Abstract
Recent social surveys of happiness (subjective well-being) have given a new stimulus to utilitarian political theory by providing a statistically reliable measure of the ‘happiness’ of individuals that can then be correlated with other variables. One general finding is that greater happiness does not correlate strongly with increased wealth, beyond modest levels, and this has led to calls for governments to shift priorities away from economic growth and towards other social values. This chapter notes how the conclusions of this research help to address some of the traditional objections to utilitarianism. The question of how happiness research findings can be used to set happiness-maximization goals for public policy needs careful examination, as the translation from research to policy is not always straightforward. Some empirical and ethical objections to this ‘new utilitarianism’ are raised. The complicating factors of public expectations of, and trust in, governments pose obstacles to any proposal that happiness research may lead to changes in public policy and hence to ‘happier’ populations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The eudaimonic approach to happiness research is given more thorough discussion in a recent issue of the Journal of Happiness Studies (issue 1, 2008).
- 2.
‘If a starving wreck, ravished by famine, buffeted by disease, is made happy through some mental conditioning (say, via the “opium” of religion), the person will be seen as doing well on this mental-state perspective, but that would be quite scandalous’ (Sen 1985, p. 188).
- 3.
A typical hypothetical example used here would be that of a surgeon who has five patients whose lives depend on organ transplants. Should he dissect, and hence kill, one person with healthy organs to save five others? To do so would appear to maximize utility, but is also fundamentally wrong. A real-world example comes from the Kingdom of Bhutan, which espouses a policy of Gross National Happiness, but in 1991 rescinded citizenship from, and then expelled, its Nepalese-Hindi minority—about 100,000 people—who continue to languish in refugee camps. At the time of writing, a group of these refugees was resettling in my own community. Can the forced expulsion of an unwanted minority be justified by the happiness of the majority?
- 4.
This is perhaps being too generous to Diener and Seligman, however, as their review article does contain the assertion that ‘… market democracies have much more well-being than totalitarian dictatorships, so military expenditures that protect and extend democracy will increase global well-being’ (2004, p. 24). Published not long after the invasion of Iraq, this statement seems to be guilty of the kind of moral problem often associated with utilitarianism.
- 5.
This is a version of one of oldest objections to utilitarianism. It may be put somewhat like this: Suppose playing tic-tac-toe gives me more pleasure than listening to Bach; then we would have to suppose that the former is of higher moral worth, in my case. There is something inherently wrong with this, and Mill struggled to get around the problem by arguing that, in the estimation of anyone with sufficient experience of both forms of pleasure, Bach would be the clear favourite. So, similarly, we might argue that anyone with sufficient experience and knowledge of both will see that saving one’s money for retirement is morally superior, because it will bring greater lasting happiness, to spending one’s money in a casino.
- 6.
J.S. Mill commits all of the fallacies described above. He argues that, because people desire happiness, happiness is desirable. Since all this says is, ‘happiness is desirable because people desire it’, the so-called ‘proof’ is tautological. Further, the only reason he can give as to why people desire the ‘general happiness’ is that people desire their own happiness. Proceeding thus from a tautology, which he assumes to be a ‘fact’, he surmises that ‘happiness is a good’; and because it is a good to each individual person, it must therefore be ‘a good to the aggregate of all persons’ (Mill, in Warnock 1962, pp. 288–299). He does not stop to ask whether ‘happiness’ has any meaning beyond the subjective experience of one person at a time. However, he then proceeds to argue that ultimately we desire only happiness, because all other desirable things are desired only as a means to greater happiness. But the very premises of his case have to be dismissed. Furthermore, happiness suits his purposes as a super-ordinate goal partly because it is free of content and can thus be linked to any other desirable goals.
