Happiness: Lessons From A New Science

Richard Layard (2005, 2^nd Edition 2011)

In a paragraph

Personal and public policy should be directed towards the general good by applying the modern scientific understanding of happiness.  We should address the paradox that economic growth has not made us happier.   Happiness is a single, objective dimension, but we should give more weight to the happiness of the less happy.  We should aim for trust, security and cooperation.

Key points

• The new psychology of happiness allows us to develop a new vision for our lifestyles and public policies based on evidence rather than assertion.

• There is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income and strive for it. Yet as Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier. This devastating fact should be the starting point for all discussion of how to improve our lot. It should cause each government to reappraise its objectives, and every one of us to rethink our goals. The rat race is largely counterproductive. An earner may initially gain in happiness, but pollution, comparisons and habituation often negate.

• By happiness I mean feeling good — enjoying life and wanting the feeling to be maintained. By unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things were different. There are countless sources of happiness, and countless sources of pain and misery. But all our experience has in it a dimension that corresponds to how good or bad we feel. Good feelings drive out bad feelings so that happiness is a single dimension of all our waking experience.  We generally know how happy we are. We have separate drives but there must be some overall evaluation going on.

• Happiness is an objective dimension of all our experience. And it can be measured. We can ask people how they feel. We can ask their friends or observers for an independent assessment. Also, remarkably, we can now take measurements of the electrical activity in the relevant parts of a person’s brain. All of these different measurements give consistent answers about a person’s happiness. Happiness correlates to the balance of activity in the left pre-frontal lobe over the right pre-frontal lobe. Brain science confirms the objective character of happiness.

• We normally take a longish view. We accept the ups and downs and care mainly about our average happiness over a longish period of time. But that average is made up from a whole series of moments.

• The search for good feeling is the mechanism that has preserved and multiplied the human race.

• We naturally look for one ultimate goal that enables us to judge other goals by how they contribute to it. Happiness is that ultimate goal because, unlike all other goals, it is self-evidently good. No, one has proposed any other “ultimate” principle that could arbitrate conflicting moral rules. Happiness is special as the only good which would be generally accepted as an end in itself.

• Public policy should be judged by how it increases human happiness and reduces human misery. Likewise, private behaviour should aim at producing the greatest overall happiness.  It is self-evident that the best society is the happiest.

• Democratic governments exist to promote the happiness of the people in those spheres where individual effort is less effective than collective effort. The aim of politics is to make the world a more friendly place and not an assault course. Public policy can more easily remove misery than augment happiness. 

• World Values Survey correlations show sources of happiness. Happiness comes from without and within. Prod any happy person and you will find a project.  If our goals are too low, we get bored, but if they are too high, we get frustrated.

• The impartial spectator would surely care more about what happened to the miserable person than to the person who was already happy. He would therefore give a different “weight” to changes in happiness according to how happy the person was already. It is more important to reduce suffering than to generate extreme happiness. An extra pound produces x times more extra happiness for a poorer person than for someone x times richer than him.

• Other people affect us through so many channels that voluntary exchange is only a limited part of the story.

• Much of our anxiety and depression is no longer necessary. The great challenge now is to use our mastery over nature to master ourselves and to give us more of the happiness that we all want. Our thoughts do affect our feelings. Human beings have largely conquered nature, but they have still to conquer themselves.

• Trust and security are central to happiness. Taxation is a way of containing the rat race.  Income is addictive. We habituate more rapidly to things that money can buy than to things it cannot buy.

• Keynes “We have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy.” Security and a quiet mind should increase as we get richer.  A high-turnover community is rarely friendly.  Mental illness is probably the largest single cause of misery in Western societies.

• Our society is not likely to become happier unless people agree that this is what we want to happen. The greatest happiness ideal can help us think dispassionately about how to organise society and it can inspire us with a passionate commitment to the common good.  Modern society desperately needs a concept of the common good around which to unite the efforts of its members. The decline of Christianity and then of social solidarity has left a moral vacuum.

• Bentham: Create all the happiness you are able to create, remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment, you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

Comments

The book is a well written and well organised statement of a firm utilitarian view and its implications for public and private policy. Although intelligent and learned, it is notably passionate and emphatic and concentrates more on making its case than on considering objections.  Layard is a contemporary Bentham, and his enthusiasm and clearly expressed outlook are very welcome.

There are some interesting specific claims on which I will comment:  

• Personal and public policy should be directed towards the general good applying modern science.

