Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:15:59.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

HEDONISM AND WELFARE ECONOMICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2010

Daniel M. Hausman
Daniel M. Hausman*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay criticizes the proposal recently defended by a number of prominent economists that welfare economics be redirected away from the satisfaction of people's preferences and toward making people happy instead. Although information about happiness may sometimes be of use, the notion of happiness is sufficiently ambiguous and the objections to identifying welfare with happiness are sufficiently serious that welfare economists are better off using preference satisfaction as a measure of welfare. The essay also examines and criticizes the position associated with Daniel Kahneman and a number of co-authors that takes welfare to be ‘objective happiness’ – that is, the sum of momentary pleasures.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , November 2010 , pp. 321 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aristotle 2000. Nicomachean ethics. Tr. Irwin, Terence. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Barrotta, P. 2008. Why economists should be unhappy with the economics of happiness. Economics and Philosophy 24: 145–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentham, J. 1789 [2007]. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Dover Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernheim, D. and Rangel, A. 2004. Addiction and cue-conditioned cognitive processes. American Economic Review 94: 1558–1590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchflower, D. and Oswald, A. 2004a. Money, sex and happiness: An empirical study. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 106: 393–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchflower, D. and Oswald, A. 2004b. Well-being over time in Britain and the USA. Journal of Public Economics 88: 1359–1386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchflower, D. and Oswald, A. 2005. Some policy implications of behavioural economics – Happiness and the human development index: The paradox of Australia. Australian Economic Review 38: 307–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, J. 1991. Utility. Economics and Philosophy 7: 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, C., Issacharoff, S., Loewenstein, G., O'Donoghue, T. and Rabin, M. 2003. Regulation for conservatives: behavioural economics and the case for ‘asymmetric paternalism’. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151: 1211–1254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. and Oswald, A. 2002. A simple statistical method for measuring how life events affect happiness. International Journal of Epidemiology 31: 1139–1144.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crisp, R. 2006. Reasons and the Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Tella, R., MacCulloch, R. and Oswald, A. 2003. The macroeconomics of happiness. Review of Economics and Statistics 85: 809–827.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolan, P. and Kahneman, D. 2008. Interpretations of utility and their implications for the valuation of health. Economic Journal 118: 215–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easterlin, R. A. 1974. Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honour of Moses Abramovitz, ed. David, P. A. and Reder, M. W., 89–125. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R. A. 1995. Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all? Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 27: 35–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, F. 2004. Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of Hedonism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gauthier, D. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goodin, R. 1986. Laundering preferences. In Foundations of Social Choice Theory, ed. Elster, J. and Hylland, A., 75–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. 1986. Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Importance. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Gul, F. and Pesandorfer, W. 2008. The case for mindless economics. In The Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics: A Handbook, ed. Caplin, A. and Schotter, A., 3–39. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harsanyi, J. 1982. Morality and the theory of rational behaviour. In Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Sen, A. and Williams, B., 39–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. and McPherson, M. 2006. Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. and McPherson, M. 2009. Preference satisfaction and welfare economics. Economics and Philosophy 25: 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haybron, D. 2008. The Pursuit of Unhappiness. The Elusive Psychology of Well-being. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochschild, A. 2001. The Time Bind: When Work becomes Home and Home becomes Work. New York: Holt Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. 1999. Objective happiness. In Well-being: Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, ed. Kahneman, D., Diener, E. and Schwarz, N., 3–27. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. 2000a. Evaluation by moments: past and future. In Choices, Values and Frames, ed. Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A., 693–708. New York: Cambridge University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. 2000b. Experienced utility and objective happiness: A moment-based approach. In Choices, Values and Frames, ed. Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A., 673–692. New York: Cambridge University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. 2006. New challenges to the rationality assumption. In The Construction of Preference, ed. Slovic, P. and Lichtenstein, S., 487–503. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., Wakker, P. and Sarin, R. 1997. Back to Bentham? Explorations of experienced utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics 112: 375–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N. and Stone, A. 2004a. A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: the day reconstruction method. Science 306: 1776–1780.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N. and Stone, A. 2004b. Toward national well-being accounts. American Economic Review 94: 429–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Sugden, R. 2005. Experienced utility as a standard of policy evaluation. Environmental and Resource Economics 32: 161–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Krueger, A. 2006. Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Perspectives 20: 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Thaler, R. 2006. Utility maximization and experienced utility. Journal of Economic Perspectives 20: 221–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelman, M. 2005. Hedonic psychology and the ambiguities of ‘welfare’. Philosophy and Public Affairs 33: 391–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Köszegi, B. and Rabin, M. 2008. Choices, situations, and happiness. Journal of Public Economics 92: 1821–1832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraut, R. 2007. What is Good and Why. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layard, R. 2005. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Little, I. 1957. A Critique of Welfare Economics, 2nd edn.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lively, P. 1993. Cleopatra's Sister. New York: Harper's Perennial.Google Scholar
Loewenstein, G. and Ubel, P. 2008. Hedonic adaptation and the role of decision and experience utility in public policy. Journal of Public Economics 92: 1795–1810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J. 1859 [1978]. On Liberty, ed. Rappaport, Elizabeth. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Mill, J. 1863 [2002]. Utilitarianism, ed. Sher, George. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Ng, Y. 1997. A case for happiness, cardinalism, and interpersonal comparability. Economic Journal 107: 1848–1858.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Oswald, A. and Powdthavee, N. 2007. Obesity, unhappiness, and the challenge of affluence: theory and evidence. Economic Journal 117: F441–F459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oswald, A. and Powdthavee, N. 2008. Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges. Journal of Public Economics 92: 1061–1077.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redelmeier, D., Katz, J. and Kahneman, D. 2003. Memories of colonoscopy: a randomized trial. Pain 104 (1–2): 187–194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scanlon, T. 1998. What we Owe to each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1993. Capability and well-being. In The Quality of Life, ed. Nussbaum, M. and Sen, A., 30–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidgwick, H. 1907. The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn.London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Smith, A. 1759. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Reprinted and edited by Raphael, D. and MacFie, A.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, D., Sherriff, R., Damschroder, L., Loewenstein, G. and Ubel, P. 2006. Misremembering colostomies? Former patients give lower utility ratings than do current patients. Health Psychology 25: 688–695.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thaler, R. and Sunstein, C. 2003. Libertarian paternalism. American Economic Review 93: 175–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. and Sunstein, C. 2008. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar