Abstract

This chapter is about the measurement of one person's well‐being. Indeed, can it be measured? To answer, we must specify the scale of measurement we are interested in: ordinal, cardinal, if cardinal, then interval or ratio. The chapter argues that there are pockets of cardinality in the measurement of one person's well‐being (cardinal measurement independent of probability, despite what many decision theorists say), and extensive areas of ordinal measurement, and that, in the case of one person, our capacity for measurement usually matches our decision‐making needs—i.e. as far as the measurement of well‐being goes.