The Freedom Center is excited to welcome David Sobel as a visiting fellow during fall 2025 and spring 2025. Visit dates: November 19 – 30, 2025; February 12 – March 12, 2025.
David Sobel is best known for his extensive research on well-being, and more specifically the connection between what a person values and her well-being. Are options good for us simply because we favor them, or must the options have their own value, independently of our favoring them, if they are to benefit us? Could we make some entirely pointless option, such as counting blades of grass, good for us just by liking it? If we say no, how can we explain why what we favor in matters of mere taste, such as one type of soda rather than another, is better for us when there seems nothing about either option, independently of our attitudes, that merits preferring one to the other? Sobel’s current work explores such questions.
