So I propose that we assume that there is this causal and functional division of labor between T1E and T2D cognition. Let’s now put the various elements — the two cognitive mechanisms, material goods and freedom — together at work by means of a concrete decision problem. I set up this problem as a normative decision theoretic problem about material goods, with a place for freedom, and so that both T1E and T2D mechanisms play a functional, i.e. SWB optimizing role.

In normative decision theory, the assumption is that individuals, the decision makers, are rational. They evaluate matters in terms of their pay offs (utilities), i.e. in terms of how good these matters are in all relevant respects and by their own lights. Pay offs or utilities are therefore also a kind of SWB indicator. But pay offs are not the only relevant consideration. Another is how probable it is that something will be attained, that a line of action is going to be successful in realizing a specific payoff. Individuals therefore also consider the various ways in which they think that the world may unfold: the possible scenarios (or states of the world), and their respective probabilities. And then given a set of possible actions, states of the world, subjective probabilities, and pay offs, normative decision theory assumes that an individual will try to optimize by using a rational decision rule, like maximizing expected pay offs or maximin.Footnote 13

The aim of the exercise in this section is to examine through a decision problem how it could be, as the SWB studies had shown, that T1E is more strongly related to freedom and T2D to material goods. Why by means a decision problem? This is because in such a problem we can see the cognitive mechanisms at work. We have T1E and T2D because we are creatures who act and make choices.

Here is a decision problem, with states of the world, strategies and pay offs. Suppose that a group of people live on an island and that their possibilities of attaining food consist of hunting, fishing and collecting fruit. These possibilities are dependent on the weather. Fishing requires dry weather and wind, otherwise the islanders cannot sail off to their fishing grounds. Hunting requires dry weather, otherwise the forest animals stay in their unreachable holes and nests. Collecting fruit, however, is always an option. It is not dependent on the weather conditions. The islanders live at a juncture in the woods. The sea is two miles to the south, the fruit trees two miles to the east, the hunting grounds two miles to the west.

wind, dry

wind, rain

windless, dry

windless, rain

Hunting

2

0

2

0

Fishing

3

0

0

0

Fruit collecting

1

1

1

1

More complicated challenges can be imagined, e.g. predators, conspecifics to keep an eye on, for better or worse (teamwork may bring extra fruit to one’s labors but also betrayal), but this simple matrix already suffices for my purposes. The idea is that beyond a certain point decisional complexity can no longer be dealt with by a range of genetically encoded impulses or action programs (‘when X happens, do A’). Assume this is the case with the three possible lines of action and the four weather conditions of our imaginative hunter-gatherers. Pay off depends on the circumstances: it is best to go fishing when there is wind and no rain; when there is rain it is best to collect fruit; and one should go hunting when it is windless and dry.

Each morning, one takes a good look around: is the sun shining, are there any clouds, how strong is the wind? One tries to make a forecast of the upcoming weather condition for that day, and if possible one ascribes a mixture of probabilities to the four states. Then one can determine expected utilities.Footnote 14 Alternatively, one can settle on maximin if one has no idea about the probabilities or there is some reason to avoid risk. Humans have developed higher cognitive powers to decide the best course of action under such varying circumstances. They must be able to select an adequate decision rule, to keep the several possible results of their action plans in mind, what the available goods – game, fish and fruits – are worth, and how this worth depends on the contingent state of affairs (the weather).

I assume that this overseeing and consequent assessing of the possibilities and opportunities in order to reach a decision already contain a good degree of complexity (as said, more variables could be added: e.g. a need for nutritional variety, predators, other people). So this is one thing to do for a decision maker: ascribing probabilities and weighing the goods or outcomes given a range of possible actions and states of the world.

How do emotions play a part in this? There are two ways. Firstly, there can be emotional valence upon achieving or not achieving some goal. Catching a fish, for example, makes one happy and failing to do so sad. This is, in a sense, already reflected by the pay offs. Catching a big fish makes one joyful: it has high utility indeed. To the extent that this happens, T2D and T1E will converge somewhat in their evaluations: achieving a goal like catching a fish brings (domain) satisfaction and possibly joy. But it is important to see that in this case T1E does not trigger the relevant action tendency. Exactly because of the complexity of the problem, it is T2D that is doing the decision making and thus selecting the action.

The second, and more urgent, role that emotions play in this context is keeping one’s set of strategies open – not letting someone or something limit what you can do. After all, given that these weather conditions are all probable, it would be bad if one’s possible lines of action were somehow curtailed. Something or someone blocking your plans or bossing you around will reduce the whole decision matrix at once. Such threats require a fast and strong response. Push the other aside, protest in an angry voice, call for help, or slam a door. A broadening of one’s set of relevant lines of action, on the other hand, increases one’s freedom. Getting a boat to explore the waters, being asked to join the group of hunters, the boss gone, are new doors opening: reasons for joy.Footnote 15

Hence in this decision making context the function of the system of emotions is mainly safeguarding one’s set of alternative actions, one’s freedom.Footnote 16 As discussed in the previous section, emotions have evolved to make us deal with fundamental life tasks. Now if there is one obvious fundamental task for a creature that moves around and makes decisions, it is to protect its freedom. The capacity to make one’s own decisions, one’s freedom or autonomy,Footnote 17 (which is a priori for decision theory) is a basic psychological need according to the influential ‘self-determination theory’ as developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (Ryan and Deci 2000; Deci and Ryan 2000). This theory says that there are three basic psychological needs that are essential for psychological growth, integrity and well-being: relatedness, competence and autonomy. Just like plants that need water, human beings only fare well when these needs are satisfied. People who are less autonomous, for example, because they are dependent or bossed around, drop out earlier in educational programs, and get lower grades. Less autonomous patients are less able to adhere to medication or maintain a certain healthy regime. Autonomous people are better attuned to environmental affordances and internal capacities (Deci and Ryan 2000, p. 254).Footnote 18

