1 Introduction

Sissela Bok is a moral philosopher and fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In 2002 she re-published her book “Common Values” (1995) about her search for values to be respected all over the world.Footnote 1 In her view such values are needed to facilitate international communication and cooperation. She finds that some values can be recognized in every society. These values can be included in a minimal set of common values at a mondial level. Such a minimal set can be a starting point for the development of more values and leaves enough room for cultural diversity. She finds that the following values should be incorporated:

  • Basic forms of mutual support, loyalty, reciprocity

  • No harmful action (curbs on deceit, violence, and betrayal)

  • Minimal fairness and procedural justice to solve conflicts

In her latest book “Exploring Happiness” (2010) Bok considers happiness as a potential common value. Her view is rather critical, because there are discordant claims about what happiness is. Any particular vision can lead to practical choices that either adhere or violate the values she prefers. One example she mentions: the al-Qaeda pilots who guided the planes into the World Trade Center had been promised everlasting happiness in a future paradise, and their relatives were happy about their success. Sissela Bok prefers the values just mentioned and she also has more sympathy for the values proposed by Immanuel Kant: good will, character, and doing what duty calls for (Kant 1785).

Bok’s argument is interesting, but only valid for ‘objective’ happiness and not for ‘subjective’ happiness. There are no discordant definitions for subjective happiness, it is always defined as the appreciation of ones own life as a whole or in a very similar way. Subjective happiness is attractive as a moral value—to be included in Bok’s selection—and simultaneously as an object of empirical research. I will first summarize Bok’s views, with a few comments in footnotes, and then specify my arguments.

2 Bok’s Book: Discordant Definitions of Happiness

Bok presents several definitions of happiness with some leading questions like the following:

  • Are people the best judges of their own happiness?

  • To what extent are virtue and happiness conceptually linked? Is virtue necessary and/or sufficient for happiness?

These questions are not independent. People are no adequate judges of their own happiness if virtue is supposed to be a necessary ingredient. Definitions that incorporate virtue are ‘objective’ at that point. The definition of happiness by Aristotle is a famous example: “… the soul’s activity that expresses virtue”.Footnote 2 Since reason is another important ingredient for Aristotle, Bok observes that Sara Broadie usefully proposes a compact formula for Aristotle’s conception: “The rational soul’s activity of virtue in a complete life” (Broadie 2007). In this view, as Bok observes, ‘a happy torturer’ would be a contradiction in terms.Footnote 3 Epicurus, Seneca and Thomas Jefferson hold similar views.

There are more qualifications that can be incorporated into the definition of happiness. According to John Rawls happiness must be based on a rational life-plan (Rawls 1999). Immanuel Kant incorporates rationality but leaves out virtue, as a first step to reject happiness as the supreme good and putting in its place doing one’s duty. His definition of happiness: “a rational being’s consciousness of the pleasantness of life uninterruptedly accompanying his whole existence”. In his view people have to deserve happiness by doing their duty. If they do their duty they will be rewarded with happiness, if needed in after-life.

Such incorporations of ‘objective’ criteria, like virtue and rationality, are absent in ‘subjective’ definitions where people are supposed to be the best judges of their own happiness.Footnote 4 Richard Layard, invoking Jeremy Bentham, defines happiness as “feeling good—enjoying life and wanting the feeling to be maintained.” (Layard 2005). Ed Diener contrasts such conceptions to the traditional focus on objective criteria: It is this approach to defining the good life that has come to be called ‘subjective well-being’ (SWB) and in colloquial terms is sometimes labelled ‘happiness’ (Diener 2000). In this subjective happiness there are two components to be discerned: affect and cognition. Bok cites some definitions again like the one by Wayne Sumner: “Happiness or life-satisfaction is a positive cognitive/affective response on the part of a subject to (some or all of) the conditions or circumstances of her life” (Sumner 2000).

Bok does not prefer any definition in particular. She appreciates diversity in definitions and believes that different definitions represent differences in felt happiness. Such differences should not be blocked out because then we might slip into “… unreflective, one-dimensional conclusions about the extent to which marriage, for example, or religious beliefs or health, correlates with happiness” (p. 33).

About the objective and subjective views she makes the following remarks: “… while I believe that the subjective experience of happiness must have priority, I take both the insider’s and the outsider’s perspectives to be needed for fuller understanding. Each can help counteract errors and biases in the other. Those who take only a person’s own experience into account are as prone to such errors and biases as those who focus only on objective indications of people’s preferences and needs. Even as we adopt either the subjective or the objective perspective, we should not lose sight of the other.” (p. 43)

3 My Comments: the Moral and Scientific Attractiveness of Subjective Happiness

In Bok’s view both the subjective and the objective perspective are needed for an adequate understanding of happiness. This view makes sense in moral and political discussions, but we must observe that subjective happiness is more suitable as an object of empirical research. In addition to that we must observe that the results of such research can play a role in moral and political discussions. We may discern two ways to improve the quality of such discussions:

  • philosophical reflection on the pros and cons of values, and

  • empirical research on values, their acceptance, their actual realization, and their interactions.

In my view both ways are valuable, but Bok seems to underestimate the importance of the second approach. I will pay attention to the definition of subjective happiness first, before I present my view that subjective happiness is simultaneously attractive as a moral value, even if virtue and morality are left out of the definition, and as an object of scientific research.

