**4. Sen on the value of happiness**

In this part I consider what Sen has said about the value of happiness over the years. I should emphasise at the outset that I do not think that Sen's views have altered significantly. In particular, he did not change them in response to criticisms he received from the various contributors to the *Capabilities and Happiness* volume. Rather, his response to those criticisms was simply to draw attention to the fact that he had already pre-empted them in his earlier writings. In short, he suggests that his critics should have read what he has to say about the importance of the value of happiness more carefully.

There are two issues here. The first is Sen's understanding of what happiness is and involves. The second is his assessment of the value which should be attached to happiness as he understands the term. So far as the first of these issues is concerned, it is important to note that Sen consistently assumes that happiness is indeed a subjective

*Amartya Sen and the Capabilities versus Happiness Debate: An Aristotelian Perspective DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108512*

matter and not an objective one. He endorses rather than rejects the hedonistic understanding of the notion of happiness that is to be found in the writings of Layard and other contributors to the happiness literature.

Tadashi Hirai, Flavio Comin and Yukio Ikemoto have rightly suggested that Sen's understanding of the concept of happiness is 'hedonic.' That is to say, he endorses the view that happiness is a 'mental state' which is associated with such things 'pleasure and desire' [10]. Sen never argues that there is more to happiness than subjective experiences of that kind. In Sen's theoretical framework, it is not happiness but rather well-being that is considered to be more than a hedonic feeling. It is a distinctive feature of Sen's version of the capabilities approach that he endorses Layard's view that happiness itself is indeed a purely psychological condition, or a state of mind. In agreement with Layard and utilitarianism, Sen has rejected outright the idea, associated with ethical eudaimonism, that there might be such a thing as objective happiness. I shall examine this view in part five.

However, the fact that Sen thinks about the concept of happiness in this subjectivist way is not to say that he approves of hedonism, or that he attaches importance to the pursuit of happiness in this sense. On the contrary, there are times when Sen gives his readers the impression that he strongly disapproves of those, like Layard, who maintain that human existence has solely to do with the pursuit of happiness in that hedonistic sense of the term. On the issue of Sen's assessment of the value of subjective happiness, there are two contrasting readings of his views. I shall consider them in turn.

### **4.1 Sen attaches no value to subjective happiness**

I have said that for Sen there are just two core values, neither of which is happiness. These two values are freedom and well-being. It might therefore be thought that Sen attaches no importance at all to the value of happiness, subjectively understood. That is how some of his critics understand his views. Some of the contributors to the capabilities versus happiness debate have criticised Sen along just these lines. The broad thrust of most of the contributions to this debate is to argue that this is a weakness in Sen's thinking and that his version of the capabilities approach would be improved if he were to attach at least some importance to the value of happiness. These commentators are of the opinion that 'the capabilities approach' and 'the happiness approach' are both partial and one-sided. They suggest that each of these approaches provides valuable insights for those who are concerned with issues in development ethics, which are overlooked by the other. Moreover, each is open to possible criticism from the standpoint of the other. Consequently, they argue, there is scope to provide a theoretical synthesis of them both. For those who think in this way, the core assumptions of the happiness approach and Sen's version of the capabilities approach are compatible with one another and may fruitfully be combined. I shall survey these contributions, before offering a critique of them.

For example Flavio Comim, in an article entitled 'Capabilities and Happiness: Potential Synergies,' which he contributed to a special issue of the *Review of Social Economy* in 2005, argued that there are 'two prominent approaches to assessing Human Well-Being,' namely 'the Capability Approach and the Subjective Well-Being Approach,' and states that on his paper 'an argument is made for exploring the potential synergies between them' [11]. Comim maintains that 'both approaches appear to show limitations that can potentially be overcome by drawing from each other' [11]. Similarly, Luigino Bruni, Flavio Comim, and Maurizio Pugno, in their introduction to the *Capabilities and Happiness* volume in 2008, also maintain that their aim is that of 'bringing together' these 'two different approaches' to understanding 'human development' or 'well-being' [12]. Here also it is argued that 'there are potential synergies to be explored by looking jointly at them' [12]. In the same volume, Johannes Hirata also argues that 'the two perspectives focus on two different aspects, or dimensions, of a comprehensive conception' of human development. Hence they should be regarded as 'complementary, not rival'. According to Hirata, 'their conceptual relationship is best understood as a division of labour' between them' [13].