In the philosophy of well-being literature Haybron (2008, 2013, 2020) also argues for this basic relation between well-being, emotion and being free. Haybron understands SWB as “psychic affirmation of one’s life”, by which he means a positive emotional response of the self to one’s life. He distinguishes three stages of psychic flourishing: attunement, engagement and endorsement. Particularly relevant is his idea that being safe and secure in one’s situation, not threatened or coerced, is basic in a sense. It is basic in the sense that it is the least sophisticated kind of psychic flourishing but also because it comes prior. Haybron says: “The prominence of attunement reflects what we may think of as the stages of flourishing for a creature: the first priority is to establish conditions of safety and security, where the basic needs for functioning are firmly established so that it can make itself at home and blossom — like placing a sapling in fertile soil” (Haybron 2008, p. 121). Being attuned at this level is feeling happy in a relaxed and tranquil way. The opposite is being anxious or stressed. Being free is being safe and secure, not threatened or bossed around. Being free is being able to explore and choose from different lines of action, like attaining goods and making a living.Footnote 19

Hence an important job for human emotional machinery is arguably to protect one’s autonomy, the capacity to make decisions. The other problem of weighing, comparing and decision-making itself makes up a job of another kind. This is documented by brain research. Kable and Glimcher in their important (2009) article “The Neurobiology of Decision: Consensus and Controversy” report that there is consensus in neuroscience that decision making involves two stages that largely recruit different brain areas. The stage of subjective valuation appears to recruit the ventromedial sector and amygdala,Footnote 20 while the second stage of comparing and selecting among several options with some complexity recruits the higher cortical areas of the brain (like the lateral and medial prefrontal cortex and the parietal areas). Neuroscientists ask people to lie down in an fMRi scanner, confront them with items and then look at what brain parts lit up. In for example hungry participants, being faced with various snacks, activity in the ventromedial sector is proportional to the self-reported worth of these snacks. The emotional parts of the brain are scarcely involved when people are asked to make more complicated decisions, like choosing between a lottery with known probabilities, one with unknown probabilities, and a certain outcome.Footnote 21 That the choice act itself recruits different brain areas is also demonstrated by studies that compare free choice (like choosing between colored figures) with specified choice (like choosing the figure that matches a cue).Footnote 22

So there is a division of labor in our brains regarding material goods and freedom in decision making. Reflective and cortical cognition T2D monitors and compares the available material goods whereas the older emotional machinery T1E monitors freedom (keep the set of available lines of action large). But there are not just two jobs to be done, different in function and location. They are also related. The relation is that higher cognitive processing concentrates on the outcomes in a complex decision problem while emotional responding concentrates on the conditions of possibility of these outcomes within one’s control, one’s strategies.

Now on the DPT model it is conceivable that people act emotionally also in response to a fluctuation in material goods, not just when their freedom is at stake. So why don’t we see this in the SWB data from, for example, the Diener et al. (2010) study? Why is there such a low correlation between affect and material goods? Here are two answers.

Firstly, the T1E and T2D theory under development would advocate that this has to do with the character of the material goods involved. Remember from Sect. 2 that the measurements involved material conveniences (like a telephone, a computer and a television). On the view that emotions function to serve important concerns, that emotions have evolved to deal with fundamental life tasks, it seems to be the case that the material goods figuring in the SWB data were not of very fundamental importance for most participants in this study. Another study, by Kahneman and Deaton (2010) reports that affect reaches a satiation point when income rises, whereas life satisfaction does not. It is especially in the lower income groups that having more money reduces experiences of stress, worry and sadness. I suggest that the material goods involved in the Diener et al. (2010) study are on par with middle and higher income, viz. beyond the level at which the lack or the presence of these goods brings worry and sadness or cheer and joy.

Secondly, this low correlation between material goods and affect could be an effect of the typical daily practices that the participants of these studies find themselves in. The subjects of the SWB studies are of course normally engaged in their daily activities and decision making and it seems plausible that the general nature of this practice will influence their SWB scores. At the beginning of this section, I have proposed a decision context in which material goods are objects of relatively calmly assessing and weighing. But less calm contexts can also be imagined, of course. In a civil war, for example, people can be less sure of their possessions. Hence, it seems probable that in a context in which plundering and theft are common not only freedom tightly links with affect but also material goods. Likewise, it is logically possible to have a context in which grades of freedom are the enduring objects of careful estimating, weighing and coupling with probabilities by decision makers.

If something like this is true, then it is not just dual process theory and T1E and T2D that help to explain the difference in SWB correlations but also the local contexts in which these cognitive mechanisms normally operate. The empirical studies done by the SWB researchers are broad and cross cultural, and I have tried to explain some patterns in the data on the basis of a moderately peaceful decision setting. Such decision setting is fairly normal for many people in many different countries. But it is not necessary or universal. There can also be people living under circumstances that will produce quite different SWB correlations, given T1E and T2D.