 

Cummins, R. (1997). Comprehensive quality of life scale. Melbourne: School of Psychology, 

Deakin University, http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/instruments/comqol 

Diener E., Biswas-Diener, R. (2008). Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological 

Wealth. New York:Blackwell. 

Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness, and a proposal for 

national index. American Psychologist 55(1), 34–43. 

Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1997). Measuring quality of life: Economic, social and subjective 

indicators. Social Indicators Research, 40, 189–216. 

http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/instruments/comqol


                                                                  Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 5 Issue 1, April 2025. 

                 ISSN: 2786-9792 

 
 

105 
 

Diener, E., Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective well-being? A 

literature review and guide to needed research. Social Indicators Research, 57(2), 119–169. 

Diener, E., Lucas, R. (1999). Personality and subjective well-being. In D. Kahneman, E. 

Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology. New 

York: Russell Sage Foundation, 213–229. 

Fioramonti, L. “Africa’s Development Narratives:From Growth to Well-being” in Palgrave 

Handbook on African Politics, Governamce and Development, Chapter 7,  (eds.) ToyinFalola 

and Samuel O.Olouruntoba, 123-133. Palgrave Macmillan. 

Hicks, R. E. & Mehta, Y. P. (2018) “The Big Five, Type A Personality, and Psychological 

Well-Being”International Journal of Psychological Studies; Vol. 10, No. 1 

Chuka, M., JohnBosco, C. C., & Zacchaeus, E. A. (2015). “Alienation and Psychological 

Wellbeing: Moderation by Resilience” Social Indicators Research, Vol. 120, No. 2, Special 

Issue: ECONOMIC CRISIS AND WELL-BEING IN EUROPE (January 2015), 525–544. 

Kahneman, D. (2000). Experienced utility and objective happiness: A moment-based 

approach. In D. Kahneman & A. Tversky (Eds.), Choices, values and frames. New York: 

Cambridge University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation. 

Kahneman, D., & Krueger, A. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-

being. Journal of Economic Perspective, 20, 3–24. 

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A., Schkade, D., Schwarz. N., & Stone, A. (2004b). Toward national 

well-being accounts. American Economic Review, 94, 429–434. 

Kazmi, R., Amjad, S, & Khan, D. (2008) Individual Differences and Stress-

PerfromanceRelationship,Journal of  Ayub Medical College Abbottabad,21(3),172–175 

Kelman, M. (2005). Hedonic psychology and the ambiguities of “welfare.” Philosophy & 

Public Affairs, 33, 391-412 

Knabe, A., Ratzel, S., Schob, R., &Weimann, J. (2010). Dissatisfied with life but having a 

good day: Time-use and well-being of the unemployed. The Economic Journal, 120, 867–

889. 

Kristoffersen, I. (2010). The metrics of subjective well-being: Cardinality, neutrality and 

additivity. Nomic Record, 86, 98–123. 

Krueger, A., Kahneman. D., Fischler, C., Schkade., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. (2009). Time 

Use Subjective Well-Being in France and the US. Social Indicators Research, 93, 7–18.  

Layard, R. (2009). Well-being measurement and public policy. In A. Krueger, Subjective 

well-being of Nations: National accounts of time use and well-being. Chicago Press.  

Loewenstein, G. (2009). That which makes life worthwhile. In A. Krueger (Ed.), Well-being 

of Nations: National accounts of time use and well. 

Lötter. (2008), When I Needed a neighbour Were You There? Christians and the Challenge of 

Poverty. LexVerbi 



     Lawrence Ogbo                             Engaging the Idea of Sustainable well-being through the Idea… 

106 
 

John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five Trait taxonomy: History, measurement, 

and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin& O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: 

Theory and research (p. 102–138). Guilford Press. 

Nussbaum, M. (2002). Capabilities and Human Rights. In Global Justice and Transnational 

Politics. Edited by Greiff P and Cronin C.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. 

Oladipo, O. (1998). Emerging Issues in African Philosophy. International Philosophical 

Quarterly Vol. Xxxviii No. 1 Issues No. 149. 

Ross, W. D. (Transl.). (1966). The Works of Aristotle, Volume IX: Ethica Nicomachea, 

Magna Moralia, Ethica Eudemia. Oxford University Press. 

Sandvik, E., Diener, E., Seidlitz, L. 1993. Subjective well-being: The convergence and 

stability of self-report and non-self-report measures. Journal of Personality 61(3), 317–342. 

Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to 

Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment. New York: Free Press. 

Veenhoven, R. (1996). Happy life-expectancy: A comprehensive measure of quality-of-life in 

nations. Social Indicators Research, 39, 1–58. 

Veenhoven, R. (2008). Sociological Theories of Subjective Well-Being. In M. Eid & R. 

Larsen (Eds.), The Science of Subjective Well-being: A tribute to Ed Diener. Guilford 

Publications, New York, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59385-581-9. pp. 44–61. 

Veenhoven, R. (1996). Happy life-expectancy: A comprehensive measure of quality-of-life in 

nations. Social Indicators Research, 39, 1. 

White, S. C. (2010). Analysing Wellbeing: A framework for Development Practice 

Development in Practice, Vol. 20, No. 2 (April 2010), pp. 158–172 