Andre Hoorn, Ramzi Mabsout, and Ester-Mirjam Sent also argue along similar lines in their contribution to a symposium on 'Happiness and Capability' in *The Journal of Social Economics* in 2010. They maintain that this symposium 'brings together two perspectives that seek a greater measure of well-being,' namely, 'the happiness approach and the capability approach' [14]. They too claim that 'the connection happiness–capability is extremely stimulating and potentially able of opening up a very promising field of research' [14]. In the same special issue, Murat Kotan also asked 'how might we bring these two approaches,' that is to say the capabilities approach (which he also refers to as 'the freedom approach') and the happiness approach 'into closer contact with one another?' [15]. And he too maintains that 'the aim of this paper is to integrate the concerns of both approaches.' In his view, if the notion of agency is taken 'as a focal point of departure,' then it is fairly 'straightforward to see how the work done under the heading of these two approaches can inform and complement each other in a constructive way' [15]. Kotan's conclusion is that 'a freedom plus happiness approach is better than either alone' [15].

Jose M. Edwards and Sophie Pelle also refer to 'two different, and even opposed, programs: the economics of happiness; and the capability approach' [16], which they associate with the names of Tibor Scitovsky and Amartya Sen respectively. These two approaches, they argue, 'represent two major attempts to renew normative economic analysis' [16]. They differ from one another because they possess two 'different concepts of well-being,' namely, 'the "joy" of satisfied consumers for Scitovsky; and the "capabilities" of deprived individuals for Sen' [16]. More recently, Maurizio Pugno has also argued that 'in the study of human welfare and progress, two prominent approaches stand out,' which at first sight 'appear to have opposite perspectives and even opposite weaknesses' [17]. The first of these is 'the capability approach' which was 'founded by A. Sen.' According to Pugno, this approach 'focuses on the objective factors that contribute to human welfare.' The second approach is the 'happiness approach,' which 'focuses on subjective well-being.' Pugno states that his paper 'attempts to go beyond the critical comparison' that has been offered of the two approaches so far, by 'integrating' them [17], in order to 'avoid the just mentioned and other weaknesses' [17]. Pugno states that, in so doing, it attempts to link the objective with the subjective evaluations of individual welfare' [17].

Finally, Martin Binder, also, has maintained that 'two of the most prominent measures of well-being come from subjective well-being research and the capability approach respectively [18]. He too suggests that 'both approaches have significant weaknesses when considered on their own' [18]. And he too asks 'to what extent' can these two approaches 'profit from each other? Is there a way to enrich one with the insights of the other?' [18]. Like the other contributors to the debate, Binder sets himself the task of considering 'to what extent a fusion between both approaches can overcome the weaknesses' of each of them considered separately [18]. In the conclusion to his paper Binder maintains that while both approaches seem *prima facie* disjunct' (sic), and appear to be 'dealing with substantively different ideas of welfare,'

### *Amartya Sen and the Capabilities versus Happiness Debate: An Aristotelian Perspective DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108512*

nevertheless he has 'made a case that a combination of both approaches allows to avoid some of the drawbacks associated with them in isolation' [18].

It is clear from the above survey of the capabilities versus happiness debate that the idea of combining the happiness approach and the capabilities approach is wellestablished in the literature. However, if these two approaches are to be combined in the way proposed, it is necessary for these commentators to assume that the capability approach, as Sen understands it, attaches no importance at all to the value of happiness or subjective well-being. In order for this theoretical synthesis to be possible, it is necessary to present the capabilities approach in a certain way. According to this understanding of its core assumptions, the capabilities approach is partial and onesided. Adherents of this approach such as Amartya Sen must be regarded as attaching no significance at all to the value of happiness, or to subjective well-being. Against that view, however, it is arguable that Sen's version of the capability approach is not guilty of doing this. To attribute such a position to Sen, as the commentators cited above do, involves a misrepresentation of his views regarding the value of happiness.

### **4.2 Sen does value subjective happiness**

In *On Ethics and Economics* (1987)*,* Sen claimed that 'while happiness and the fulfilment of desire may well be valuable for the person's well-being,' they do not 'adequately reflect the value of well-being' [4]. It is, he argues, 'not the only achievement that matters to one's well-being' [4]. Nevertheless, he does acknowledge there that 'being happy' is indeed 'a momentous achievement.' In *Inequality Re-Examined* (1992), Sen connected this assessment of the value of happiness to his distinction between capabilities and functionings. In this text he argues that although happiness can 'scarcely be the only valuable functioning,' and 'cannot really be taken to be all there is to leading a life,' nevertheless 'being happy may count as an important functioning,' albeit one of many [19].

