Introduction
The idea of measuring progress of a country based on a GDP growth has been revisited by scholars and governments, with authors like Frey showing that from a particular point life satisfaction does not rise with higher GDP. (Frey, 2008) The countries of Bhutan, Ecuador and the United Arab Emirates have appointed a Minister of Happiness, officially embedding the pursuit of something as abstract as ‘happiness,’ which defies an easy correlation to quantitative statistics like GDP, among state ambitions. The creation of Ministry of Happiness implies the idea that happiness for everybody should be achieved, thus positioning happiness as a universal value. The position of Minister of Happiness is the state’s investment in and implementation of Layard’s idea that “the greatest happiness is the right guide to public policy,” implying utilitarianism is the ideal guiding compass for Minister of Happiness.
According to Sen, the “central issue is not the significance of happiness, but the alleged insignificance of everything else, on which many advocates of the happiness perspective seem to insist.” (Sen, 2009) Appointing a Minister of Happiness may seem to support the significance of happiness at the expense of other values. This, however, is not necessarily true as a creation of Ministry of Happiness ultimately positions happiness on the same level as other “values” represented by ministries, such as health. The principality of happiness would be established only upon presenting it as the central value for state planning, such as in Bhutan.
For Bentham, the greatest possible happiness should be the goal of all laws as well as public and personal actions, as “any decision, public or private, should be judged by its impact on the happiness of all those affected by it, each person counting equally.” (Layard, 2005, pp. 111-112) Therefore, while the scope of this essay focuses on public domain, as it considers the Minister of Happiness, similar considerations would be faced in private domain, since “…in a democratic society where people vote on public policy, it would not be much good proposing a goal for public policy that people did not also recognize as governing their own private conduct.” (Layard, 2005, p. 115)
There are numerous problems with using the method of the thought experiments to dismiss a particular approach. To effectively communicate their meaning, thought experiments are restrictive, cutting off alternative courses of action. They limit the scope of the question and disregard potentially complicating considerations, leading towards a predictable outcome. Thought experiments frame a situation in a single moment in time, eliminating questions about how the situation evolved into a certain state, therefore potentially omitting moral implications. Thought experiments were created to pinpoint a matter of principle in a clear and convincing manner, therefore despite the above-mentioned restrictions which make them questionable models of real-life, thought experiments nonetheless play a crucial part in discussing actual situations. (Smart & Williams, 1973)
To challenge utilitarianism, thought experiments are often constructed in the following way: particular situation (S) requires the Utilitarian to act in a certain manner (A), which proves to be morally objectionable and therefore leads to the conclusion that utilitarianism should be rejected. Before we embrace such an approach, we have to consider possible responses to the logic behind a so-constructed challenge. Firstly, the Utilitarian would object to the phrase ‘morally repugnant’. In an experiment ‘morality’ plays the role of a compass which supposedly helps us decide what is good and what is objectionable and worthy of rejection. For the Utilitarian, however, morality has no part in a decision-making since happiness calculus should be the guiding principle. Secondly, we have to consider the validity of a claim that if utilitarianism does not work in a particular extreme case as a worthy guiding mechanism, it should be rejected. If there is nothing better at its place, and utilitarianism can be a valid method in 98 % of cases, isn’t the 2 % acceptable margin of error?
In this essay, I argue that while utilitarianism seems like an obvious guiding principle for Minister of Happiness, since its main pursuit is the maximization of happiness, there exist grave practical implications and challenges, which any government considering such a choice would have to consider thoroughly. For that reason, although most thought experiments suggest utilitarianism is a flawed moral theory, I have adopted them to present three challenges for a practical application of utilitarianism as a Minister of Happiness’ guiding principle.
Sen’s flute
The first experiment outlines complications faced when measuring and comparing the happiness of different people. While Sen’s flute experiment is often used to present the shortcomings of utilitarianism in the area of justice, it can be also used to compare happiness. Anne, Bob and Carla all claim the flute on different grounds. While Anne asserts she is the only one who knows how to play it, Bob points out that he is the only one so poor that he does not have anything else to play with and Carla declares, she made the flute herself (see Sen, 2009 p. 12-15 for more detail).
Bentham would argue that we should add up the happiness of all those concerned, considering everyone equally and according each an equal status, and implement the outcome with highest total happiness. (Layard, 2005) Unfortunately, concentration on purely mental characteristics, such as happiness, is especially limiting when interpersonal comparisons of well-being or deprivation are necessary. (Sen, 1999) According to Sen, the Utilitarian would probably be confused and find it difficult to decide between Anna, who would arguably derive the biggest happiness from playing the flute, Bob, who would derive biggest change in happiness, and Carla because of the future implications for workers’ motivation if she cannot keep the product of her work. (Sen, 2009) This confusion would be based on realisation that all three people upon receiving the flute derive happiness on different grounds. While Anne’s happiness would originate from the act of playing music, Bob’s happiness would be based on finally owning a toy and Carla’s happiness would stem from using the desired object she herself made.