• A central problem is that we have not become happier as we have become richer.   Although the evidence may be somewhat more mixed than Layard allows, I agree that this central failure needs to be addressed.

• Happiness is a single, objective dimension of all our waking experiences. I think hedonic levels are only roughly comparable.  More thought is required here to work up a more sophisticated view.  Layard doesn’t really deal with measurement scales.  Also, ‘objective’ may not be the right word.  But Layard’s simple view may be a good model to apply.  Note his interesting view that we need to use something like the simple model to make sense of our prudent choices.

• Happiness is special as it is the only good which is generally accepted as an end in itself. The quest for consistency is an important argument for utilitarianism.

• Give greater weight to happiness levels of the less well off, distribution being a separate question. This is a departure from pure utilitarianism which is interesting, but I would debate.  We may alternatively get similar results by using diminishing marginal utility, analogies with prudential trade-offs and the greater significance of negative happiness.

• Trust and security are central to happiness. Layard gives good arguments for mental health provision, progressive taxation, full employment and less mobility. 

• Commitment to the common good can be a much-needed unifying ideal.

• Future generations, and human enhancement, are not considered, apart from a mention in an on-line appendix. This is a notable omission.

• Obligations to animals are not really considered. Again, this is a notable omission.  

This book is a fine statement of a modern utilitarian position.   There are some points which could be challenged or further developed, or that were skated over, but Layard paints a compelling and comprehensive picture.  

NOTES

Preface

I am an economist — I love the subject and it has served me well. But economics equates changes in the happiness of a society with changes in its purchasing power — or roughly so. I have never accepted that view, and the history of the last fifty years has disproved it. Instead, the new psychology of happiness makes it possible to construct an alternative view, based on evidence rather than assertion. From this we can develop a new vision of what lifestyles and what policies are sensible, drawing on the new psychology, as well as on economics, brain science, sociology and philosophy.

PART I: The Problem

1. What’s the problem?

There is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income and strive for it. Yet as Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier. A fact proven by many pieces of scientific research.  [The evidence may be more mixed. Style too emphatic and unqualified. Layard as the Bentham of the new utilitarianism]

This devastating fact should be the starting point for all discussion of how to improve our lot. It should cause each government to reappraise its objectives, and every one of us to rethink our goals.

Once subsistence income is guaranteed, making people happier is not easy.  If we want people to be happier, we really have to know what conditions generate happiness and how to cultivate them.  [Can be somewhat easier to remove misery]

We have enough evidence to rethink government policy and to reappraise our personal choices and philosophy of life.

The philosophy is that of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, as articulated by Jeremy Bentham. [The Enlightenment included philosophers hostile to utilitarianism, notably Kant, so misleading to describe as the enlightenment philosophy]

The best society, he said, is one where the citizens are happiest. So, the best public policy is that which produces the greatest happiness. It is fundamentally egalitarian, because everybody’s happiness is to count equally. It is also fundamentally humane, because it says that what matters ultimately is what people feel. It is close in spirit to the American Declaration of Independence. It can now at last be applied using evidence instead of speculation.

Happiness is feeling good, and misery is feeling bad. At every moment we feel somewhere between wonderful and half-dead, and that feeling can now be measured by asking people or by monitoring their brains.  Once that is done, we can go on to explain a person’s underlying level of happiness — the quality of his life as he experiences it.

Our thoughts do affect our feelings. Human beings have largely conquered nature, but they have still to conquer themselves.

2. What is happiness?

Mainly the balance of activity in the brain’s left–hand side behind the forehead over activity in the right-hand side. [That experience is correlated with objective brain activity does not stop it being subjective. A philosophical issue is skirted over here]

So, what is the feeling of happiness? Is there a state of “feeling good” or “feeling bad” that is a dimension of all our waking life? Can people say at any moment how they feel?  Like your temperature, can I compare my happiness with yours? The answer to all these questions is essentially yes. [Bold. In opposition to most writers. Welcome.] Would not surprise most people, past or present.

So, by happiness I mean feeling good — enjoying life and wanting the feeling to be maintained. By unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things were different. There are countless sources of happiness, and countless sources of pain and misery. But all our experience has in it a dimension that corresponds to how good or bad we feel.

Most people find it easy to say how good they are feeling. [Significant that many people think they can make sense of happiness conceived of as a simple level like temperature. May be worth adopting as a simplified but effective model.]

