Sustainable consumption and happiness

Ruut Veenhoven

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: One of the reasons for promoting sustainable consumption is that it may give rise to greater happiness of a greater number, at least in the long run. In this paper I explore the strength of that moral account. I take stock of the assumed effects of sustainable consumption on happiness and next review the empirical evidence for such effects on the present generation. I make also educated guesses about consequences for the happiness of later generations. The evidence suggests that a shift to sustainable consumption involve a minor reduction of happiness, at least temporarily, but that we can live quite happy with less luxury. Sustainable consumption of the present generation will only add to the happiness of future generations if it prevents major ecological disasters or if exhaustion of resources will reduce to poverty. Moral justification of sustainable consumption can better appeal to the inherent value of the things it aims to sustain than on human happiness

Keywords: consumption; happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 I31 O57 Q01 Q30 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/11279/1/MPRA_paper_11279.pdf original version (application/pdf)

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:pra:mprapa:11279

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().