Maximising Happiness Does Not Maximise Welfare

In “Happiness: Enough Already,” Sharon Begley argues that happiness is overrated and it should not always be a priority in your life.

The more economic prosperity the greater is the amount and degree of welfare generated and the likeliness in people is welcomed. However, social welfare is one of the major objectives of the nations. Along with this, it should also be noted down that, the government of all the countries and states should focus on the social welfare of the people where people live. It is again true that happiness follows good health. In this way, health is a very important consideration for all the economies of the world (Yih, 2011).

As we all enjoy our delicious Dinner, the topic of Happiness is brought up to our dining table. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, author of “The Sources of Happiness” starts to converse about happiness. He mentions how people should be grateful and happy with what they have and not with what they wish or desire, since that’s not what makes a person’s happiness. As the conversation continues, he claims that happiness is within one’s mind and not with natural phenomena. In addition, he discusses how money doesn’t build a person’s happiness. On the other hand, Gretchen Rubin, author of “July: Buy Some Happiness” claims how “money can’t buy happiness, but it helps contribute to your happiness.” (Rubin 293). Gretchen Rubin

Sometimes, the method by which people achieve happiness does not necessarily align with their ideals, yet happiness nevertheless

This paper provides an overview of the defining elements of what has been called as the Economics of happiness, a branch of Welfare

Veenhoven (2014) not only states that individuals can make themselves happier, but that companies can make their employees happier and governments can even work to make their citizens, and nations as a whole, happier (CITE pg. #). Veenhoven states that, although not all research draws the same conclusions, “obtaining greater happiness is, for a great deal, in our own hands, our happiness depends on conditions we can improve and on abilities we can develop” (p. 1069). However, he does point out that the research does not agree on what the best way to achieve this heightened happiness might be.

According to “ Happiness Is The Key” (October,2015), 60% of women in The United States of America said that happiness is something that people can not control and 40% of men, also in The United States of America, said that people are the ones who choose to be happy. But what is happiness? Happiness is a balanced state of mind where a person is satisfied, joyful, grateful, and has a great spirit. This paper argues

All of us have common interest for happiness and love. We all have our own destiny on how to discover it in our lives. In this book, we will know the factors of happiness and our conditions of well- being- our genuine wealth. It will answer some questions such as, what makes life worthwhile and how might we measure happiness and relate it to economics.

Winning big at the Birth Lottery does not necessarily guarantee that a person will be successful, especially when it comes to things such as joy, contentment, peace, and physical health. A person can be rich and educated, but completely devoid of joy. Here in the Western World the United States, or the “land of opportunity,” was ranked number 15 on the World Happiness Report in 2015. Jeffery Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and one of the editors of the World Happiness Report, as part of a Q&A session explained that “On the personal side, physical and mental health are extremely important in addition to income levels. Personal values are very important. People who are more generous, who express more orientation toward others, more compassion, are also systematically reporting that they’re happier.” Sachs goes on to say, “What we learn about the United States, is that while income has been rising, the social qualities have been worsening – the level of trust, the confidence in our government, has been going down.

al. 2008). The second is that positive expectations would increase happiness, which their results supported. The strengths of the study include the relatively large sample size and the fact that they controlled for age, gender, prior happiness, family income, and physical health (Holahan et al.’s 2008). However, the limitations were that they did not themselves collect the data, and although they did control for many variables, their sample itself is heavily skewed toward wealthier, intelligent, healthier, in a good socioeconomic status, and generally European-descendent so these results cannot be applied to the larger portion of humanity.

In the western world we typically ask this by asking, can money buy happiness? In Society, happiness seems inextricably linked to wealth, income and prosperity. There has been research on the “happiness economics” that attempts to answer the riddle of what makes individuals happy. There is a seemingly famous “Easterlin Paradox,” which states that individual’s life satisfaction does not depend on income and wealth. Still the question remains can happiness be measured? There is another measure that falls within the realm of “subjective well-being” that is part of psychology research. Subjective well-being is defined as an individual’s self-evaluation of their life and of their

Subjective wellbeing has element of both affective and cognitive components. Happiness is defined by Veenhoven as “the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his life favourably” (Veenhoven, R., 1991).

Heady, Wooden, and Muffels (2008) focused on how economics contributes more to happiness than previously thought. It uses the findings of household panel studies conducted in Australia, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia to reassess the accepted view of psychology and economics that money has little to do with happiness. It challenges the view of the Easterlin Paradox concept, and uses the household panel study data to suggest that the relationship between money and happiness has more of a correlation than we think. Various techniques such as surveys, mathematical equations, and sampling were described in detail to show how the household panel studies measured life satisfaction. Through the findings of these studies, Heady,

The subject of this paper is the age-old question, “Does Money Buy Happiness”. On the surface, this question appears to be an easy one. Happiness however, is a subjective item. To better answer this, several points must be analyzed such as, “What is happiness?”, “How is it measured?” etc. To better streamline this process, a research question was developed:

In this paper I will present and critically assess the concept of the principle of utility as given by John Stuart Mill. In the essay “What Utilitarianism Is” #, Mill presents the theory of Utilitarianism, which he summarizes in his “utility” or “greatest happiness principle” # (Mill 89). Mill’s focus is based on an action’s resulting “happiness,” # pleasure and absences of pain, or “unhappiness,” # discomfort and the nonexistence of contentment, rather than the intentions involved (Mill 89). After evaluating Mill’s principle, I will then end this essay by discussing my personal opinion about the doctrine and how I believe it can be altered to better suit real-life situations.