Wil Wilkinson notes that happiness cannot be taken as the sole master value and pleas for a “reasonable pluralism" in which happiness competes with other values in the public http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/april-2007/debate. I agree that happiness is not the only valuable thing, but I also think that happiness has additional merits that go beyond its intrinsic worth. One extra point in favor of happiness is that it matches other humanistic values quite well. A second bonus is that happiness is an indicator of the fit between living conditions and human nature and, as such, informs us about the practicability of various value mixes.

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hdl.handle.net/1765/12754
Department of Sociology

Veenhoven, R. (2007). The place of happiness in pluralism. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/12754