From Welfare to Well-Being and
Happiness
Ethical Challenges of Busness in the New Economy,
CEMS Blocked Seminar Sept 1-7, 2013 Balatonszemes, Hungary
Knut Ims, knut.ims@nhh.no
14.03.2016
www.nhh.no
Agenda
• What leads to happiness?
–The happiness hypothesis/positive psychology
–The virtue hypothesis
• A knowledge-oriented perspective on ethical behavior
–Happiness and ethical behavior
–Group work
–Eudaimonia
Income and happiness
Satisfraction
•More is not better!
•Mass affluence and overabundance of choice has lead
to ”Affluenzia”:
–Children: highest levels of anxiety
–Increases in rates of crime and divorce
–Rates of alcoholism, suicide, and depression have
increased dramatically
- Once basic needs are met, money cannot buy
additional happiness.
- Replace welfare (GDP) with Human Development
Index (HDI)or more radically with Gross National
Happiness index (GNH) as in Bhutan?
Bhutan
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Gross National Happiness (GNH): Bhutan as
an example
• Happiness = Wealth/desire
• GNH’s four pillars:
1.Promotion of sustainable development,
2.Preservation and promotion of cultural values,
3.Conservation of the natural environment, and
4.Establishment of good governance.
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Assessing Happiness: UK - 2011
• Office for National Statistics (200.000 questionnaires)
1.Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
2.Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
3.Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?
4.Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life
are worthwhile?
• Happiness can be measured using the day reconstruction method,
which consists in recollecting memories of the previous working
day by writing a short diary (Daniel Kahneman)
• The Affect Balance Scale asks people to report how frequently they
have experienced various positive and negative emotions over the
last 30 days
• The Experience Sampling method uses a pager to occasionally
interrupt people’s waking experience and to sample their moods.
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Positive Psychology
• Martin Seligman
• Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
• From the disease model to flourishing.
– From focusing exclusively on the miserable/weaknesses to including
how to build human strengths
• What is happiness?
• PERMA (Positive emotions, human relationship, meaning and
accomplishement)
1)The Pleasureable life
2)The Good life
3)The Meaningful life
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What leads to happiness?
INCOME
HAPPINESS
?
HAPPINESS
?
INCOME
HAPPINESS
Happiness hypothesis
•
The Positive Psychology Hypothesis:
–
H (Happiness) = S (biological set point) plus C (conditions) plus V
(voluntary activities), plus VE (vital engagement)
–
H = S + C + V + VE
–
C assumes people are ultrasocial creatures (needs friends, strong
conncetions and dependable relationship. Love and work are like
water and sunshine for plants.
–
V involves finding ”flow” (activities/tasks you are immersed into)
–
Vital Engagement (a relationship to the world characterized by
experiences of flow and meaning (subjective significance) – a felt
connection between self and environment
–
You cannot reach happiness directly, it only comes as a byproduct.
-
J. Haidt (2006) The Happiness Hypothesis, Arrow Books
FLOW:
BEYOND BOREDOM AND ANXIETY
•CHALLENGES
»
ANXIETY
»
FLOW
»
BOREDOM
SKILLS/CAPABILITIES
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The pursuit of happiness
• The progress principle:
– ”Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing” (Shakespeare)
– Pleasure: making progress toward goals vs. achieving goals.
• The Adaptation principle:
– The mind is more sensitive to changes than to absolute levels.
• Nerve cells respond vigourously to new stimuli, but gradually they
”habituate”.
– Lottery winners adapt soon to the new baseline of daily life.
– We are stuck on the”hedonic treadmill” (also noted by A Smith in
1759).
– We accumulate riches in life - raise our expectations, and continue
to strive
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The pursuit of happiness
• Pleasures: delights that have clear sensory and strong emotional
components (food, sex etc) ,
• Must be ”spaced” and varied; overdoses can lead to disgust.
• GRATIFICATION: actvities that engage fully, can lead to flow.
• Make us extend ourselves; self-transendence/transformational;
”the feeling wells up inside until it spills over”
• Gratitude is Acknowledging of goodness in one’s life and
Recognizing the source(s) of this goodness – the object of
gratitude is other-directed (Heidegger: ”Denken ist Danken”).
• The virtue of gratitude is «the mothers of all virtues».
• Gratitude implies humility and is promoting positive relations.
• The capacity for joy can and must be trained: Ex.; Keep a
Gratitude Journal, spend more times with grateful persons, watch
your language!, smiling itself produces feelings of happiness
Happiness hypothesis
• Misguided pursuits
- Conspicuous consumption (values come from the statement they
make about the owners status; analogous to arms race)
- Inconspicuous consumption (goods and activites that are valued
for themselves – usually consumed privately)
- Doing versus having. The pursuit of luxury goods is a ”happiness
trap”. The key difference between doing with other people and
to impress others
- Activities connects us (to others) while objects separate
- The paradox of choice (too many choices versus having
constraints see video Barry Schwarz)
- Source: Robert Frank (1987) Passions Within Reason: The
strategic role of emotions
- …and (1999) Luxury Fever: Why Money fails to satisfy in an era
of excess
What leads to happiness?
ETHICAL
KNOWLEDGE
?
HAPPINESS
• We will explore the alternative hypothesis:
…ethical knowledge can lead to happiness
What leads to happiness?
