Against Happiness: A Critical Appraisal of the Use of Measures of Happiness for Evaluating Progress in Development

Frances Stewart

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2014, vol. 15, issue 4, 293-307

Abstract: The idea that measures of happiness, or subjective well-being, should be used as the sole (or dominant) measure of country progress has gained considerable support. This paper traces the origins of the approach in the works of eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century utilitarians, whose thinking ultimately provided the foundations for income as the measure of progress, equating income and utility. In contrast, the recent approach of neo-utilitarians intends to replace income as the objective by measures of happiness derived from surveys. This paper assesses happiness as the objective of development and a measure of progress, contrasting it with human rights and capabilities approaches and the promotion of justice, which each also challenge the income measure. The paper considers problems with the happiness approach arising from difficulties in measurement, people's tendency to adapt to their circumstances, and its inability to capture the well-being of future generations, while also providing a weak basis for distributional judgements. The author argues that human progress involves promoting human fulfilment or flourishing (including meeting agency goals), securing a just distribution, and ensuring that this is sustained over generations. Cross-country surveys of human well-being can go nowhere near to measuring this extensive array of objectives.

Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/19452829.2014.903234 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jhudca:v:15:y:2014:i:4:p:293-307

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJHD20

DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2014.903234

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities is currently edited by Kathryn Rosenblum

More articles in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().