http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/23026/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21068/ 2010-10-14T00:00:00Z Jeremy Bentham (1789) was the founding father of utilitarianism, a social philosophy that stressed the importance of happiness (“the sum of pleasures and pains”). Bentham argued that policy-makers should strive for “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. Bentham’s utilitarianism, however, was only theoretical, as happiness was not yet measured in the 18th century. By now, social scientists have developed methods for measuring the kind of happiness that Bentham had in mind. Subjective enjoyment of life can not only be measured at the individual level, but average happiness can also be meaningfully compared across countries. This development has resulted in a new strand of research. Several national characteristics appear to correlate strongly and meaningfully with happiness, e.g. economic development, good governance and gender equality. These and many other research findings are collected in the ‘World Database of Happiness’. This dissertation adds to that growing body of knowledge exploring some new issues in a cross-sectional analysis of happiness in 150 nations around the year 2005 that covers about 95% of the world population. The following findings stand out: 1. Income inequality does not correlate with average happiness in nations. Surprisingly, even the poor are not unhappier in nations with great income inequality. 2. Modernity is an important determinant of average happiness in nations, despite the fact that modernization is often critizised in the sociological and the popular discours. 3. A high degree of religiousness in nations goes together with relatively low happines in rich nations. In poor nations, however, religiousness can turn out positively. Moreover, different religions affect happiness differently. 4. Enforcement of the death death penalty does not seem to undermine happiness, contradicting Bentham’s strong opposition to it. Again, this research has shown that the conditions of a happy society can be studied empirically. This means that a new, evidence-based, utilitarianism now exists that can be applied by policymakers. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22219/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z INCOME INEQUALITY AND HAPPINESS IN 119 NATIONS All modern nations reduce income differences to some extent, and as a result there is an ongoing discussion about what degree of income inequality is acceptable. In this discussion libertarians oppose egalitarians and a principled consensus between these positions is not possible. Consensus can only be reached on the basis of a consequential ethic and one of these is the ‘greatest happiness principle’. In this paper the utilitarian approach is followed and the relation between income inequality and happiness in 119 nations is considered. Overall happiness is conceptualized as the‘subjective appreciation of life as a whole’ and is measured using responses to survey questions. We considered both average happiness and spread of happiness. We found little relationship between income inequality and average happiness in nations. There was no correlation with average happiness, a slightly positive correlation with average mood and a slightly negative correlation with average contentment. All these correlations became positive when wealth of the nation was controlled. Spread of happiness tended to be larger in income unequal nations, but this effect disappeared when wealth of the nation was controlled. Correlations reflect the balance of positive and negative effects; in the case of average happiness the positive effects prevailed and in the case of spread both effects balanced out. The data do not show a point where the balance shifts http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/30748/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Dit artikel behandelt drie vragen over de relatie tussen geloof en geluk in landen: 1) Zijn mensen gelukkiger in landen waar geloof een grote rol speelt? 2) Maakt de aard van het geloof daarbij uit? 3) Doet diversiteit in geloof afbreuk aan het geluk? Deze vragen worden beantwoord aan de hand van vergelijkende analyse van 142 hedendaagse landen. De mate van geloof in landen wordt gemeten met een enquêtevraag naar het belang dat men hecht aan God. De aard van geloof en de diversiteit van geloof worden gemeten aan de hand van percentages van de bevolking dat zich tot een bepaalde geloofsgemeenschap rekent. Geluk wordt gemeten met enquêtevragen naar ‘overkoepelend geluk’, stemmingsniveau en tevredenheid met het leven. Analyse van deze gegevens leert het volgende: 1) Er is een negatief verband tussen mate van geloof en gemiddeld geluk (r = ─ 0.31). In landen waar God belangrijk wordt geacht zijn de mensen doorgaans minder gelukkig. Bij controle voor welvaart verdwijnt dit verband grotendeels. Ook bij aparte analyse van westerse landen vinden we een negatieve correlatie tussen religiositeit en geluk (r = ─ 0.29). 2) Het percentage Christenen in een land blijkt positief samen te hangen met het gemiddelde geluk van de bevolking. Het percentage Katholieken hangt sterk samen met geluk op mondiaal niveau, terwijl het percentage Protestanten sterk samenhangt met geluk in de Westerse wereld. Op mondiaal niveau blijkt er een negatief verband te bestaan met het aantal Moslims, met het aantal Hindoes en met het aantal Boeddhisten, terwijl er geen verband wordt gevonden met het percentage Joden. De meeste verbanden verdwijnen na controle voor welvaart, maar het positieve verband met het percentage katholieken blijft (rp= +0.37). Hetzelfde geldt voor het negatieve verband tussen geluk en het percentage Boeddhisten (rp= ─ 0.27). 3) Diversiteit in geloof in het land gaat doorgaans gepaard met lager geluk (r=─ 0.25), maar onder westerse landen blijkt juist een licht positief verband (r= +0.10). Deze uitkomsten sluiten aan bij eerder onderzoek waaruit blijkt dat mensen beter gedijen in de moderne maatschappij dan in landen die nog dichter bij de traditionele agrarische samenleving staan. In die context kan geloof worden gezien als een bijverschijnsel van een minder leefbare maatschappijvorm, waarbinnen het mogelijk een positieve functie vervult. Geloof kan echter ook een factor zijn die dit soort samenlevingen in stand houdt. ENGLISH ABSTRACT Three questions are addressed in this paper: 1) Are people happier in nations where religion is prominent? 2) Does religious denomination matter in that context? 3) Are people less happy in religiously diverse nations? Comparison of 142 nations around 2005 yields the following answers: 1) People tend to be less happy in the most religious nations. 2) Average happiness is higher the more Christians in the nations and lower the more Muslims or Buddhist. 3) Religious diversity is negatively related to happiness among most countries, but is slightly positively related to average happiness in western nations http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/9417/ 2007-03-01T00:00:00Z All modern nations reduce income differences to some extent, and as a result there is an ongoing discussion about what degree of income inequality is acceptable. In this discussion libertarians oppose egalitarians and a principled consensus between these positions is not possible. This paper follows a utilitarian approach and considers the relation between income inequality and happiness in 75 nations. Four variants of utilitarianism are applied: 1) standard utilitarianism using average happiness in nations, 2) egalitarian utilitarianism using inequality in happiness in nations, 3) negative utilitarianism using the percentage unhappy citizens in nations and 4) ‘Rawlsian’ utilitarianism using the happiness of the poor people in nations. None of these analyses show a distinct effect of income inequality on the happiness of citizens.