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The Politics of Subjective Well-Being
A Critique based on the Theory of Economic Ethics
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People want to be happy. Does this innate longing for happiness entitle policymakersto actually try to 'produce' happiness? This question is not a new matter in economics and politics, what is new is the practical relevance it has gained. This has occurred, on the one hand, because new happiness measurement techniques, in particular subjective well-being evaluations, have become available and the respective research insights make such an endeavor more promising.On the other hand, as part of the fall out following the economic and financialcrises of 2008, the faith in the market economy has ste...
People want to be happy. Does this innate longing for happiness entitle policymakersto actually try to 'produce' happiness? This question is not a new matter in economics and politics, what is new is the practical relevance it has gained. This has occurred, on the one hand, because new happiness measurement techniques, in particular subjective well-being evaluations, have become available and the respective research insights make such an endeavor more promising.On the other hand, as part of the fall out following the economic and financialcrises of 2008, the faith in the market economy has steadily fallen and people increasingly aspire to a new and more humancentered system of organizing social cooperation. In light of presumed ability to pursue happiness-driven policymaking as well as people's quest for happiness and the paradigm change in economics, an increasing number of politicians, non-governmental organizations, and academics hailing from different disciplines are advocating the politics of subjective well-being.Dominic Kerner applies economic ethics theory to examine whether happiness-driven theories to policymaking are promising candidates for being able to systematically organize flourishing social cooperation. In focus are the two most prominent and oppositional approaches vis-à-vis the politics of subjective well-being, namely the "maximization" approach and the "constitutional" approach. The analysis is framed within the conception of the three-level game paradigm of stable social cooperation. This framing is grounded in the premise that a sufficient level of consistency between the understanding of the game, rules of the game, andmoves within the game is crucial for successful social cooperation. By systematicallyreflecting on the structural conditions of social cooperation in modern society andby using various theoretical and empirical arguments, the analysis brings to light downsides of both approaches that can be detrimental to the consistency which is necessary for stable social cooperation. The study closes by sketching out avenues toward a reconciliation of economic ethics and subjective well-being research.