In addition, lenses clouding our judgment may give the question additional or utterly new meaning. If the “impartial judge” in our experiment was a music professor, he might prefer to give the flute to Anne to ensure others can listen to music. For a mother, flute might symbolize a toy, which must be given to the child that has none. For someone else, the flute can represent personal property and an outcome of capital and work input, which has to belong to its producer.
To measure someone’s happiness one would either have to create an inter-comparable scoring system of things that make us happy, or as Layard suggests, we would need to ask the person directly. Both approaches present challenges for statisticians: In the first case, our scoring system would be clouded by our preferences. In the second case, the particular person can lie, or might not necessarily be able to objectively say how happy she really is due to multiple factors: cultural differences (some people tend to complain more), lack of comparable experiences, or personal preferences (what someone loves other can hate). While Bentham proposed using intensity, duration, certainty and propinquity as criteria for assessing our own happiness, (Glover, 1990) such benchmarks are practical mainly for assessing happiness that has already passed. In the case of future happiness, measurements like duration and intensity necessarily become predictions susceptible to the conditions and limited sightline of the present.
Comparing various types of happiness derived from different sources would require a definition of ‘happiness’ and the creation of normative positioning regarding the “value” of particular happiness. In line with such argument, Mill introduced lower and higher forms of happiness, with the higher happiness being the one preferred by those who experienced both. (Glover, 1990) By asserting higher happiness value to intellectual or community benefitting pleasures, Mill’s view would be taken one step further towards assuring higher value to listening to classical music in comparison to eating chocolate, despite its wider fan base.
If a normative position is necessary to compare different types of happiness for public policy use, who should make the decision of which happiness has greater value? In moral philosophy, the answer usually is ‘an impartial party’, as “… from the moral point of view, there is no comprehensible difference which consists just in my bringing about certain outcome rather than someone else’s producing it.” (Smart & Williams, 1973, p. 96) While impartiality is crucial, the notion that someone can be impartial, and judge from a position outside personal preference and cultural conditioning, can be easily contested. Layard’s argument that the “impartial spectator would surely care more about what happened to the miserable person than to the person who was already happy,” thus seems perhaps overly idealistic. (Layard, 2005, p. 122)
Even if we manage to more or less impartially decide whose happiness from obtaining the flute would have highest value, we would still have to consider whether people may differ in their capacity for happiness and, if so, whether there are distributional problems in prioritizing the more efficient generators of happiness as maximizing utility enjoins us to do. Furthermore, the “deprived people tend to come to terms with their deprivation because of the sheer necessity of survival, and they may … even adjust their desires and expectations to what they unambitiously see as feasible.” (Sen, 1999, p. 63) In the flute experiment, Bob who is used to not having toys may not even try to acquire them. This however does not mean he would not derive happiness from the ownership.
To conclude, it is hard to imagine the possibility of coherent policies in a ministry of happiness without creating a normative scale to compare various types of happiness. Since everyone has different preferences and values, a fully objective system accommodating all variables seems hardly achievable. The minister would most likely need to do exactly what Layard criticizes in regards to other approaches: paternalistically declare, what is the “higher form of happiness,” and what should be prioritized.
The trolleyology
The trolleyology, the second thought experiment examined in this essay, aims to show how difficult it can be to gather necessary information and foresee implications when making decisions. This experiment, first introduced by Foot and analysed by Thomson, asks whether one should kill one person to save five people unknown people (see also Sandel, 2009, for details). From the utilitarian point of view, the situation is relatively ‘simple’: saving five people is the right choice since it is the most effective way to create highest total happiness under the condition that everybody involved is similar. Sandel uses this thought experiment to show that utilitarianism does not respect individual rights, but on the contrary, crushes individuals by considering only the sum of total happiness. Individuals matter only up to the point where their preferences are counted equally with everybody else’s. (Sandel, 2009)
However, in real life, no two people are identical and can achieve the same in the future. For this reason, “adding up” changes in happiness caused by the decided action would become considerably more challenging as number of variables, such as families, career prospects, would have to be considered. This poses a grave problem for the Utilitarian, especially in a situation, where a quick decision is necessary. Layard dismisses these concerns to a degree by stating that since the “relevant consequences of an action are the changes in human happiness, beginning from the moment the action is taken,” one needs to give special weight to the results that occur early on and are easier to forecast. (Layard, 2005, p. 120) Yet still, considering changes in total happiness, requires a certain degree of forecasting. According to Ayer, the response lays in considering only those consequences, we can be reasonably expected to forecast. (Glover, 1990) But what exactly is reasonably foreseeable?