We normally take a longish view. We accept the ups and downs and care mainly about our average happiness over a longish period of time. But that average is made up from a whole series of moments.

“Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, quite happy, or not very happy?”  Overall or during an episode. Is everyone who answers the question using the words in the same way? Replies can be independently verified by friends, interviewer, bodily state and brain state. What they liked most (sex) and what they liked least (commuting).

By using very powerful magnets it is possible to stimulate activity in the left side of the forebrain, and this automatically produces a better mood. Indeed, this method has even been used to alleviate depression. Even more remarkable, it has been found to improve the immune system. People whose left side is especially active (“left-siders”) report more positive feelings. [I am sure happiness is more complicated that just activity in two areas. Layard makes this sound more emphatic than it is.]  Left-sided youngsters are much more exploratory. Brain science confirms the objective character of happiness. Confirms the link between what people report and objective brain activity. There is no difference between what people think they feel and what they “really” feel,

A single dimension. But is happiness really a single dimension of experience running from extreme misery to extreme joy? Or is it possible to be both happy and unhappy at the same time? The broad answer to this is no. [I doubt it is this simple.]

Also, the arousal dimension.  Joy – Agitation, Contentment – Depression

Mil was right about true sources of lasting happiness but wrong that these intrinsically better. 

No good feeling is bad in itself — it can only be bad because of its consequences.

Autobiographical essays of nuns suggest that happiness can increase a person’s length of life

When a person has a happy experience, the body chemistry improves, and blood pressure and heart rate tend to fall.  [Too emphatic?]

Happiness is supremely important because it is our overall motivational device. We seek to feel good and to avoid pain (not moment by moment but overall). The search for good feeling is the mechanism that has preserved and multiplied the human race. We have separate drives but there must be some overall evaluation going on.  

[An interesting idea – happiness is a single combined measure as this allows us to make trade-offs in deciding what to do. It doesn’t feel so simple, I am aware of conflicting different motivations and do not know which experience is better.]

It is this pattern of “approach” and “avoidance” that is central to our behaviour.  [Takes a rational economists’ perspective. Choice for others may be more conflicted and emotional.]

Much of our anxiety and depression is no longer necessary. The great challenge now is to use our mastery over nature to master ourselves and to give us more of the happiness that we all want.

3. Are we getting happier?

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. Woody Allen

Data shows happiness not rising with income in US and UK.  Further evidence is that people do not get happier over lifetimes, richer countries are not much happier and there are bad trends in depression.

4. If you’re so rich, why aren’t you happy?

Survey suggested people were happy to be poorer, provided their relative position improved. People also compare their income with what they themselves have got used to. Norm. Such adaptation is common in the natural world. When things go badly, it can be a wonderful insurance policy. But when things go well, it eventually dampens our joy. The secret of happiness is to seek out those good things that you can never fully adapt to.

It is a provoking idea that in the United States happiness has stagnated since 1975, while it has risen in Europe. Could this have anything to do with trends in the work-life balance?

5. So, what does make us happy?

Happiness comes from without and within. Genes. Family upbringing. Age, gender, looks, IQ, education have little effect.

Big Seven. Family relationships.  Financial situation.  Work.  Community and friends.  Health Personal freedom. Personal values.

World Values Survey correlations.  On a 100-point scale, income down by a third reduces happiness by 2 points, while marriage separation reduces by 8 points, and unemployment reduces by 6 points.

The proportion who says “Yes, most people can be trusted” varies from 5% in Brazil to as high as 64 % in Norway.

People can never adapt to chronic pain or to mental illness

Prod any happy person and you will find a project. If our goals are too low, we get bored. But if they are too high, we get frustrated. The secret is to have goals that are stretching enough, but not too stretching. Unattainable goals are a well-known cause of depression, but so too is boredom.

Tibor Sinofsky. The Joyless Economy. Boredom through choosing comfort instead of stimulation. We have more choice over our goals. Getting them right is the problem. I’m going to do nothing for ever and ever. Both Keynes and Bertrand Russell considered boredom the biggest danger for humans, once economic scarcity had been overcome.

6. What’s going wrong

Bhutan introducing TV

Adverse trends.  Broken families.  Increased crime, more recently reversing, decreased trust, fewer associations, TV.

Moralists throughout the ages have argued that the world was going to pot. So, one should be careful about any kind of alarmist talk. But surveys reveal fundamental changes for the worse. In 1959, 56% of Britons said yes, most people can be trusted. By 1998 that figure had fallen to 30%.