In his contribution to the capabilities versus happiness debate, in the *Capabilities and Happiness* volume (2008), Sen again emphasises that he does consider happiness, understood as a subjective metal state, to be a significant value. He states explicitly there that happiness 'is extremely important,' since 'being happy is a momentous achievement in itself.' However, he also emphasises that 'happiness cannot be the only thing that we have reason to value, nor the only metric for measuring other things that we value.' Again therefore, despite the limitations of an exclusive focus upon it, Sen acknowledges that subjectively experienced happiness is indeed 'an important human functioning.' The 'capability to be happy,' he argues, is 'a major aspect of the freedom that we have good reason to treasure.' Hence, 'the perspective of happiness illuminates one critically important element of human living.' Nevertheless, Sen also claims in this chapter that 'the metric of happiness' is not 'a particularly good guide' for 'our valuations in general.' [6].

Similarly, in *The Idea of Justice*, which was published in 2009, the year after the *Capabilities and Happiness* volume, in a critique of the views of Richard Layard, Sen argues that the central issue is not the significance of happiness, but the alleged insignificance of everything else' [20]. For 'happiness is not the only thing we seek, or have reason to seek' [20]. Sen strongly objects to Layard's 'claim that nothing else ultimately matters' apart from happiness [20]. Against this view, Sen once more maintained that 'happiness, important as it is, can hardly be the only thing that we have reason to value, nor the only metric for measuring the things that we value' [20]. Once again, therefore, he acknowledged that subjectively conceived happiness is indeed something that is rightly valued, even if it is not the only thing that is of value. Here, as earlier in *Inequality Re-Examined*, Sen again connects this idea to the distinction which he makes between capabilities and functionings. He argues there that 'the capability to be happy' is a component part, indeed a 'major aspect,' of 'the freedom that we have good reason to value' [20]. He emphasises the significance of the work done by economists in the literature on the economics of happiness and maintains that 'there is little reason to doubt the importance of happiness in human life' [20].

For present purposes what is significant about the remarks cited above is Sen's acknowledgement that subjective happiness is indeed an important value for human beings. On this reading of his views, Sen does attach at least some importance to happiness, understood in the way in which Layard understands it, as a psychological or mental state. In his opinion, being happy in that sense, is a component part of wellbeing, in the fullest sense of the term, which necessarily takes account the mental as well as the physical aspects of persons and their well-being. For individual persons evidently do possess minds as well as bodies, and due consideration needs to be given to their mental as well as to their physical health. Sen argues that, for this very reason, subjective happiness is a necessary condition for well-being, even if it cannot be said to be a sufficient one (because of the adaptation issue).

In short, Sen's considered position is that well-being, as he understands it, necessarily possesses an objective component, whereas happiness does not. This view is compatible with the belief that well-being also possesses a subjective component, which should not be overlooked, or its significance dismissed. From this standpoint, Sen's objection to Richard Layard's subjective happiness approach is that it identifies happiness and well-being, and thereby collapses these two things into one another. According to Sen, Layard thinks that being happy is not only a necessary condition for the presence of well-being, it is also a sufficient condition. It is that view, and that view only, which Sen rejects.

If his ideas are understood in this way, Sen holds that the value of happiness, subjectively understood, should not be dismissed out of hand as morally irrelevant. He does not claim that self-reported happiness is of no value at all. Rather, he argues that although it is indeed of some value, ethically speaking, nevertheless it is not by any means the most important value, as Layard and utilitarian thinkers mistakenly claim. Sen's conclusion in his contribution to the *Capabilities and Happiness* volume is that although 'happiness is not all that matters,' nevertheless 'it does matter (and that is important)' [6]. Even so, it is I think significant that Sen does not include it in his list of core values. There are only two of these, namely freedom and well-being. Sen consistently assumes that both of these are far more important than happiness. We have seen that Sen subordinates the value of justice to that of freedom. In much the same way, without dismissing it altogether, he subordinates the value of happiness to that of well-being.