Apart from obvious difficulties in forecasting caused by incomplete information and high number of variables involved, it becomes even more challenging to forecast potential future changes in happiness when a decision needs to be made quickly. Utilitarians answered this concern with the two-stage approach, where Greatest Happiness principle is used to assist in choosing the “rules” and then choose the appropriate action in case the rules collide. Layard believes the overarching principle of Greatest happiness is the crucial factor to help settle conflicting rules, to assist in reviewing the rules and to solve situations where rules provide little guidance. The idea of general rules was created to simplify the decision-making process, because in reality it seems nearly impossible to evaluate all the changes in happiness the particular action could cause, and as such the rules are to be followed most of the time without even considering them. (Layard, 2005) The universal rules would be difficult to set and again would be heavily culturally dependent and inflexible. In addition, such rules threaten to nullify a big advantage of utilitarianism: flexibility derived from an individual approach to decisions, or decisions made on a case-by-case basis. Utilitarianism would therefore come closer to ideologically based moral principles such as the Christian value system.
Utilitarians are often criticised for coming to the ‘right’ end through doubtful means or faulty reasoning. By using utilitarian reasoning and considering only consequential changes in total happiness, one can end up sacrificing means to an end, which might not even be desirable due to inaccurate forecasting. For Sen, it is the consequence of the action that matters when judging its morality, where the consequence cannot be assessed only through adding up totals of happiness, but through rights upheld or denied in the process. From such perspective, violating someone’s right only becomes justifiable when it averts greater harm to a right. (Glover, 1990) Layard attempts to take into account the nature of the act itself by arguing that when deciding on an action everything that follows – including the action itself – is a consequence. (Layard, 2005) This idea however seems implausible if morality of an action in itself is not considered an argument by the Utilitarian. For him the act of killing would have no special meaning, no inherent ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ quality excluding in regards to personal preference, and it seems that the only consequence remains the value of final happiness. According to this logic therefore, the action itself is not a consequence, but the consequence is only the value of final happiness.
One of the most basic of Layard’s rules would likely be “do not kill,” as such action leads to the ultimate unhappiness of an individual. If the Utilitarian were to apply this rule to the trolleyology experiment, without evaluating the situation further, no action would be taken and five people, rather than one person, would die. This decision would be contrary to Mill’s belief that power can rightfully be exerted on a citizen against his will only to prevent harm to other members of the community, as is our example. (Mill, 2016) In addition, there would probably exists a rule about providing assistance to those in need, which could also be applied on our experiment and would affect the decision-making. With Layard’s rules set aside, upon evaluating the situation further, the Utilitarian would have likely acted in contradictions to Layard’s rules and saved five people at an expense of the life of one person.
The trolley experiment has at its core similar dilemma as Sandel’s example on torturing the innocent child to force the father, a terrorist, to reveal the location of a hidden bomb. Can we justify a causing a suffering of an innocent person, a child for that matter, to save several others? If so, how many “others” are enough for us to make someone suffer? Is it two already? Ten? Thousand? And why does the amount matter? In case the utilitarian approach is ‘right’, it should be fine to cause a suffering and pain to one person already to safeguard the happiness and wellbeing of two people. However, while most people would hesitate to sacrifice two lives for one, the choice somehow seems to become easier when the ration changes to hundred for one. The number seems to a degree matter as an ‘insurance’ to prevent the possibility that the decision to kill one to save hundred was incorrect through increasing the probability that those saved will uphold the expectations of their future lives their utility.
To conclude, in real life, we battle the lack of information to make a qualified decision. Every consequence has an infinite number of variables, which make predicting future with absolute certainty impossible, especially when time is of the essence. For such cases, existence of a set of principles, such as Layard’s, seems vital despite their limitations and challenges.
Drug dilemma
In the third thought experiment, I reflect on the challenges of comparing present and future happiness. Let us consider an example of a person who is thinking of starting to use drugs. The person will experience great short-term happiness, if he takes the drug, but there is a chance he will become addicted in the long-term. Addiction would damage his health and potentially shorten his life.
For Layard, the crucial consequence of the action are the changes in happiness of those involved, starting with and from the moment the action is put in motion. As consequences are more and more difficult to predict as we proceed into the future, special emphasis should be placed on earlier results of the action. (Layard, 2005) This would suggest that current happiness should be prioritized over the future possible unhappiness caused by addiction.
