April, 2007

Happiness as a Signal of Good Fit with Human Nature

by Ruut Veenhoven

April 25th, 2007

Will raises an important point that requires some elaboration on my part.
What indicates a good fit with the nature of an organism? One sign is the continuation of the species. This may involve high birth rates — as Will notes — but not necessarily so. Another sign is physical thriving as apparent in rising [...]

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The Artificiality of Happiness

by Will Wilkinson

April 25th, 2007

I find Ruut’s argument for the centrality of happiness, even for pluralists, very persuasive. If happiness is in fact a cause of, and is in turn caused by, a number of other values we hold dear in their own right, then I’m sold. And I’m attracted to the idea of average happiness levels as a [...]

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Good News About Depression and Suicide

by Will Wilkinson

April 23rd, 2007

In this post, Barry claims:

Even if well-being is trending up in the U.S., so too is clinical depression (including suicide).
I’m not sure that this is true in the case of depression, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t for suicide.
Estimates of the incidence of depression may be vastly overinflated due to a number of considerations laid [...]

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Justice and Happiness and Growth, not Justice or Happiness or Growth

by Barry Schwartz

April 23rd, 2007

I think Darrin has it exactly right that too much security seems to produce a sclerotic economy, at least in these times, and several Scandinavian countries, seeing the handwriting on the wall, have traded a bit of security for economic flexibility in recent years. Some day a really smart economist may figure out a [...]

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What Public Policy Can Add to Happiness

by Ruut Veenhoven

April 23rd, 2007

Darrin MacMahon notes that people are fairly happy in contemporary capitalist democracies and asks me what public policy can do to create even greater happiness for a greater number. In my view there are options at three levels: the macro level of nations, the meso level of organizations, and the micro level of individuals. I [...]

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The Place of Happiness in Pluralism

by Ruut Veenhoven

April 23rd, 2007

Wil Wilkinson notes that happiness cannot be taken as the sole master value and pleas for a “reasonable pluralism” in which happiness competes with other values in the public debate. I agree that happiness is not the only valuable thing, but I also think that happiness has additional merits that go beyond its intrinsic worth. [...]

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Policy Trade-offs, Justice, and Happiness

by Darrin M. McMahon

April 23rd, 2007

I have to say that as a humanist, it is great fun to watch the high level exchange between Will and Barry from the sidelines. But their discussion raises a number of questions in my mind. Barry spoke of the importance of security as a desirable human end, and I have to say that on [...]

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“Going to Hell” Is a Relative Matter

by Barry Schwartz

April 21st, 2007

Will’s most recent post suggests several thoughts. I think it is absolutely true that affluent westerners whine because we can. The objective improvements in our lives give us the time to examine life in microscopic detail and complain about everything that isn’t perfect. Pity the poor little rich folks. So we have little or no [...]

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Why We Think We’re Unhappy and What Not to Do About It

by Will Wilkinson

April 20th, 2007

At the end of my initial reply to Darrin, I mentioned that I wanted to say something about why so many people think we’re unhappy, even though the evidence says we’re not. Here’s a partial crack at that question. (I give a related but different diagnosis at the end of my paper.)
One obvious reason for [...]

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Happiness as an Input to Political Deliberation

by Will Wilkinson

April 19th, 2007

In his most recent post, Barry writes:
As an empirical fact, states DO make policy. Should policy be determined by the “new science” of happiness? Of course not. Should it be informed by the “new science” of happiness? Absolutely.
I agree completely that policy ought to be informed by happiness research. But I think it is too [...]

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Reasoned Evaluation or Blind Faith? How Should States Determine Policy?

by Barry Schwartz

April 18th, 2007

I am very much taken by the thoughtful discussion offered by Will Wilkinson and then by Darrin McMahon’s reply to our various posts. Darrin continues to teach me history. When I said that Darrin was confusing happiness with pleasure, I did not mean that he did so in his book, for he surely [...]

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Virtue, Pleasure, and Paternalism in Happiness Policy

by Darrin M. McMahon

April 18th, 2007

First of all let me say what fun it is to participate in a forum like this, and to thank the Cato Institute for organizing it, and Barry Schwartz, Ruut Veenhoven, and Will Wilkinson for offering such eloquent and stimulating reactions to my own modest proposals. I have to say that I chuckled when reading [...]

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The Quest for a Scientific Politics of Happiness

by Will Wilkinson

April 16th, 2007

In his reply to McMahon, Cato Unbound managing editor Will Wilkinson lays out three “enormous problems” for the “quest for a scientific politics of happiness.” First, happiness is just one value among many. Second, no one knows for sure what happiness is. Third, Wilkinson sets up a dilemma. On the one hand, if a scientific politics of happiness is understood as the active management of social welfare by political elites, then it pseudoscience. On the other hand, if it is understood as a science of social coordination, then the specific aim of happiness becomes secondary to the requirements of effective coordination. This “institutionalist” conception of a scientific politics of happiness can overcome the problems of pluralism and definition, Wilkinson argues, but at the price of losing focus on the preeminent value of happiness.

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