The future of Happiness

Webcast

Ruut Veenhoven Greater happiness for a greater number - Is that possible?

Nic Marks The Happy Planet

Derek Bok


Presentations
download as *.pdf

Tim Mulgan Utilitarianism for a broken future

Ruut Veenhoven Greater happiness for a greater number - Is that possible?

Nic Marks The Happy Planet


Prof. Dr. Mathias Binswanger Is There a Growth Imperative in Modern Economies?



Bruno S. Frey lecture Ifo


“Mankind”, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche observed, “does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that.” Yet, famously enshrined in the US constitution, the pursuit of happiness has conquered the world as a constant obligation: be happy now!

The ancient Greek sought “eudaimonia”, happiness, as the highest desirable good and the object of virtue. Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher and reformer, later turned utility, or “Greatest Happiness", into the basis or definition of virtue and made it useful as an organizing principle for society.

Advances in neuroscience, the empirical investigation of subjective well-being and quality-of-life studies have brought an evidence based understanding on what makes us happy. Once we have escaped from abject poverty, more wealth does not make us feel happier, yet the relative status it provides adds to our individual satisfaction. The reproductive advantage endowed by ambition and status ensures we always want twice as much as we have. This keeps our economy turning and suggests that we are destined to consume whatever there is without ever getting any happier.

No future for happiness, then? Some believe that happiness cannot only be measured but also taught, and that societies and economies, even a future, can be built on the idea that the opportunity to feel happy is truly valuable.

- What makes us happy? (Human nature, the individual perspective)
- What contributes to our common happiness? (The effect of society)
- How can there be most happiness? (The future of happiness)

Ruut Veenhoven, Emeritus-professor of 'social conditions for human happiness', Erasmus University Rotterdam
Greater happiness for a greater number
Is that possible?

Utilitarian philosophy holds that public policy should aim at greater happiness for a greater number of people. This moral tenet meets many objections, on pragmatic grounds it is denounced as unfeasible and on ideological grounds as undesirable. As a result the principle is marginal in policy making. These classic philosophical qualms are considered in the light of recent empirical research on life-satisfaction. The data show first of all that the principle is feasible; happiness of a great number is possible in contemporary conditions and it is also possible to create more of it. The data also show that the promotion of happiness fits well with other ideals; happiness requires conditions that we value, such as freedom, and happiness fosters matters that we value, such as good health and civil behavior. Though happiness can conflict with these values in theory, it appears to match them in practice.

Nic Marks, NEF Fellow, Founder, Centre for Well-being
The Happy Planet

Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduced the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn't have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.

Tim Mulgan, Professor of Moral & Political Philosophy, Princeton / St.Andrews (in absence presented by Michael)
Utilitarianism for a broken future.

Philosophers often ignore future people - confident that, if we pursue our own interests, they will be much better-off than ourselves. Climate change undermines this optimism. Utilitarianism tells us that the interests of future people are as important as our own, and that our obligations to them are the most important part of morality. But many puzzles surround those obligations, as the identity, number, and existence of future people depend upon what we now decide to do. I outline these puzzles, and attempt to steer a path through them.