Motherhood would no longer be enough, if it ever was.

Because television is so passive, it also reduced the measured creativity of people,

TV does not simply mirror life — that would be boring. It contains far more violence, sex and chaotic relationships than ordinary life does, and it contains far more wealth and beauty. Desensitivity and discontent.

Many people, if pushed to explain their views, consider morals to be produced by human responses to the problems of living together.

Liberation from false guilt.

For some time, left-wing thinking provided a social ethic, something greater than ourselves. These ideas provided a breath of afterlife to the old religious notions of social obligation,

human rights.  Protestantism, death of deference.

The goal of self -realisation is not enough. No society can work unless its members feel responsibilities as well as rights. This raises a fundamental question: “Why should I feel responsible for other people?” It is a totally reasonable question. Unless we can offer an answer to that question, we cannot hope to create a happier society.

The decline of orthodox Christianity and then of social solidarity has left a moral vacuum.

From Darwin’s theory of evolution many people now conclude that to survive you have to be selfish and to look after No. 1: if you don’t, you’ll only get taken for a ride. From Adam Smith they also learn, conveniently, that even if everyone is completely selfish, things will actually turn out for the best

7. Can we pursue a common good?

The better part of human life consists of non-zero-sum interactions between people — ones that add to the total of our well-being. Some arm’s length, some up close direct cooperation.  Cooperation is all around us.

A deep sense of mutuality we feel for other people, although varies considerably.

It explains why there is an element of decency and reliability in most people, commitments needed.

We need friends without, and friends inside ourselves.

PART II What Can Be Done?

8.      The Greatest Happiness: Is that the Goal?

Create all the happiness you are able to create remove all the misery you are able to remove. Bentham. Appalled by lack of any rationale for jumble of laws and wanted unifying principle

Pragmatic policy-makers claim to be doing “what works,” but works to what end? We are seriously in need of a clear concept of the good society, and of the good action.

I believe that Bentham’s idea was right and that we should fearlessly adopt it and apply it to our lives. [Rare to see an emphatic espousal of Benthamite Utilitarianism. Quite refreshing.]

The problem with many goals is that they often conflict, and then we have to balance one against the other. So, we naturally look for one ultimate goal that enables us to judge other goals by how they contribute to it.  Happiness is that ultimate goal because, unlike all other goals, it is self-evidently good.  Goods like health, autonomy and freedom are “instrumental” goods

A sensible person chooses goals whose pursuit he enjoys. [True. But we should choose our goals because they are valuable rather than just because they are fun. Hopefully I will be able to perceive of my goals as both mattering and enjoyable.]

People argued against anaesthesia and aspirin on the grounds that they were unnatural; now everyone uses them.

Happiness machine is a weak test case because it describes a situation so far from our reality.

I may have promised to go to my daughter’s play, but my mother is taken to hospital. Obviously, I should figure out whose feelings would be most hurt if I did not come. That is the Benthamite solution.

Take the huge issue of which career I should adopt. I should obviously think about what I would enjoy, but I should also think about what would make the most difference to the welfare of others. The ordinary “rules of morality” provide little guidance in such a momentous moral choice, yet this is one of the most important moral decisions anyone makes. The sin of omission can be as bad as the sin of commission.

Or take problems of family conflict and break-up. How can these be considered except in terms of the feelings and welfare of all concerned?

I do take others into account, partly out of pure selfishness (expecting them to reciprocate) and partly out of genuine sympathy, and partly out of principle.

Happiness is a by-product.

Persistent mental illness is impossible to adapt to. But most people adapt quite well if taxed to help the mentally ill.

The impartial spectator would surely care more about what happened to the miserable person than to the person who was already happy. He would therefore give a different “weight” to changes in happiness according to how happy the person was already.

More important to reduce suffering than to generate extreme happiness.

A two-stage approach: first to help us choose the “rules,” and then to help us choose the “action” when the rules conflict. [More complex than this]

But we desperately need a single overarching principle, for at least three reasons. Conflict between the rules. Review the rules. Where rules provide little guidance. The answer can only be found from the overarching objective of maximising human happiness.

Most moral codes are much stronger on don’ts than on dos. They are not good at preventing sins of omission. [Moral codes can only provide part of the answer to what to do. Another way to state my main theme.]

When it is argued we should just stick with our various different moral intuitions, I answer thus. That was not the way we progressed in our understanding of nature.

