On wellbeing and public policy Are we capable
On well-being and public policy: Are we capable of questioning the hegemony of happiness? Annie Austin University of Manchester Political Studies Association 2015 31 March 2015 1
‘Beyond GDP’ (and ‘GDP fetishism’) 2
SWB: Subjective well-being The ‘Strong Position’ (SWB) • Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? • Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? • Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? • Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile? “In a decade’s time we’re going to be using happiness as the sole basis for judging the impact of public policy. ” (Paul Dolan, ITV 23/10/14) Measures of ‘Personal well-being (SWB)’ UK Measuring National Well-being programme (ONS 2011) 3
Well-being: What constitutes the good life? Epicurus: Hedonic - Pleasure and an absence of pain (…Bentham) Aristotle: Eudaimonic - Social and political activity; ‘flourishing’ Subjective-Instrumental-Monist Or Objective-Constitutive-Pluralist 4
Subjective-Instrumental-Monist Classical Utilitarianism (Bentham 1789) Utility: “…that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing). ” (Bentham 1789) The greatest happiness of the greatest number. ‘GDP Fetishism’ (Stiglitz 2009) The ‘New Science of Happiness’ (Layard 2005) ‘Back to Bentham? ’ (Kahneman et al. 1997) SWB: “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? ” (ONS 2011) “A modern felicific calculus” A Hegemony of Happiness 5
SWB: The strong position and public policy “Expected gains in SWB could be computed for different policy areas and this information could be used to decide which forms of spending will lead to the largest increases in SWB. ” (ONS 2011) 6
Measuring National Well-being in the UK 7
Subjective-Instrumental-Monist: Advantages • Democratic/Anti-paternalistic – “…it grants respect to what people think and feel about their lives. People are not content to have experts evaluate their lives; they believe that their opinions matter. ” (Diener et al. 2009) 8
Subjective-Instrumental-Monist: Objections • Problem of adaptive preferences “A person who is ill-fed, undernourished, unsheltered, and ill can still be high up in the scale of happiness or desire fulfilment if he or she has learned to have ‘realistic’ desires and to take pleasures in small mercies. ” (Sen 1985) The “Paradox of Happiness in Hardship” (Veenhoven 2005) 9
Multi-dimensional well-being during Hard Times 10
Subjective well-being during Hard Times 11
Explaining the popularity of SWB • ‘Yardstick’ metric – Simple – Intuitive – Quantitative • Classical liberal roots – Neoliberal assumptions and individualist norms part of the DNA of modern policy actors (Hay 2001, Mirowski 2013) 12
The alternative account • Aristotelian-objective pluralist account of well-being • E. g. the Capabilities Approach – Well-being as freedom and capability to lead a flourishing life “…the complex inter-relationship between human striving and its social and material context. ” (Nussbaum 2000) 13
Conclusions • SWB is not a reliable indicator for public policy • SWB does not imply a radical new social model – Continuation of neoliberal assumptions – SWB does not get us very far ‘Beyond GDP’ • Dominance of subjective approach risks crowding out alternative accounts àThe Capabilities Approach - a workable alternative (OECD, EHRC) 14
UK Measuring National Well-being 15
Thank you On well-being and public policy: are we capable of questioning the hegemony of happiness? annie. austin@postgrad. manchester. ac. uk 16
Defining and measuring national well-being Definition Subjective Extreme Epicurean Objective Strong Position (SWB as yardstick) Stiglitz Commission Measurement Objective Observation, Resource-based Capabilities peer reports, bio(e. g. Rawls) Approach metrics 17
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