The Scottish Enlightenment Revisited; Pessimism and Optimism About Happiness as a Common Goal; Confusion as an Obstacle
Happiness was an important subject in the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1725 Francis Hutcheson published his Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil.1 The test or criterion of right action is in his view its tendency to promote the general welfare of mankind. People should try to promote this general welfare, and they should do it in an altruistic manner, disregarding their own interests. He anticipated the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, who published The Principles of Morals and Legislation in 1789,2 not only in principle but even in the use of the phrase the greatest happiness for the greatest number. A key point in this philosophy is that the morality of behaviour and decisions depends on their impact on happiness. Hutcheson and Bentham clearly accept happiness, not just as an individual goal but also as a common or collective goal.
Hutcheson was a professor in philosophy in Glasgow and had two students who became famous in their own right: David Hume and Adam Smith. David Hume published his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals in 1751.3 In this book he argues that we have to discern questions about is and ought; or ontological questions about how things actually are and deontological questions about how things should be.
Adam Smith finished his first version of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 and his last version in 1790.4 In this book Smith argues that the morality of behaviour can be assessed independently of the consequences. Important virtues are prudence, justice and benevolence. “The man who acts according to the rules of perfect prudence, of strict justice, and of proper benevolence, may be said to be perfectly virtuous.”5 He also writes: “Concern for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of prudence; concern for that of other people, the virtue of justice and beneficence, of which the one restrains us from hurting, the other prompts us to promote that happiness.”6
Smith apparently respects happiness as a crucial value or touchstone, but he finds that the possibilities of attention and care are limited. People can take care for their own happiness, the happiness of their family, friends and country, but taking care for universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings is problematic.7 He, therefore, accepts happiness as an individual goal, but he is sceptical about the possibilities to adopt happiness as a common goal. It is important to notice that this scepticism is practical by nature. In contemporary terminology we may say that Smith is doubtful about empathy, as our capability to understand the position and the feelings of other people. This attitude is supported by current insights that empathy only works if people feel they are ‘of the same kind’.8, 9 It is an inconvenient truth.
It is also interesting to notice that Smith, with this distinction between happiness as a personal or collective goal, pays attention to the problem of ‘collective-’ or ‘social choice’: how do we get from individual wants or preferences to collective actions and policies. This is obviously a key issue in economics and in political science.10
Inspired by Bernard Mandeville‘s The Fable of the Bees, Private vices, Public benefits ,11 Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776.12 He concludes that it is acceptable, and positive for the general welfare, that people promote their own private interests. This creates the invisible hand of free markets, and leads to the best possible outcomes. It is clear that Smith distinguishes general welfare and happiness, and that this distinction is important for him. People can create more utility and general welfare, and this can be a common goal, but they cannot create general happiness.
People may therefore promote their own interests, but Smith clearly rejects selfish behaviour and is very critical about Mandeville, who is less moralistic in this respect.13 It would be incorrect, however, to suggest that Mandeville would approve, or even accept, unethical behaviour; he just wanted to be open minded14 about human nature and despised hypocrisy, in particular puritan hypocrisy by the church. Smith repeats his rejection of selfish behaviour very explicitly in his last publication of the Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1790, 14 years after the publication of the Wealth of Nations.15
We may conclude that Smith distinguishes happiness and general economic welfare for practical reasons. He accepted happiness as a fundamental value and an individual goal, but he was pessimistic about happiness as a common goal. The happiness of other people has to be respected, but people may pursue their own economic interests without being altruistic.
After the publication of The Wealth of Nations, Jeremy Bentham developed his utilitarianism with happiness as the ultimate guiding principle. This terminology is a bit odd. In his book The Principles of Morals and Legislation,16 Bentham uses the phrase the principle of utility, even though he admits that the phrase the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle is more appropriate. In his vision the word utility does not so clearly point to the idea of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and felicity do. He uses the phrase the principle of utility—and utilitarianism—nevertheless for shortness.
Nowadays we must distinguish utility and happiness, because the terms can no longer be used as synonyms.17
At the end of the eighteenth century there was a lot of attention to happiness as a goal. In 1785 George Washington wrote in a letter: “My first wish …, is to see the whole world in peace, and the inhabitants of it as one band of brothers, striving who should contribute most to the happiness of mankind.”18 Accepting happiness as a common goal is, however, more complicated than accepting it as an individual goal. In 1796 there was a proposal to adopt an article in the first Dutch constitution, proclaiming that: “People become united in society for the purpose of the undisturbed enjoyment of their natural and equal rights and the promotion of each other’s happiness.” This proposal was never accepted because of the vagueness and broadness of the concept of happiness.19 Happiness was only introduced in a legal context in the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and in the first article of the French Declaration of Human Rights (1791). Nowadays some nations acknowledge happiness as a general goal,20 but so far without substantial consequences in actual policies.
Continuing Confusion
In retrospect we may say that there has always been confusion about the concept and the nature of happiness, for example about the morality and the altruistic or egocentric character, about the difference between utility and happiness, and about the possibilities to assess, explain and understand happiness. There have been many developments in the interpretation of happiness,21 and empirical research has produced many results in the last decades. We know more about happiness, but it is still a complicated concept and phenomenon, with some troubling ambiguities.
Some relatively new and underestimated complications are related to the dualism and comparability of happiness, and the value-freedom of happiness research. Happiness is nowadays defined as the enduring appreciation of life-as-a-whole. This happiness is in fact a specific type of subjective well-being, as will be explained later. Happiness, as the appreciation of life as a whole, is dualistic because it depends on two components: the affective and cognitive component.
The affective component is about emotional well-being or the hedonic level of affect. This component depends on the gratification of general human needs, but also on perceived gaps between how life should be, and how it actually is. People have a language with symbols, and can imagine and describe an invisible world, as they would like to have it, as a utopia. They may also be less ambitious and just imagine the real world, but with some important improvements.
It is important to distinguish between short- and long-term affective happiness. Short-term affective happiness is about emotions and moods. Long-term affective happiness is about more enduring mental and emotional dispositions, such as cheerfulness or pessimism. Such dispositions are related to emotional experiences but also to personality and genetic properties. Mental problems, such as anxiety and depression, may have a negative impact on long-term affective happiness.
It is relatively easy to measure short-term affective happiness with questionnaires. Momentary emotions, and emotions during short periods like a day or a week, can be assessed by asking simple questions. The problem is, however, that there are strong fluctuations in emotions and moods. It is difficult to assess average emotions and moods, and underlying trends, over longer periods. The measurement of long-term affective happiness is relatively complicated, and there is no consensus, so far, about some simple questions to be used in questionnaires.
The cognitive component in happiness depends on a more stable appreciation of life. This appreciation is, like any appreciation, based on the adoption and application of standards. Standards can be used in just a descriptive way to describe a situation. Usually they have at least some normative content, even if they are only used in a descriptive way. It is informative, in this context, that there are several equivalents for the term standard, like indicator, criterion, measure, norm, demand, expectation, goal and value. There is always some normative connotation or loading, but in slightly different degrees; going up from indicator to value. Standard and norm are somewhere in the middle. If we use the phrase happiness as a goal or happiness as a value, it would imply that happiness has to be pursued, but if we use t...