3.1 The Definition of Subjective Happiness

Bok refers to the definition by Wayne Sumner: “Happiness or life-satisfaction is a positive cognitive/affective response on the part of a subject to (some or all of) the conditions or circumstances of her life”. This definition comes close to definitions usually used in empirical research, e.g.: happiness as the appreciation of life, as reported by the people themselves, spontaneously or after some reflection. This general or overall happinessFootnote 5 is based on two components:

  • affective happiness, primarily based on mood,Footnote 6

  • cognitive happiness, primarily based on reflection and cognition.Footnote 7

This conceptualization is proposed by Veenhoven (2011) and is applied in the World Data Base of Happiness. There can be a difference between the affective and cognitive component, because one can be in a good mood most of the time but still judge that life falls below one’s standards, and the other way around. The two components and overall happiness are nevertheless highly correlated, probably as a result of intensive interaction.Footnote 8

3.2 The Attractiveness of Subjective Happiness as a Value

Accepting or rejecting subjective happiness as a value is obviously not a scientific decision but eventually a moral choice. There are however some considerations in favour of subjective happiness as a value.

One consideration is that happiness is about the appreciation of people of their own life, and not, as in ‘objective’ happiness, about the appreciation by any outsider. Granting subjective happiness the status of a value is therefore consistent with respect for individual autonomy and freedom. In average happiness the happiness of anybody gets the same weight, just like anybody’s vote in democratic elections. It is interesting to notice at this point that democracy and subjective happiness have a similar attractiveness as values: both combine fitness for research with respect for equality and self-determination.

One interesting result of happiness research is the finding that, whatever the goals people pursue, an active life and individual efforts contribute substantially to happiness. We may conclude therefore, that even if we prefer alternative goals we may still appreciate happiness as a positive by-product of such efforts. Happiness has also some appreciated consequences: it has a positive impact on health (Veenhoven 2008) and happy people are more willing to participate in public activities and are less apt to engage in obstructive behaviour (Guven 2009). In sum: even if we prefer alternative goals we can still appreciate happiness as a pleasant ingredient and consequence of our ambitions.

Subjective happiness should nevertheless never be cherished in some uncritical way. Individual happiness can be immoral if it is based on accepting or creating misery, as in criminal behaviour. With average happiness this is less likely because immoral behaviour has in many cases a negative impact on average happiness. Even average happiness however, can be based on immoral behaviour towards specific individuals, other groups, nations, animals, or future generations.

3.3 The Attractiveness of Subjective Happiness as an Object for Empirical Research

Subjective happiness is very appropriate as an object in empirical research, because it can easily be matched with observations. Earlier research has established that people all over the world think about their life and develop some appreciation of their life. They are also able to answer questions about this appreciation, with sufficient levels of reliability and validity (Veenhoven 2010).

Any incorporation of additional conditions in the definition, like virtue or rationality, creates an ‘objective’ definition and makes it difficult to assess happiness. Defining subjective happiness as just the appreciation of life also facilitates the analysis of the relations between happiness and potential determinants, e.g. virtue and rationality, but also wealth, freedom, gender equality, public healthcare, safety, rule of law, and democracy (Ott 2010). Such relations disappear ‘out of sight’ if such determinants are incorporated into the concept.

There are more values that can be matched with observations, but for many values this is rather complicated. It is certainly complicated for virtue, rationality, solidarity, justice and doing one’s duty, because the actual interpretation of such values depends heavily on specific cultural contexts. It is also difficult for the values Bok prefers: curbs on deceit (honesty, truthfulness), curbs on violence, and betrayal; and basic forms of reciprocity and nurturing.

If values cannot be matched with observations it will be relatively easy to manipulate the interpretation of such values, because it is difficult to organize relevant empirical feed back. ‘Doing one’s duty’, and the happiness for the al-Qaeda pilots in some future paradise, are typical examples.

4 Conclusion: Happiness as a Safe Bridge Between Science and Morality

Bok underestimates the importance of empirical research for discussions about moral issues. She finds that empirical research is inclined to put priority on observable phenomena, and to neglect the meaning and values people attribute to such phenomena. True, but “it ain’t necessarily so”, and empirical research is urgently required to assess the actual acceptance of values, their realization in practice, and their mutual relations.

Bok would probably have been more positive about subjective happiness as a common value if she would have paid more attention to the gap between science and morality: two different worlds without natural bridges in between. Philosophers like Hume (1739) and Popper (1945) have made it very clear that crossing this gap requires some careful attention.Footnote 9 The gap is visualized in Table 1.

Table 1 Values, their acceptance, their realization and their compatibility
Full size table

Table 1 is about four different questions: (1) Should a value be accepted? (2) Do people accept this value? (3) Is this value realized in practice? and (4) Is this value compatible with alternative values? Discussions about the first question are about morality, discussions about the next questions are about science and empirical research. For happiness: (1) Should we, as observers, policy-makers, or people in general, accept happiness as a value? (2) Do people accept happiness as a value? (3) Are people happy? (4) Is happiness compatible with alternative values, e.g. honesty, non-violence, justice, sense of duty, altruism and freedom? For happiness it is relatively easy to answer the second and third question because people can just rely on their personal experience in answering questions about their—subjective!—happiness. For alternative values this is usually more complicated, because there is more cultural and individual variety in interpretations. The answers to the second and third question can be used to answer the fourth question; in as far as the alternative values are—nevertheless—fit for research. The answers to the empirical questions 2, 3, and 4 can be used as additional considerations in moral discussions about the first question. Subjective happiness is therefore rather unique, as a safe man-made bridge to cross the gap between science and morality.