So, my argument is this. People want to be happy. But we also have a moral sense, which tells us to consider other people as well as ourselves. Our reason helps us think how to do this, so that we come to value the happiness of everyone equally. That should be the rule for private behaviour and for public choice. We shall not always do what is right, but if everyone tries to, we shall end up happier. Bully for Bentham, I say.

9. Does economics have a clue?

The framework is terrific. We start from the individuals and their wants. Then we have the market where they interact — and where their wants get satisfied, either more or less. What is wrong is the theory of human nature, which is largely based on an outdated version of behaviourism.

Adam Smith.  It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantage.

Markets need to be free, with information and without externalities. Cost-benefit analysis. Two-stage approach: “willingness-to-pay,” How much money matters

Clearly, we need to measure the average happiness of the population (adjusted to give extra weight to the least happy).

We need a new economics that collaborates with the new psychology.

External effects are everywhere. [Consider the externalities of holidays]

10. How can we tame the rat race?

We all want status — or at least respect.

The higher the monkey’s position in the hierarchy, the better the monkey feels. Higher rank secretes lower average levels of stress-related cortisol — one reason why they live longer.

Too great a work incentive to achieve relative income

Pollution tax not distorting but corrective

The earner gained in happiness. But owing to pollution, the rest of the society lost in happiness about a third of what the earner gained.  In addition, because of habituation, the individual himself lost in the next period about 40 % of what he had gained in happiness the previous period, and much of this loss was unforeseen. These are strong negative effects. But they are surrounded with such huge margins of uncertainty that they do not yet provide an exact basis for policy.

These are genes we have inherited. This means that we are set up to be dissatisfied. But now that we have conquered scarcity, we need no longer be slaves to our nature. Centuries ago, we decided to preserve the weak; we can also afford to give everyone a break from the relentless pressure to succeed.

The losers become alienated and a threat to the rest of us, and even the winners cannot relax in peace.

Keynes “We have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy.”  Security and a quiet mind should increase as we get richer

11. Can we afford to be secure?

If security is what most of us desperately want, it should be a major goal for society. The rich have quite a lot of it and the poor less. Psychological cost of creative destruction

Both experience and happiness research confirm the wisdom of an earnings-related state pension

Parenting. Abortion reduces crime rate. 

A high-turnover community is rarely friendly.

Mental illness is probably the largest single cause of misery in Western societies.  Until fifty years ago there was no effective treatment for mental illness. Breakthroughs in drug therapy in the 1950s, which have done more to reduce extreme misery than any other change over the last half century. Psychotherapy — especially cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). In the fight against misery, psychiatry is in the front line. Along the barricades of the 21st century it is a key place where idealists should rally.

12. Can mind control mood?

We can train our feelings. We can liberate the positive force within us by dropping our negative self-perceptions and our inappropriate goals.

In the last thirty years practical psychology has been through a revolution.  Cognitive therapy was invented by Aaron Beck. Challenge each negative thought. Commits to a programme. Serenity Prayer.

“positive psychology” Martin Seligman. develop our strengths “satisfices” savour the things of today.

We have to control our tendency to compare ourselves with others. Enjoy the success of others. Positive feelings that take us out of ourselves.

“What thou love well remains, the rest is dross.”  Ezra Pound

Poverty of spirit is contagious. That is why education of the spirit is a public good.

To learn in school:  Understanding and managing your feelings (including anger and rivalry) Loving and serving others (including practical exercises and learning about role models) The appreciation of beauty. Causes and cures of illness, including mental illness, drugs and alcohol.  Love, family and parenting. Work and money. Understanding the media and preserving your own values. Understanding others and how to socialise. Political participation. Philosophical and religious ideas.

Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence. It should aim to produce a happier generation of adults

13. Do drugs help?

Patients, stuck in some grey, quasi-existence, who are raised by Prozac to a new level of ongoing fulfilment. They do not become vegetables, but more vital and courageous in their engagement with life.

Is there a creative spark that is so often linked to the experience of misery? Relatives are more creative than the manic-depressives themselves — they have many of the same genes but fewer of the bad experiences, Before lithium came in, one in five manic-depressives committed suicide.

14. Conclusions for today’s world

Happiness is an objective dimension of all our experience. And it can be measured. We can ask people how they feel. We can ask their friends or observers for an independent assessment. Also, remarkably, we can now take measurements of the electrical activity in the relevant parts of a person’s brain. All of these different measurements give consistent answers about a person’s happiness.

Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon.  Moreover, good feelings drive out bad feelings and vice versa, so that happiness is a single dimension of all our waking experience, running from the utmost pain and misery at one extreme to sublime joy and contentment at the other.  [I doubt this is true]

 We are programmed to seek happiness. Generally, what makes us happy is good for us, and has therefore helped to perpetuate the species.

It is self-evident that the best society is the happiest. Public policy should be judged by how it increases human happiness and reduces human misery.  Likewise, private behaviour should aim at producing the greatest overall.

Many arguments have been brought against this philosophy, but none of them stand up.  No other “ultimate” principle that could arbitrate conflicting moral rules.

Our society is not likely to become happier unless people agree that this is what we want to happen.

The greatest happiness ideal has two functions.  It can help us think dispassionately about how to organise society and it can inspire us with a passionate commitment to the common good.

Modern society desperately needs a concept of the common good around which to unite the efforts of its members.

Trust and security central to happiness

Thus, taxation is a way of containing the rat race, and we should stop apologising for its “dreadful” disincentive effects. Income is addictive.

We habituate more rapidly to things that money can buy than to things it cannot buy. More to goods than to relationships.

Inner strength of character should be a major goal of education.

Public policy can more easily remove misery than augment happiness.

Causes of misery are the more obvious, also, morally right

The most miserable group of people are the mentally ill.

Other people affect us through so many channels that voluntary exchange is only a limited part of the story.

The aim of politics is to make the world a more friendly place and not an assault course.

Really exploit the end of scarcity that science makes possible.

Compassion towards oneself and others,

Bentham.  Create all the happiness you are able to create remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment, you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

Part III the State of the Debate

15.   Are the sceptics, right?

Happiness is special. It is the only good which would be generally accepted as an end in itself.

The direction of the hierarchy is clear: I do things for happiness rather than I am happy so I can do things.

If you want to feel good, do good.

So, in Kant’s view, duty must refer to something you do not want to do. It is difficult to underestimate the danger of adopting such a perspective. If we want a world with better behaviour, we have got to have an ethic that is more in tune with human psychology.

Virtue may be the means to create a happy society, but the end is the greatest happiness and the least misery in the society.

Is painting virtuous? Virtue doesn’t seem the right word to describe these things.

This does not mean that there is a “conflict between happiness and fairness.”                                              

There is no conflict between happiness and fairness, since fairness is ultimately about how happiness is distributed.

[This view is not purely utilitarian.  Distribution is an additional principle rather than only being addressed by diminishing marginal utility]

Some people think that happiness is not serious enough — it is too linked to transient emotions

We mean the quality of a person’s total experience over an extended period. On the positive side that includes both serenity and contentment, as well as joy; and in the negative range it includes both agitated torment and sullen despair. These are all points on a single scale of feeling good or bad, which runs from extreme misery to extreme happiness. It matters desperately where people are on this spectrum.

This does not imply, as is often said, that “happiness means different things to different people.” It is the same for each of us, but its causes differ between us.

Everybody knows whether they are feeling good or bad

GREAT: Give, Relate, Exercise, Appreciate, Teach yourself.

Democratic governments exist to promote the happiness of the people in those spheres where individual effort is less effective than collective effort.

An alternative system of cost-benefit analysis where the units are those of happiness and misery.

Can Happiness Be Measured? “Yes” but imperfectly.  Well correlated with at least five relevant things: the reports of friends; the plausible causes of well-being; the plausible effects of well-being; physical functioning; and measures of brain activity.

The view that subjective experience is an objective reality

An extra pound produces ten times more extra happiness for someone with £ 10,000 than for a richer person who already gets £ 100,000. An extra pound produces x times more extra happiness for a poorer person than for someone x times richer than him.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.  “Why more equal societies almost always do better.”  Culture of respect produces both smaller income differences and a healthier lifestyle.

16. Is this a turning point?

Beveridge. Five Giants Want, Ignorance, Sickness, Squalor and Idleness.  Sixth giant — mental health. Depression is 50 % more disabling

“libertarian paternalism” — Cass Sunstein, Nudge

Richard Easterling suggested that people care primarily about their income, relative to other people.  It is the familiar zero-sum game, from which we can only escape by directing more energy to positive-sum activities — above all to our human relationships.

A Movement for a Happier Society. Action for Happiness.

Do we want a society that relies so heavily on self-interest rather than on commitment to the welfare of others?

We shall do better at liberating and satisfying our better selves.