ETHICAL
KNOWLEDGE
PRACTICAL
WISDOM
HAPPINESS
VIRTUES
CHARACTERBUILDING
…ethical knowledge can lead to happiness to the
extent that it helps in developing our practical
wisdom
Happiness hypothesis
•The virtue hypothesis
- Cultivating virtues will make you happy
- Practise kindness and your character will be kind
- Practice and habit is more important than factual
knowledge
- ”Men become builders by building houses, harpists
by playing the harp. Similarly we grow just by the
practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising
our self-control, and courageous by performing acts
of courage.”(Aristotle 1103b.)
- Role models more important than proofs and logics
Identity and life projects
• Who do I really want to be? (Strong vs weak evaluations)
• Which are my core values that I wish to protect?
(System of values; Sustainability vs short term profitseeking, individualism
vs «I am We», equality vs inequality, freedom vs security, materialism vs
meaning, fairness vs dishonesty, competition vs cooperation, efficiency vs
full employment, greed vs moderation, exit vs voice, self-interest vs otherregarding, dignity vs status……)
(Value spheres; Scientific - Ethical - aestethical – religious
• What constitutes my identity?
– What I have? (Objects have expressive values)
• Possessions, wealth, status, power
– Who I am?
• Self-realization, relationships, extended self and life projects
– What I do?
• Ethical or unethical behavior
Identity and life projects (Charles Taylor)
• A strong evaluation involves discriminating of right or
wrong, better or worse, higher or lower – within a horizon of
significant values, like ecological, self- realization (for all
beings?), dignity, respect for life, (compatible with common
morality)
• A weak evaluation is following one’s immediate wishes
and desires Test: Whether the evaluation can be basis for
admiration or contempt
• Authenticity is the courage to be true to yourself within a
horizon of important values.
• Inge Wallage (left Statoil for Greenpeace).
Design your own happiness
•What leads to your
happiness?
•Your happiness
hypothesis:
–
?????????????????
• The happiness hypothesis:
H = S + C + V + VE
• The knowledge hypothesis:
Ethical knowledge + practical
wisdom = happiness
• The virtue hypothesis:
Practical wisdom = happiness
• The Buddhist hypothesis:
Mindfulness = cessation of desire
Meaningfullness =Wealth/Desire
• Arne Næss
Satisfaction = (Glow)/Pain
Conspicous vs unconspicous consumption
•Veblen/Frank: Make a distinction between
•Status goods and non status goods
•Give several examples of goods in both
categories,
•Give the reasons why the one category is to
be prefered to the other in a happiness
perspective
A knowledge-oriented perspective on ethical
behavior
VIRTUE ETHICS
UTILITARIANISM
DUTY ETHICS
EXISTENTIALISM
RESPONSIBILITY ETHICS
•
A balanced approach – we can be informed by various ethical perspectives when we have ambitions of developing
our ethical character
A knowledge-oriented perspective on ethical behavior
ACTORORIENTED
VIRTUE ETHICS
RESPONSIBILITYORIENTED
EXISTENTIALISM
ACTIONORIENTED
DUTY ETHICS
CONSEQUENCEORIENTED
UTILITARIANISM
•Aristotle: ”Good human beings act under the guidance of virtues”, ”Being virtuous is to
promote the good for its own sake”, ”Good human beings act in accordance with the
unity of virtues”
• Jonas:
Act so that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of
genuine human life
•Sartre: ”We are condemned to be free”, ”We are authors of our own lives
• Kant: ”Good human beings act spontaneously from the good will”, ”Emotions are too
volatile to be the basis of ethics” . Act so your action can become a common law.
•” Bentham: ”Act to achieve the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of
people affected by the action”, ”No rule is sacred, everything can be measured in
utility”, “Everybody counts as one, nobody counts as more than one”
Happiness as eudaimonia (Aristotle’s view)
•Happiness is an activity…
–…not one that is desirable for something else…
–…but one that is desirable in itself…
–…because happiness does not lack anything,
but is self-sufficient.
(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1176a30)
Happiness as eudaimonia
• Virtues are the golden mean between vices (which constitute the
extremes)
•
•
•
•
RASHNESS – COURAGE – COWARDICE
WASTEFULNESS – GENEROSITY – STINGYNESS
GREED – MODERATION – ASCETISM
SELF-INDULGENCE – TEMPERANCE – INSENSIBILITY
(..that which comes through touch: eating, drinking, smoking and other bodily desires)
• Moral virtues – some examples
– Justice
– Gratitude
– Courage
– Friendship
• Phronesis as the most important virtue (prudence, practical wisdom
which assume
1)Techne (includes art, craft and science as well as embedded, tacit
knowledge learned in practice) and
2) Episteme (learned by studying theory)
Aristotle
•A good life is one where you develop your
strengths, realize your potential, and become
what is in your nature to become (”flourishing”)
•Happiness involves perfection of your best
abilities
Happiness as friendship
PERFECT
FRIENDSHIP
GENUINE
PLEASUREBASED
FRIENDSHIP
INSTRUMENTAL
UTILITYBASED
FRIENDSHIP
•We realize ourselves in social interaction in a
community.
–Human beings are social beings (phusei politicon)
–We cannot achieve virtue in isolation.
Barry Schwartz – The Paradox of Choice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM
14.03.2016 Fornavn Etternavn, navn@nhh.no
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