References
Argyle M (2001) The psychology of happiness, 2nd edn. Routledge, Hove
Beveridge W (1942) Social insurance and allied services. His Majesty’s Stationery Office, London
Dean M, Hindess B (eds) (1998) Governing Australia: studies in contemporary rationalities of government. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Donovan N, Halpern D (2002) Life-satisfaction: the state of knowledge and the implications for governments. Strategy Unit, London
Duncan G (2007) After happiness. J Political Ideologies 12(1):85–108
Diener E, Seligman MEP (2004) Beyond money: toward an economy of well-being. Psychological Sci Publ Interest 5(1):1–31
Easterlin RA (1974) Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In: David IPA, Reder MW (eds) Nations and households in economic growth: essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz. Academic Press, New York, pp 89–125
Easterlin RA (2001) Income and happiness: towards a unified theory. Econ J 111(473):465–484
Easterlin RA (2003a) Towards a better theory of happiness. Conference abstract, The paradoxes of happiness in economics, University of Milano-Bicocca, pp 21–23
Easterlin RA (2003b) Explaining happiness. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100(19):11176–11183
Frey BS, Stutzer A (2002) What can economists learn from happiness research? J Econ Literature 40(2):402–435
Furedi F (2006) Why the ‘politics of happiness’ makes me mad. Spiked-Online, 23 May 2006. Available at http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/311/ accessed 30 January 2007
Jorgensen IS, Nafstad HE (2004) Positive psychology: historical, philosophical and epistemological perspectives. In: Linley PA, Joseph S (eds) Positive psychology in practice. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 15–34
Killerby P (2005) ‘Trust me, I’m from the government’: the complex relationship between trust in government and quality of governance. Social Policy J New Zealand 25:1–15
Lang T, Rayner G (2007) Overcoming policy cacophony on obesity: an ecological public health framework for policymakers. Obes Rev 8(suppl. 1):165–181
Layard R (2005) Happiness: lessons from a new science. Penguin, New York
Mair P (2006) Ruling the void? The hollowing of western democracy. New Left Rev 42:25–51
Mancall M (2004) Gross national happiness and development: an essay. In: Ura K, Galay K (eds) Gross national happiness and development. Centre for Bhutan Studies, Thimpu, pp 1–54
Myers DG (2004) Psychology. Worth, New York
Ng Y-K, Ho LS (2006) Introduction: happiness as the only ultimate objective of public policy. In: Ng Y-K, Ho LS (eds) Happiness and public policy: theory, case studies and implications. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, pp 1–16
Paine T (1996) Rights of man. Wordsworth, Ware
Rawls J (1999) A theory of justice revised. Belknap, Cambridge
Rhodes RAW (1996) The new governance: governing without government. Political Studies, XLIV, pp 652–667
Rorty R (1999) Philosophy and social hope. Penguin, London
Saris WE, Andreenkova A (2001) Following changes in living conditions and happiness in post communist Russia: the Russet Panel. J Happiness Stud 2(2):95–109
Sen A (1985) Well-being, agency and freedom: the Dewey lectures 1984. J Philos 82(4):169–221
Sennett R (2006) The culture of the new capitalism. Yale University Press, New Haven
Sinclair K (1991) A history of New Zealand. 4th edn. Penguin, Auckland
United Nations Statistics Division (2007) 1993 system of national accounts, introduction: the aggregates of the system as indicators of economic activity and welfare. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/sna1993/tocLev8.asp?L1=1&L2=10. Accessed 7 Sept 2007
Van de Walle S, Bouckaert G (2003) Public service performance and trust in government: the problem of causality. Int J Public Administration 26(8&9):891–913
Veenhoven R (2004) Happiness as a public policy aim: the greatest happiness principle. In: Linley PA, Joseph S (eds) Positive psychology in practice. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 658–678
Veenhoven R (2007) Trend average happiness in nations 1946–2006: how much people like the life they live. World database of happiness, Trend report 2007–1
http://www.worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/hap_nat/nat_fp.htm
Warnock M (ed) (1962) Utilitarianism. Collins, Glasgow
Wierzbicka A (1999) Emotions across languages and cultures: diversity and universals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Nikil Mukerji for comments on an early draft, and to Professor Ruut Veenhoven for supplying data.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Duncan, G. (2013). Should Happiness-Maximization be the Goal of Government?. In: Delle Fave, A. (eds) The Exploration of Happiness. Happiness Studies Book Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5702-8_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5702-8_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5701-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5702-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)