On the other hand, we have to consider the utilitarian arguments of Hare and Harsanyi. According to Hare, the principles guiding decisions of those involved should not be based on any of their preferences, as these might be confused or ill-informed, but rather on the set of preferences he calls ‘perfectly prudent preferences.’ Harsanyi takes Hare’s argument further by claiming it is possible for one to have ‘deeper’ or ‘truer’ preferences that are inconsistent with one’s current actions. True preferences are those which one would have if one were perfectly informed, fully rational and carefully conscientious. (Sen & Williams, 1982) Such arguments would allow for dismissing the possibility of taking drugs, but we have to ask: if people do not even know what they want and what would give them pleasure, what chance do they have to correctly calculate changes in happiness?
Harsanyi aims to simplify matters of preferences by excluding all antisocial preferences, including sadism, jealousy or malevolence. (Sen & Williams, 1982) While this excludes extreme cases like taking drugs or other actions with perceived negative social consequences, Harsanyi fails to take into account how priorities and public definitions of antisocial change over time and across cultures. For example, homosexuality, once considered a sin punishable by death, is now legal in most Western countries. Thus, Mill’s argument that one should have the freedom to act as he wishes unless he harms others seems like a more acceptable solution.
Another important idea, which has not yet been discussed, is the way determinations of probability do and should affect the decision-making process. According to Mill, we should strive to achieve maximum happiness over the long term. (Sandel, 2009) Therefore, the probability of an outcome should be a crucial consideration, especially if current pleasure outweighs future suffering. For example, if we know using drugs would bring us short-term happiness x=100*1 day, and future suffering from addiction would be y=50*60 days (such as due to painful treatment), the probability of addiction should be maximally 1/30 for one to consider starting using drugs. In reality, however, it seems that asserting concrete objective values to both happiness and probability is nearly an impossible task complicated by people’s inclination to choose immediate pleasures despite knowing future repercussions (inaction on global warming or borrowing money from loan sharks) or by their assumption the negative consequences will not happen to them personally, asserting lower probability to negative outcomes.
The experiment would become additionally complicated if the potential user were wealthy enough to keep his addiction satisfied, and would therefore never have to experience a withdrawal. Supposing the person is immediately happy when taking the drug, a constant supply would theoretically make the user consistently and constantly happy. Since the user’s life would only be shortened marginally by the drug use, the Utilitarian might consider the shorter life full of constant happiness to outweigh in total happiness a slightly longer life without drug use. Such an idea, however, can be attacked with an argument similar to those used against Nozick’s experience machine. In addition to “unreality” of such experience, which does not allow user to evolve, we would have to consider the lack of concern of the user for the well-being of others caused by his delirious state. Mill’s plea to choose something other than happiness as a purpose of life, if we are to be happy, is hard to dispute. (Glover, 1990) Considering the example further, assuming that machines can somehow produce the drug, therefore allowing all the humanity to live in a delirious state, our civilisation would become stagnant, dead. While current happiness would skyrocket, future happiness would be endangered with no sense of purpose.
In summary, while it seems prudent to give special weight to the immediate consequences of a decision and to its positive effects on levels of happiness, we cannot forget about the future, despite its uncertainty. The probability of future suffering is a useful guiding principle when keeping the limitations of forecasting in mind. If a future outcome has a low probability of occurrence but potentially grave consequences, it might be best to avoid actions that lead to even the slightest chance of it becoming real.
Conclusion
All in all, the position of Minister of Happiness present many challenges. To start, there is not one happiness around which to build the policies, but many types of happiness exist, which derive from various sources. If we are to create effective policies with measurable results, how are we to decide what kind of happiness to prioritize? A Ministry of Happiness, as part of a government, can hardly avoid a certain degree of paternalism, or decision-making for the ‘greater good’. Hence, identifying priority areas that focus on eliminating the most common sorrows of the population might be the most effective and manageable approach. Such an approach, however, partly goes against the utilitarian notion of decision-making on a case-by-case basis, and of using the greatest positive change in total happiness as an ultimate guiding principle.
Every minister should decide based on comprehensive research and the best data available. Unfortunately, that is not always possible and occasionally quick decision-making is vital. In most cases, even with good data, forecasting the future and consequences of our actions is to a degree based on our perceptions and experiences. The creation of basic rules of conduct – whether Layard’s rules, or a Christian moral code, to name only two possibilities – based on experience and social utility would be helpful in approaching situations where decisions causing harm might be needed.
Immediate happiness, a sought-after commodity in the utilitarian world, can sometimes be at odds with the future negative consequences of a particular action. While forecasting is difficult, some actions should always be off limits, no matter how low their probability of their occurrence; for example, current economic growth, even if well distributed, even if it creates happiness among the current population, should not be used as an argument to destroy the Earth’s climate.
This essay’s discussion of the various types of happiness, the difficulty in foreseeing the future and the discrepancies between immediate and future happiness only barely scratches the surface of all the challenges that the Minister of Happiness would face when using utilitarianism as a guiding principle. Despite of that, or rather, because of it, such considerations should never leave Minister’s mind.