Thomas Jefferson wrote, “the care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
But what is this happiness, specifically in the context of governance? Black Law’s Dictionary states “The constitutional right of men to pursue their “happiness” means the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity, or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment”.
In the recent two decades, happiness has had a resurgence. The word has caught the attention of policy-makers globally and is being touted as the solution to the evils of a capitalist driven world. But this is not the first time that happiness has been catapulted to the centre-stage of politics, economics and policy. From ancient times the word happiness has always formed a critical part of philosophy, especially in the area of governance. The second part of the happiness series focuses on the historical origins of the concept; and draws upon its evolution in the modern welfare state.
Virtue, Freedom and Happiness
Aristotle in 400 BCE laid the foundation for happiness as a goal of government. In his treatise “Nicomachean Ethics”, he argued that everything in the universe has an end goal. The purpose of man is to live by reason, as the ability to reason is what sets human beings apart from other species. “Living a life according to reason is for Aristotle the human function, and living an excellent life – reasoning well throughout its course and acting accordingly – is for him a virtuous life. Achieving such a life will bring us happiness (eudaimonia), which thus represents our highest calling, our ultimate purpose, the final end to which all others are necessarily subordinate.” Aristotle further elaborates that for man to achieve this ultimate goal of happiness, he has to be supported by the government in power. It is the duty of the State to facilitate man’s journey of attaining his highest calling, that being eudaimonia. “Indeed, “a city [or state] is excellent, at any rate, by its citizens’… being excellent” (Politics 1332a34). In other words, the state is only as good as the virtue of its citizens. The ideal government will provide its citizens with the societal framework needed to turn its citizens from vice to virtue.”
Around the same time, Kautilya wrote Arthshastra, his magnum opus on governance and administration. In the Arthashastra, Kautilya minutely examines the “Dharma” of the king to his subjects; and in a vein similar to Aristotle he states, “In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness; in their welfare his welfare, whatever pleases him he shall not consider as good, but whatever makes his subjects happy, he shall consider good.”
Thus, both Aristotle and Kautilya emphasised on a virtuous life for man, for the attainment of happiness, and on the role of the State in enabling him to achieve his highest calling; thereby making virtue a sine qua non of happiness.
The modern philosophers detracted from this idea of happiness. From Machiavelli to the Social Contract theorists, freedom rather than virtue became the bedrock of happiness. This consequently led to a transformation in the duties of the State. “Additionally, modern philosophers have argued that the purpose of the state is not to develop virtuous citizens, but to protect and preserve freedom.” Such was the impact of this transition that in 1776 in the American Declaration of Independence three inalienable rights were secured to the people, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. “Some Americans, including Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, incorporated the concept of the pursuit of happiness into man’s natural, or inherent, universal rights. Borrowing the idea of pursuing virtue or happiness from Scottish moral philosophers, such as Henry Home, Lord Kames, Jefferson went so far as to substitute the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” for the word “property” in his litany of inalienable natural rights”.
However, as the modern State progressed, the emphasis on happiness got diluted due to its abstract and subjective nature and the fear of interventionist state policies; and the concept got subsumed in the right to life and liberty. The advent of Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Product further pushed back the happiness narrative, as they became the popular measures of well-being of a nation. This led to a lopsided view of national growth and development heavily biased towards economic goals.
Happiness and Subjective Well-Being
“The dissatisfaction with purely economic indicators of societal well-being led to the quality-of-life movement in the late 1960s.” Government, especially in the West, started taking into account social indicators along with economic factors, for measuring well-being. In an attempt to include happiness objectively and scientifically into the well-being indicators, the concept of “Subjective Well-Being” came into play. By around the mid 1980s significant progress was made in the field of happiness and well-being, particularly from the perspective of measured well-being. Ed Diener in 1984 wrote his seminal work on Subjective Well-Being (SWB), which led to an exponential increase in the research and debate on the concept. He stated four reasons for the growth of SWB studies around the globe. Firstly, he relied on the post-materialism in the West, which propelled people to look beyond their materialistic needs. Secondly, he pointed towards the democratic nature of SWB, which enables people to form opinions about their lives and how they feel about it; instead of depending on the evaluation of experts. Thirdly, he stated the growing individualism around the globe, which further fuelled people’s interest in their own well-being. Fourthly, he highlighted the fact that researchers were able to develop scientific methods to measure SWB, thereby ensuring that it can be studied as a distinct discipline.
Ed Diener developed a tripartite model to define and study SWB, and the concept of happiness got incorporated into the wider concept of SWB; as the ability to attribute specific measuring techniques proved to be a game-changer in the field of happiness studies:
“Subjective well being (SWB) involves the various ways that people evaluate and experience their lives. In many ways, the term is synonymous with the everyday notion of happiness – positive feelings are an important aspect of wellbeing. However, SWB encompasses more than positive feelings. Diener ( 1984 ) synthesized what has since been referred to as the tripartite model of SWB. This model posits three distinct but often related components of wellbeing: frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and cognitive evaluations such as life satisfaction. The emphasis on subjective wellbeing assumes that people can meaningfully evaluate their own lives and experiences.”
Thus, with happiness becoming a quantifiable concept, self-reported measures of well-being assumed significant importance in the measurement of growth and development of a nation. The United Nations in 1990 launched the Human Development Index “to address the discontent with using purely economic indicators, and stated that people are the real wealth of a nation”. The United Nations in 2012 passed a resolution proclaiming 20th of March as International Day of Happiness, wherein it recognised pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human goal and emphasised on the intrinsic role of happiness in the formulation of public policy. In the same year, the World Happiness Report was propounded in response to a “worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and well-being as criteria for government policy. It reviews the state of happiness in the world today and shows how the science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness.”
Happiness is not a novel concept. From virtue to freedom to well-being, it has found its place in different theories in different eras. It has been accorded a central place in policy and governance from ancient times, and despite all the manifestations it has gone through; it has remained irreplaceable. Thus, it becomes pertinent for nations to give due recognition to the concept, to propagate a more holistic and inclusive model of growth and development.