There are roughly two philosophical literatures on “happiness,” each corresponding to a different sense of the term. One uses ‘happiness’ as a value term, roughly synonymous with well-being or flourishing. The other body of work uses the word as a purely descriptive psychological term, akin to ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’. An important project in the philosophy of happiness is simply getting clear on what various writers are talking about: what are the important meanings of the term and how do they connect? (...) While the “well-being” sense of happiness receives significant attention in the contemporary literature on well-being, the psychological notion is undergoing a revival as a major focus of philosophical inquiry, following on recent developments in the science of happiness. This entry focuses on the psychological sense of happiness (for the well-being notion, see the entry on well-being). The main accounts of happiness in this sense are hedonism, the life satisfaction theory, and the emotional state theory. Leaving verbal questions behind, we find that happiness in the psychological sense has always been an important concern of philosophers. Yet the significance of happiness for a good life has been hotly disputed in recent decades. Further questions of contemporary interest concern the relation between the philosophy and science of happiness, as well as the role of happiness in social and political decision-making. (shrink)

Are widely used measurements in the human sciences (say happiness surveys or depression scales) quantitative or merely ordinal? If they are merely ordinal, could they be developed into quantitative measurements, just like in the progression from thermoscopes to thermometers? Taking inspiration from recent philosophy of measurement, some practitioners express optimism about future human science measurements. The so-called quantity objection stands out for having the only chance of settling the debate in favour of the pessimists. It claims that the problem lies (...) not with current, or likely future, measurement practices in the human sciences, but with human science attributes themselves—they just are not quantitative, but merely ordinal. Hence, they cannot not (thus will not) be measured quantitatively. The argument has a long and distinguished pedigree. This paper assesses old and recent versions of it, namely: the objection made originally to Fechner’s psychophysics by von Kries (among others) and Michell’s recent version of this objection. To do so, the paper first draws important distinctions between different versions of the argument that have been overlooked. Then, it argues that none of the versions of the quantity objection provide a good reason for the optimists to give up their optimism. In particular, Michell’s argument characterizes the measurand (that is, the attribute to be measured) in a way that optimists do not and need not accept. Yet the optimists’ defence articulated here brings with it serious burdens to discharge. The ball is in their court. (shrink)

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth’s unduly neglected monograph New and Old Methods of Ethics (1877) advances a highly sophisticated and mathematized account of social well-being in the utilitarian tradition of his 19th-century contemporaries. This article illustrates how his usage of the ‘calculus of variations’ was combined with findings from empirical psychology and economic theory to construct a consequentialist axiological framework. A conclusion is drawn that Edgeworth is a methodological predecessor to several important methods, ideas, and issues that continue to be discussed in (...) contemporary social well-being studies. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical assessment of leading theory-based, evidence-based and coherentist approaches to the definition and the measurement of well-being. It then builds on this assessment to articulate a reformed division of labor for the science of well-being and argues that this reformed division of labor can improve on the proffered approaches by combining the most plausible tenets of theory-based approaches with the most plausible tenets of coherentist approaches. This result does not per se exclude the possibility that theory-based (...) and coherentist approaches may be independently improved or amended in the years to come. Still, together with the challenges that affect these approaches, it strengthens the case for combining the most plausible tenets of those approaches. (shrink)

I aim to show that the common idea according to which we can assess how bad death is for the person who dies relies on numerous dubious premises. These premises are intuitive from the point of view of dominant views regarding the badness of death. However, unless these premises have been thoroughly justified, we cannot measure the badness of death for the person who dies. In this paper, I will make explicit assumptions that pertain to the alleged level of badness (...) of death. The most important assumption I will address is the assignment of a quantitative value of zero to death, which leads to the conclusion that there are lives not worth living for the affected person. Such a view interprets the idea of a live worth living in quantitative terms. It is in conflict with actual evaluations of relevant people of their lives. (shrink)

Wodak (2019) persuasively argues that we are not justified in believing that well-being measurements are linear. From this, he infers grave consequences for both political philosophy thought experiments and empirical psychological research. Here I argue that these consequences do not follow. Wodak’s challenges to the status of well-being measurements do not affect thought experiments, and well-being empirical researchers may be justified in making average comparisons even if their measurements are not linear.

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the (...) claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence. (shrink)

Introduction: Wellbeing policy analysis is often criticized for requiring a cardinal interpretation of measurement scales, such as ranking happiness on an integer scale from 0-10. The commonly-used scales also implicitly constrain the human capacity for experience, typically that our most intense experiences can only be at most ten times more intense than our mildest experiences. This paper presents the alternative “heavy-tailed valence” (HTV) hypothesis: the notion that the accessible human capacity for emotional experiences of pleasure and pain spans a minimum (...) of two orders of magnitude. Methods: We specify five testable predictions of the HTV hypothesis. A pilot survey of adults aged 21-64 (n = 97) then tested two predictions, asking respondents to comment on the most painful and most pleasurable experiences they can recall, alongside the second most painful and pleasurable experiences. Results: The results find tentative support for the hypothesis. For instance, over half of respondents said their most intense experiences were at least twice as intense as the second most intense, implying a wide capacity overall. Simulations further demonstrate that survey responses are more consistent with underlying heavy-tailed distributions of experience than a “constrained valence” psychology. Discussion: A synthesis of these results with prior findings suggests a “kinked” scale, such that a wide range of felt experience is compressed in reports at the high end of intensity scales, even if reports at lower intensities behave more cardinally. We present a discussion of three stylized facts that support HTV and six against, lessons for a future survey, practical guidelines for existing analyses, and implications for current policy. We argue for a dramatic increase in societal ambition. Even in high average income countries, the HTV hypothesis suggests we remain far further below our wellbeing potential than a surface reading of the data might suggest. (shrink)

Two different types of subjective well-being (SWB) measures exhibit a remarkable difference in their correlations with people’s circumstances. The life satisfaction method shows relatively a strong correlation with income and material conveniences while affective measures are more tightly linked with freedom. Why is this so? To explain this difference I examine the cognitive mechanisms underlying these measures by means of dual process theory. This theory identifies two broad categories of cognition. One is Type 1: fast, intuitive, automatic and autonomous. The (...) other is Type 2: slow, deliberate and under conscious control. (They are also known as System 1 and System 2). I argue that in our normal decision making there is a division of labor between these mechanisms. Type 2 is more focused on making choices, comparing material goods and tradeoffs between them, while Type 1 is more oriented at the freedom that is necessary to make those choices. (shrink)