Dan Haybron Saint Louis University

Transcription

1 Dan Haybron Saint Louis University

2 Imagine a just society: everyone gets their due Great. But enough? Scrooge meets that standard! There s more to a good society than not ripping people off A just society could still be an awful place to live

3 A long tradition of thinking policy should focus on resources or freedoms, not outcomes like well- being Resources: income, wealth Standard economic view Capabilities: the opportunity to choose valuable outcomes; a kind of freedom Sen, Nussbaum Both are important

4 A land of great wealth and opportunity can still be miserable How is this possible? Mistakes: predictable error (Haybron 2008) Non- choice goods/bads: community, green space, positional competition Just focusing on options can overlook outcomes: people might still do badly

5 Outcomes matter for policy, not just freedoms and resources If your policies will make people s lives worse, you must account for that Need WBP: policy aimed directly at promoting well- being (including reducing ill- being) Well- being? A value concerning what benefits people, is good for them Aka welfare, utility, flourishing, eudaimonia, and happiness, in one sense of the word (e.g., happy life)

6 Hedonism (Bentham, Mill) Ultimately, pleasure (vs. suffering) is what benefits you Desire theories (economists) Ultimately, getting what you want is what benefits you Objectivist theories (Aristotle ) List theories: objective goods like friendship, achievement, knowledge, happiness are what benefits you Aristotle: WB = the excellent exercise of human capacities

7 Take an enjoyer society like New Orleans vs. a striver society like New York City Suppose people are happier in NO than NY. Better off? Hedonists: Yes! Desire theorists: Maybe not, if both getting what they want (enjoyment vs. achievement) Objectivists: Maybe not, if achievement is important enough vs. enjoyment

8 No expert consensus, so what standard of WB for policy? Economists favor a kind of desire theory, but many citizens reject that view! Better: defer to citizens views of WB Pragmatic subjectivism: promote what people value for themselves (Haybron and Tiberius 2012) Regardless of the right theory of WB! Focus on enjoyment for NO, achievement for NY Nonpaternalistic, and you can bypass the philosophical debate

9 Pay attention to what citizens value Listen: ask people what they want for their lives Promote and respect those values Given diversity, focus on widely shared values

10 This is why SWB is a sensible focus for policy: everyone cares about it! Even New Yorkers In general, if people are unhappy, they re probably not doing well by their standards If happy, probably doing well by their lights If South Korea is unhappy, that s patently important! SWB is a good headline metric of WB Not the only metric: want a dashboard including eudaimonic, $, & other indicators

11 LE: life evaluation (life satisfaction; Sumner: happiness ) Embodies your judgment about how your life is going Includes all values, not just hedonic values (NY) HB: hedonic balance (pleasure; Feldman: happiness ) Many smart people think this is all that matters Good for time use studies: allocating time to pleasant activities? EWB: emotional well- being (Haybron: happiness ) Positive emotional health (roughly): joy, vitality, flow, peace of mind vs. stress, anxiety, depression Vs. HB: people can mask emotional distress via distraction, time allocation (e.g., unemployed in Knabe et al. 2010) Given reliable measures, possibly best indicator of overall WB: mood as robust summary of recent conditions

12 1. I have felt cheerful and in good spirits 2. I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things 3. I have had a lot of energy, pep or vitality 4. My daily life has been filled with things that interest me 5. I have felt calm and relaxed 6. I have felt confident and self- assured 7. I have felt free, completely able to be myself 8. I have felt low in spirits or sad 9. I have been irritable or easily upset 10. I have had little interest in what I was doing 11. I have felt weary or sluggish 12. I have felt stressed or tense 13. I have felt trapped, pressured, or unable to really be myself 14. I have had worrying thoughts

13 Short answer: yes Lots of evidence SWB measures give valuable WB information People reporting higher SWB tend to be doing better in lots of ways All 3 metrics merit a place at the table

14 Objection: not believable that so many are happy, like self- reports suggest Agreed, but that s ok: We don t have to know if people are happy We mainly need to know who is happier: comparative info SWB measures do that pretty well Economic analyses also only tell us better/worse Compare: a thermometer can accurately tell you it s 5 cooler than yesterday even if it s labeled 10 too high

15 Why focus on happiness given poverty/injustice? Those are excellent places to focus WBP! Ferguson: protesting injustice, but motivated greatly by misery from poverty, bad policy Quality of life is terrible! Bad urban planning Municipalities too small to survive on taxes become predatory (26 warrants/resident in Country Club Hills) A blizzard of injustices: where to focus? The ones that cause the most misery (Rojas 2009)

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17 WBP need not mean enlarging gov t or micromanaging people s lives (soda bans ) I d suggest the real action lies at a much deeper level, where gov ts already have a huge role Lifestyle infrastructure: how institutions, norms, environment shape our way of life Food subsidies/taxes shape our diets and health Work week, vacation time, shapes leisure, time use Urban planning shapes relationships, time use

18 TIN PALMS, MISSOURI IKARIA, GREEK ISLANDS

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21 There is at least no informational loss in seeing [advantage] evaluation in terms of capabilities, rather than directly in terms of functioning[s], like WB (Sen 1993) That is, CA can dress almost anything in clothing of freedom To handle WB within C framework, just focus on the value, not number, of options. E.g.: If you have malaria, you lack the freedom to not have malaria If you re dead, you lack the freedom to be alive If you re depressed, you lack the freedom to be happy

22 In its basic form, CA is so flexible it has little content Here it s about about increasing options, there it s about increasing WB, and over there it s about prohibiting violations of basic liberties What does a rise in C index show? Who knows? We want information loss: an Everything Index is not helpful

23 In U.S., ~12% depression or generalized anxiety disorder 25% report having zero confidants; average is two 36% of over 45 chronically lonely 53% have trouble sleeping 36% so stressed last month they wanted to cry, 75% physical symptoms >50% college students have contemplated suicide 22% of 10 th grade girls in rich suburb with clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety Self- mutilation: 10-46% of teens in a given year; 17% at Princeton/ Cornell 16% of Taiwanese year olds make themselves vomit to lose weight

24 SWB metrics should be supplemented with a dashboard of others, probably including Eudaimonic metrics looking at personal development etc. Probably most people value realizing their potential ( be all you can be ) But less consensus on them, and not likely to give an equally efficient snapshot of WB

25 Shouldn t we be focusing on poverty/injustice? Among other things, yes. But they matter in great part because they cause suffering Ferguson: protesting injustice, but motivated greatly by misery from poverty, bad policy Quality of life is terrible! Urban planning separates people from jobs, each other Municipalities too small to survive on taxes become predatory (26 warrants/resident in Country Club Hills) A blizzard of injustices: where to focus? Perhaps: the ones that cause the most misery (Rojas 2009)

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