-Sir Bruce, Philosopher

Question: How do you get a philosopher off your porch?
Answer: Pay for the pizza.

-Elizabeth Hoppe

Happiness has increased significantly in the past few decades. The reason is simple: life-expectancy has, within the past half century, increased by about 10 years in the United States. If people are as happy now as they were then, then, ceteris paribus, they should now live even happier lives overall because they live longer lives. For example, suppose that I live 5 years and these are very happy years. If I live 5 more years in addition to the first 5, then overall I’ve lived a happier life: the total sum of happiness has gone up. Thus, people are getting happier by living longer.

Diener et al (1999) provide a summary of several studies on the age differences of life satisfaction. According to this summary, life satisfaction seems to stay the same, if not increase with age. This finding countered earlier conventional wisdom that older people were less satisfied because they were unhappy with their unfulfilled lives as they reached the uselessness of old age. The increase in life satisfaction with age may be attributed to a trend in greater involvement in satisfying areas of life among older cohorts. Nonetheless, there seems to be a slight increase in life satisfaction from age 20 to age 80 with negative affect held constant.

This is only referring to life satisfaction, it appears that “negative affect” increases slightly after the age of 60.

Anyways, to the extent that the happiness researchers only focus on how happy people are on average, they are missing out on something that makes happiness more valuable–namely, the additional years we now have to enjoy it. And it is precisely in this respect that society as a whole has been getting significantly better off.

Here is the paper [doc]:
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~easterl/Lifecyhapsour.doc

Here is a useful summary power point presentation [ppt]:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=6&url=http%3A//www.usc.edu/dept/socialwork/SFCCC/pdf/happiness.ppt&ei=E4BWQ5vZA6ji-AGdsISiBw&sig2=dsnoZn_NFrUzf1Ckw2AsNw

Easterlin’s conclusion is still that happiness is very stable throughout people’s lives on average. Even past 80, it appears that most people respond that their lives are “very happy” or “pretty happy.” So the people that make it into their late old age seem to be enjoying additional years of happiness.

An interesting corrolary. Suppose we are just looking at the average happiness level. If the proportion of elderly in the population grows, it might seem that happiness levels are trending down. But again, this method overlooks what is fundamentally a good thing: people are enjoying more years of happiness.

The Easterlin study is not armchair. It does not, however, provide any information on whether what subjects meant when they said they were “not happy” or “very happy” refers to preference satisfaction, desire satisfaction, an experiential state independent of either, eudaimonia, etc.

More generally, note that claims like “happiness is rising ‘very slowly’” or that we’re “at least as happy as we’ve ever been” presuppose not only (a) interpersonal utility comparability, but also (b) that average utility is a meaningful and very relevant concept.

Many interlocurers on this blog have denied that interpersonal utilities are comparable when they argue against redistribution that would promote higher total utlity. If these arguments are right, which I obviously do not think that they are, then it cannot be the case that we can demonstrate that (for example) capitalism promotes happiness better than Stalinism or Sovietism.

As for taking average utlity as the relevant measure for social policy analysis, that method runs counter to the view that individual rights must be respected even if violating them increases average utlity.

Easterlin does not assume interpersonal comparablity OR the relevance of average utlity!

The evidence showing a slow rise is in other studies. Veenhoven’s database shows a small increase over the last few decades in most wealthy market societies.

Whatever the case may be, whoa.

Not being a professional economist, may I assume that a Big Grad Student Opportunity exists to define what study subjects mean by "happiness" and to put the tools in order? Bill Korner’s comment wondering whether ‘ "not happy" or "very happy" refers to preference satisfaction, desire satisfaction, an experiential state independent of either, eudaimonia, etc.’ would seem to suggest a standard is needed in studies of this kind, to spell out the assumptions of researchers and subjects. Its absence should get a study marked down for vagueness.

Different kinds of people are made "happy" by different narratives and undertakings, as brig observes. Hitler need not be referenced; there is the advertisement attributed to Shakleton:

"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS."

One basic task in defining happiness is distinguishing between

• "What does the subject believe makes him/her happy?"
• "How does the subject know when s/he is happy."

The matter can be further unpacked by eliciting and analyzing a report of multiple circumstances in which the subject now remembers being happy. As a coach and blogger especially interested in maximizing happiness (with special attention from time to time about how it relates to the virtues), I suggest at least these 3 stages of inquiry.

Well, presumably people call what they want, when they have it and it satisfies them (whether internal or external), “happiness.” Or some cognate term. My approach is perhaps more rough-and-ready than strictly conceptual, but since the topic here is human experience, the keystone is accepting people’s own evaluations and criteria for their own experience, then respectfully probing those reports for some kind of uniformity, systemic clues, classes of experience, and whatever else may present itself to the alert observer. Self-reporting problems notwithstanding, the person is the authority on his own experience.

I’m quite interested in someone’s comments about what makes him happy. Less so in his absolutes about what makes everyone happy, without breaking a sweat to bridge the subject-object gulf for anyone else. So then, could we apply curiosity to each subject, rather than the researcher imposing his Not-Even-Defined theory of happiness on the material?

For one thing, if we discovered what constitutes happiness for another, and honored it, utopian tyranny would be impossible. To some that is a bug, to some a feature.