Moral Dilemma (12): Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number

Imagine the discovery of a new type of chair. This chair would produce great happiness and wellbeing to those sitting in it. As we live in a world with limited resources, suppose we would only be able to produce one hundred such chairs. Suppose also that the chair would have to be produced in such a way that sharing the chairs will not work (for example, the production of happiness requires genetically coding the chairs). However, the method of distribution of the chair is undetermined: could be a lottery, could be money, could be only for heads of state etc. That’s not important in the present context. Now, imagine also that a greater total of wellbeing (call it utility if you must) could be produced with the same investment, and by giving each and every individual a very, very small increase in his or her personal wellbeing. For example, we could use the money in order to fit all chairs in the world with a massage function. In total, all these small improvements in wellbeing would produce more total wellbeing than just providing one hundred individuals with great happiness by way of the newly invented happiness chairs.

A similar dilemma was featured here.

More moral dilemmas (which are still open to votes by the way). More on happiness and utilitarianism.

Remixing Tea-Party Signs

After a first attempt, I kinda got the taste for this. So here are a few more “improved” signs:

(source of the original)

I can understand that for some people the right to life is negated by abortion. And if you really believe that Obama is a Soviet-style “socialist”, then it’s clear he’s the negation of liberty. But welfare the opposite of the pursuit of happiness? Sorry, me no understand. How can the absence of welfare possible contribute to the pursuit of happiness? Is hunger, poverty, lack of healthcare and education part of the pursuit of happiness? And is the effort to do something about these problems the end of happiness?

Here’s another one:

(source of the original)

Some confusion about the meaning of “spreading” here, it seems. And, to be fair to the teabaggers, this next remix (hopefully) shows the conceit inherent in all political protesting, not just the tea-party type:

(source of the original which included the comment: “You have worked hard for you money. Why does the government think they have the right to take your money and bail out failed businesses, mortgages and more???”)

More here and here.

Human Rights Maps (30): Happiness and Subjective Well-Being

(source, click on the image to enlarge)

More on happiness here and here.

Human Rights Quote (56): Poverty and Unhappiness

Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers

(source)

We establish a clear positive link between average levels of subjective well-being and GDP per capita across countries, and find no evidence of a satiation point beyond which wealthier countries have no further increases in subjective well-being. We show that the estimated relationship is similar to the relationship between subject well-being and income observed within countries. Those enjoying materially better circumstances also enjoy greater subjective well-being and ongoing rises in living standards have delivered higher subjective well-being. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers (source)

This study, based on two cross-country happiness surveys (one by Pew and another by Gallup), found that richer countries are happier than poorer ones, and that this is reflected internally in countries (rich people are happier than poor people). No surprise perhaps, but an additional reason to fight poverty, on top of the reasons linked to under-education, ill-health, lack of political representations etc.

These data are confirmed by another study based on the Penn World Tables (for cross country analysis) and the General Social Survey (for U.S. data):

(source)

Higher income is positively associated with happiness and life satisfaction, and the association is curvilinear: more income means more happiness, but less so at high levels of income than at low levels.

Why Do We Need Human Rights? (6): Freedom Makes You Happy

(source)

This graph shows the correlation between the Freedom House ratings of countries (in fact a rating of the degree of democratic governance) and the average life satisfaction, feelings of well-being or happiness as measured by surveys. Of course, correlations do not show causal links, and many a statistician has fallen into the trap of seeing a causal link where there is only a correlation. The problem with correlations is that the causal link, if any, can go either way, and a correlation does not show which way. Furthermore, the correlation can have a third cause, invisible in the correlation.

However, since it is difficult to believe that happiness causes freedom, we have a prima facie reason to believe that the causal link, if there is one, goes rather the other way.