Happiness and

Subjective Well-being
across Nations
MSC. 4TH SEMESTER
Agenda
 What leads to happiness?
 The happiness hypothesis/positive psychology
 The virtue hypothesis

 A knowledge-oriented perspective on ethical behavior

 Happiness and ethical behavior
Income and happiness
Satisfraction

 More is not better!

 Mass affluence and overabundance of choice has lead to

”Affluenzia”:
 Children: highest levels of anxiety
 Increases in rates of crime and divorce
 Rates of alcoholism, suicide, and depression have increased
dramatically
- Once basic needs are met, money cannot buy additional
happiness.
- Replace welfare (GDP) with Human Development Index
(HDI)or more radically with Gross National Happiness index
(GNH) as in Bhutan
Gross National Happiness
(GNH): Bhutan as an example

 Happiness = Wealth/desire
 GNH’s four pillars:
1. Promotion of sustainable development,
2. Preservation and promotion of cultural values,
3. Conservation of the natural environment, and
4. Establishment of good governance.
Positive Psychology

 Martin Seligman
 Mihaly Csikszentmihaly

 From the disease model to flourishing.

 From focusing exclusively on the miserable/weaknesses to including how
to build human strengths

 What is happiness?
 PERMA (Positive emotions, human relationship, meaning and
accomplishement)
1) The Pleasureable life
2) The Good life
3) The Meaningful life
What leads to happiness?

INCOME HAPPINESS

?
HAPPINESS INCOME

? HAPPINESS
FLOW: BEYOND BOREDOM
AND ANXIETY
 CHALLENGES

 ANXIETY

 FLOW

 BOREDOM

SKILLS/CAPABILITIES
The pursuit of happiness

 The progress principle:

 ”Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing” (Shakespeare)
 Pleasure: making progress toward goals vs. achieving goals.

 The Adaptation principle:

 The mind is more sensitive to changes than to absolute levels.
 Nerve cells respond vigourously to new stimuli, but gradually they
”habituate”.
 Lottery winners adapt soon to the new baseline of daily life.

 We are stuck on the”hedonic treadmill” (also noted by A Smith in 1759).

 We accumulate riches in life - raise our expectations, and continue to strive
The pursuit of happiness
 Pleasures: delights that have clear sensory and strong emotional components (food, sex etc) ,

 Must be ”spaced” and varied; overdoses can lead to disgust.

 GRATIFICATION: actvities that engage fully, can lead to flow.

 Make us extend ourselves; self-transendence/transformational; ”the feeling wells up inside until it

spills over”

 Gratitude is Acknowledging of goodness in one’s life and Recognizing the source(s) of this
goodness – the object of gratitude is other-directed (Heidegger: ”Denken ist Danken”).

 The virtue of gratitude is «the mothers of all virtues».

 Gratitude implies humility and is promoting positive relations.

 The capacity for joy can and must be trained: Ex.; Keep a Gratitude Journal, spend more times with
grateful persons, watch your language!, smiling itself produces feelings of happiness
Identity and life projects
 Who do I really want to be? (Strong vs weak evaluations)

 Which are my core values that I wish to protect?

(System of values; Sustainability vs short term profitseeking, individualism vs «I am We», equality vs

inequality, freedom vs security, materialism vs meaning, fairness vs dishonesty, competition vs

cooperation, efficiency vs full employment, greed vs moderation, exit vs voice, self-interest vs other-

regarding, dignity vs status……)

(Value spheres; Scientific - Ethical - aestethical – religious

 What constitutes my identity?

 What I have? (Objects have expressive values)
 Possessions, wealth, status, power
 Who I am?
 Self-realization, relationships, extended self and life projects
 What I do?
 Ethical or unethical behavior
Identity and life projects (Charles
Taylor)
 A strong evaluation involves discriminating of right or wrong, better or
worse, higher or lower – within a horizon of significant values, like
ecological, self- realization (for all beings?), dignity, respect for life,
(compatible with common morality)
 A weak evaluation is following one’s immediate wishes and desires
Test: Whether the evaluation can be basis for admiration or contempt
 Authenticity is the courage to be true to yourself within a horizon of
important values.
 Inge Wallage (left Statoil for Greenpeace).
Happiness as eudaimonia
(Aristotle’s view)
 Happiness is an activity…

 …not one that is desirable for something

else…
 …but one that is desirable in itself…
 …because happiness does not lack anything,
but is self-sufficient.
Happiness as eudaimonia

 Virtues are the golden mean between vices (which constitute

the extremes)
 RASHNESS – COURAGE – COWARDICE
 WASTEFULNESS – GENEROSITY – STINGYNESS
 GREED – MODERATION – ASCETISM
 SELF-INDULGENCE – TEMPERANCE – INSENSIBILITY
(..that which comes through touch: eating, drinking, smoking and other bodily desires)

 Moral virtues – some examples

 Justice
 Gratitude
 Courage
 Friendship