When engaging with the views of Richard Layard in *The Idea of Justice* Sen begins by asking 'how adequate is the perspective of happiness in judging a person's wellbeing'? He observes that when answering this question it is possible to go wrong in two very different ways. For In the first place, we could make the mistake of 'overestimating its importance in judging the well-being of people.' In that case, we would be 'blind to the limitations of making happiness the main – or only – basis of assessment' of social welfare' [20]. This is of course his main objection to Layard's position. However, in the second place, Sen argues that 'we could err' for a different reason, by 'not being fair to the importance of happiness' [20]. It is ironic that, despite his

### *Amartya Sen and the Capabilities versus Happiness Debate: An Aristotelian Perspective DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108512*

explicit statement to the contrary, this second criticism has been brought again Sen himself by a number of contributors to the capabilities versus happiness debate.

L. W. Sumner, in his *Welfare, Happiness and Ethics*, asks the question, 'is Sen's account' of well-being 'subjective or objective?' Sumner's reply is that, 'at first glance, the answer seems obvious,' given that Sen 'rejects utility accounts of well-being because they are subjective' [21]. It certainly appears, therefore, that Sen wishes to develop an approach to the understanding of well-being that is in some sense objective, perhaps even entirely so. However, Sumner argues, a more accurate account of Sen's views would be to say that 'he is aiming at a more moderate and defensible version of an objective theory,' that is to say, one which includes within itself an a significant subjective component [21].

Sumner refers to 'hybrid' theories in this connection [21]. Advocates of a hybrid theory, as he understands the term, maintain that 'something can contribute to a subject's well-being' (directly or intrinsically) only if (1) the subject finds it satisfying or fulfilling, or endorses it as an ingredient in her life, and (2) it is independently valuable' [21]. He suggests that hybrid theories in this sense have emerged 'in response to' Amartya Sen's discussion of the adaption problem and his criticisms of extreme subjectivism. In Sumner's words, 'some philosophers' who have engaged critically with Sen's views 'have embraced a kind of hybrid theory, which combines subjective and objective components' [21]. Sumner does not appreciate that such a view might be attributed to Sen himself. He wrongly assumes that Sen subscribes to an entirely objectivist understanding of the notion of well-being.

Des Gasper and Rebecca Gutwald have also stated that Sen's version of the capabilities approach is a 'hybrid' theory [22, 23]. They suggest that Sen and his ideas do not represent the capabilities approach in its pure form. This idea is problematic, given that Sen is usually thought to have initiated the capabilities approach. Indeed, his version of it might be said to be a paradigm example of it. It could not therefore be plausibly argued that Sen's version goes beyond the capabilities approach in its pure form, by combining its central insights with those of the happiness approach. For the belief that subjective happiness is an important functioning, is already a core component of the capabilities approach as he understands it. Sen's version of the capabilities approach, understood in just this way, should itself be regarded as the pure form of that approach.

Johannes Hirata, in his contribution to the *Capabilities and Happiness* volume, argues that if I focus attention on the objective aspect of well-being, as Sen does, 'this is not to say that I do not also care about feeling happy and about pleasure in a purely psychological sense.' What 'it does mean, he says,' is simply that 'this is not the overriding concern.' It is to claim that both subjective and objective considerations are 'constitutive of a good life.' For although it is true that 'a life full of pleasure but without any self-transcendent reasons for being happy can hardly be called a good life,' it is also true that 'a life full of reasons for being happy but without any subjective experience of happiness' is 'certainly not a good life either' [13]. These remarks express very well Amartya Sen's view of the relationship which exists between happiness and well-being. Hirata's reference to the notion of 'the good life,' or to the quality of life, has implications for the claim that Sen's is a dualist thinker. However, a consideration of that issue will have to be left for another occasion.

In conclusion, if the role which the concept of subjective happiness has to play in Sen's thought is properly understood, it becomes clear that Sen's version of the capabilities approach is not at all one-sided, as is suggested by some of the contributors to the capabilities versus happiness debate. Indeed, it is the understanding of the capabilities approach that is offered by Sen's critics, rather than that of Sen himself, which is subject to this particular objection. Consequently, there is no need for a theoretical synthesis of the capabilities approach and the happiness approach along the lines they propose. Sen has already integrated the value of happiness into his own theoretical system and he has given this value what he considers to be its due. It is just not one of his two core values. Sen evidently thinks that there are things which matter more than subjective happiness. However, that is not the same as holding that happiness is of no ethical value at all.
