Greater Happiness for a Greater Number

By R. Veenhoven. 2010

216 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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. In this paper I consider these classic philosophical qualms 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 behaviour. Though happiness can conflict with these values in theory, it appears to match them in practice.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d7bd8dff659e3dc4ff0146c7379a3451005bda1c

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Citations in the corpus

Resident Attitudes to Tourism and Their Effect on Subjective Well-Being (2012, background): “However, several studies have shown that the notion of happiness as being completely “set” is false (Diener and Lucas 2006; Headey 2008, 2010; Veenhoven 1994, 2010b, 2010d).”
Everyday Understandings of Happiness, Good Life, and Satisfaction: Three Different Facets of Well-being (2017, background): “They represent complex multi-componential constructs encompassing people’s evaluations of different life domains (Veenhoven, 2011).”
Associations between religiosity, mental health, and subjective well-being among Arabic samples from Egypt and Kuwait (2012, methodology): “…of Happiness; Veenhoven, 2002) have been published (Argyle, 2002; Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; Chang, 2001; Diener, Lucas, & Oishi, 2002; Gillham, 2000; Lopez & Snyder, 2003; Seligman, 2000; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Snyder, 2000; Snyder & McCullough, 2000; Veenhoven, 2008, 2010).”
Human well‐being and climate change mitigation (2017, background): “Such is the case for the major authors of happiness research—Ruut Veenhoven and Richard Layard—who recommend addressing individual competencies, ‘training art-of-living skills,’ and cognitive behavior therapy as key solutions to societal well-being.(19,20) In this latter sense, hedonic assessments r”
Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions (2014, background): “2002), lower levels of happiness (Veenhoven 2010), and lower overall subjective well-being (Samanni and Holmberg 2010; Helliwell and Huang 2008).”
Contentment and Affect in the Estimation of Happiness (2013, background): “This classic philosophy is not only more accepted these days, but also more practicable, now that scientific research provides more view on the conditions for happiness (Veenhoven 2010a).”