I have taken as a point of departure the premise that all are created equal with the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Aside from defining just what do those terms mean, the aim of our discussion is to try to define, what then is the role of government? An easy answer would be that government put these values at the forefront of policy debates.  Why else would we have a government?

It seems to me that equality, life and liberty are the basics for pursuing happiness. That is of course overly obvious with regard to life.  That assumes that the highest goal of citizens is to be happy. An assumption that is hard to argue against, and which most philosophers agree on since Aristotle to today’s positive psychologists[1], even if they do not quite agree on what constitutes happiness.  

There have, of course, been many different attempts to define happiness through time. My working definition is that happiness is being who you are and striving to be what you want to become[2]. There are other possibilities, such as Charles Murray’s: “ a lasting and justified satisfaction with one’s life as a whole” or “H (felt happiness) =S (set point or disposition) +C (life conditions)+V (voluntary activities)”.[3] While these and other definitions of happiness have merit, the first one here seems at once subjective (being satisfied) without really saying what would lead to satisfaction and objective (justified – who justifies?). The second describes that genes have an importance for disposition (pessimist/optimist) and that your conditions, which can be difficult for an individual to change, also have an influence on your level of happiness. The only thing the individual really has control over is voluntary activities, which I think you could argue are a manifestation of who you are or perceive yourself to be. This could also be called self-actualization which is the highest need in Maslow’s pyramid of needs.

 

I think Maslows pyramid covers the human needs that I can think of, but, for the sake of this exercise, I think it would be better to put the pyramid on its head or break it down. If we define happiness as self actualization, there are a number of aspects which influence the ability to “actualize yourself”, which are divided up into “psychological needs” and “basic needs”. The premise behind Maslow’s pyramid is that once the bottom needs are met, the higher needs come into focus, like a ladder in a way.  However, it does not seem to hold that self-actualization, belongingness and esteem are necessarily absent in cases where basic needs are difficult to meet. So while we have to address basic needs, it seems to me that they are not what we look at first.  One reason is that poverty can be systemic (prejudice, war, economic systems) and therefore something where government plays an obvious role, or as result of lacks in self esteem, belongingness and self actualization – areas where governments traditionally don’t focus on. But “happy” people can live with less material welfare and are less criminal than unhappy people. Therefore, focusing on creating the policies that promote happiness first may make it unnecessary to have ever enlarging police forces and jails[4].

 Most public policy has been directed at addressing these two bottom steps of the pyramid, generally ignoring the higher levels of the pyramid[5] . That has led to a focus on that we have to work in order make a living, to pay taxes in order to reduce the deficit in order to keep the welfare state or entitlements and other functions of government running. The citizen is, bluntly speaking, basically there to pay her own way and make sure that government can stay afloat. Happiness is not part of the equation. At the same time, research shows that companies with happy employees are more successful than ones that are neither/ nor or are unhappy. What makes people happy at work? Success (that you feel you are playing an important role) and relationships. Therefore, it is becoming a trend to motivate people on these levels. While wage levels and perks have a short term influence, they are not motivating factors while you are working[6].  

The psychological need of belongingness (being a part of family, friends, work and society) and esteem (that one’s role is important) are directly related to self actualization. See “the Happiness Hypothesis” for evidence from studies. Because the top part of the pyramid influences the two bottom rungs, it is important to look at policy from the top first.

Bhutan has created a system for analyzing policy in relation to pillars of happiness (Gross national happiness). The pillars of happiness are not directly transferable to Western society, in my opinion, but the thought is good. What I think the Paradigm Institute should look at is how could we form policies in areas such as decentralization, education, health, economics, etc. so that the main impetus of regulation and action is to promote a sense of belongingness, self esteem and self actualization.

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