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Well-being, happiness and education

Richard Bailey

To cite this Article Bailey, Richard(2009) 'Well-being, happiness and education', British Journal of Sociology of Education,

30: 6, 795 802

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British Journal of Sociology of Education Vol. 30, No. 6, November 2009, 795802

REVIEW ESSAY Well-being, happiness and education

Richard Bailey* Happier, by T. Ben-Shahar, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2007, 224 pp., 9.99, ISBN 0077123247
baileyrichard1@me.com RichardBailey 0 600000November 30 2009 Essay ReviewJournal of 0142-5692 Francis2009 British and (print)/1465-3346 10.1080/01425690903236613(online) CBSE_A_423835.sgm Taylor & Francis Sociology of Education

Happiness, by R. Layard, London, Penguin, 2005, 320 pp., 9.99, ISBN 0141016906 The dangerous rise of therapeutic education, by K. Ecclestone and D. Hayes, London, Routledge, 2008, 182 pp., 18.99, ISBN 0415397014
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The happiness industry A financially strapped academic in need of some fast and easy money could do worse than enter the rapidly emerging happiness industry that is spreading through both academia and the real world. Politicians who once assumed the liberal dictum that the state ought to stay out of peoples inner lives now state with increasing regularity that there is more to life than money and that improving peoples happiness and wellbeing (let us temporarily treat these two terms as synonymous) is a vital challenge facing governments. The Conservative leader David Cameron has been quoted as saying that We should be thinking not just what is good for putting money in peoples pockets but what is good for putting joy in peoples hearts (BBC News Channel, 22 May 2006). His comments are merely indicative of a wide, non-partisan commitment to politicise the quest for well-being and personal fulfilment. Labour Minister Tessa Jowell, for example, described the new politics of behaviour as one of the most fascinating challenges facing government (Observer, 21 November 2004). The new politics of behaviour is a term replete with presumptions and meanings enough to fill many PhD theses. It reflects a significant shift in government thinking from traditional redistributionist social policies towards a focus on peoples emotional well-being and a system that meets the emotional as well as the physical needs of human beings (Hoggett 2000, 144). Many of these discussions take it for granted that well-being equates to mental health and that consequently social policy needs to take a therapeutic turn in order to address the evident problems generated by such issues as inequalities of wealth and opportunities: emotions, health and distributive justice are therefore intimately related in the developed Western world (Williams 1998, 132). This seems to be the starting point for recent calls for happiness lessons in schools. Anthony Seldon, Master of the well-known independent school Wellington College, has been vociferous in his support for school introducing such lessons because:

*Email: baileyrichard1@me.com
ISSN 0142-5692 print/ISSN 1465-3346 online 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/01425690903236613 http://www.informaworld.com

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First, if schools do not, children may never learn elsewhere. Second, depression, selfharming and anxiety among students are reaching epidemic proportions. So are drinking and drug-taking. Teaching schoolchildren how to live autonomous lives increases the chances of avoiding depression, mental illness and dependency when they are older. (Guardian, 19 February 2008)

The UK Government has also started to bring the study of happiness to state schools. In 2007 Secretary of State for Schools Ed Balls introduced a new voluntary subject in secondary education, called Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL), which would be a component in the statutory subject Personal, Social and Health Education. SEAL incorporates ideas on well-being, emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. This is the context for Richard Layards bestseller Happiness. Layard is perhaps the person in the United Kingdom most associated with the rapid rise of happiness promoting policy and research. His personal web site at the London School of Economics states his positions boldly: (he) always thought that the ultimate aim of public policy is to make people happier (http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/staff/person. asp?id=970). His book is interesting in part because it encompasses so many of the contested topics of happiness research. For example, in one chapter he summarises some of the findings from so-called positive psychology. Elsewhere he talks of the costs of inequality; and on another occasion he explains the importance of children acquiring good attitudes (p. 200), by which he seems to mean clear moral values through the wisdom of the ages as well-established principles (p. 200). Layards account of happiness is, therefore, complex and diverse. Also, as will be seen later in this article, his argument takes him across each of the different (and competing) theories of well-being. Ultimately, however, he ends up with what philosophers call an objectivist theory (p. 224), which equates quality of life with factors that are super-personal; life goes well, according to the standard objectivist position, when certain needs or conditions are met, irrespective of subjective preferences or pleasures. Of course, Layard would not summarise his position this way; it is certainly more nuanced/confused (depending on your point of view), and does include numerous mentions of subjective responses to lifes challenges. However, his books leaves a sense that if what I want and what I need came into conflict, I would be best served by turning to the latter. Layard even goes so far as to list the types of experiences, skills, knowledge and understanding that are facilitative of happiness. His list has a family resemblance with many other objective lists, such as that of Nussbaum (2000; cf. Gasper 2004 for other lists). In his short section on education, Layard offers the following as bases of a new curriculum subject (Happiness Studies?):

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Understanding and managing your feelings Loving and serving others The appreciation of beauty Causes and cures of illness, including mental illness, drugs and alcohol Love, family and parenting Work and money Understanding the media and preserving your own values Understanding others and how to socialise Political participation Philosophical and religious ideas (pp. 200201).

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Layards vision of happiness-centred policy-making would be anathema to Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes, whose book The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education is worth mentioning principally because it stands so resolutely against the tide. They chart the exponential growth of interventions at all stages of the education system that measure, assess and support the emotional needs and well-being of students. They cite circle time, Philosophy for Children classes, nurture groups, peer mentoring and buddy schemes, drama workshops and numerous other strategies that aim to create empathetic, emotionally literate and happy citizens. Ecclestone and Hayes argue that beliefs about peoples vulnerability and fragility lie behind the rhetoric of empowerment and positive psychology. Rather than embracing emotional fragility, they argue, schools should challenge it. The therapeutic turn in education, they claim, stands in opposition to a more educationally grounded emphasis on human potential, resilience and the capacity for autonomy.

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The language of happiness Before turning to the other books to be considered, it is worthwhile to pause a moment and reflect on the language used by Richard Layard and others. Happiness seems a strange title for a book that fills relatively little space with discussions of pleasure, satisfaction or mood states. In fact, his usage is indicative of ongoing debates about terminology and usage. Haybron captures the situation nicely:
There may be a philosophical topic more in need of clarification than happiness, but nothing comes to mind. So star-crossed is this territory that you will be hard-pressed to publish even an article on the subject without dedicating several pages to explaining what you are talking about. Whereupon you can count on a fair proportion of your audience to assume, nevertheless, that you are talking about something else. (2008, 29)

The trouble with happiness is that the term has multiple meanings that are not always distinguishing by writers on the topic. Layard seems to be a good example of this. Most academic writing linked to happiness focuses on one of two senses of the term. The first usage treats happiness as synonymous with well-being (for example, Griffin, 1986) or welfare (Sumner 1996), defined as the condition of faring or doing well (ibid., p. 1), which he acknowledges is more or less the same as well-being or interest. More recently, Nussbaum (2000) has proposed her capabilities approach primarily concerned with the level at which a persons capability becomes what Marx called truly human, that is, worthy, of a human being (Nussbaum 2000, 73). Typical of such work is Robin Barrows (1980) Happiness. Aside from the title, Barrows book has almost nothing in common with Layards. Barrows focus is eudaimonia, the Aristotelian conception of well-being as fulfilling human nature. This is a normative or evaluative concept that concerns what benefits a person, what is in that persons interests, what is good for that person and makes life go well (Haybron 2008). Until recently philosophers almost always translated eudaimonia as happiness, but this usage has recently gone out of favour for the simple reason that happiness is most commonly associated with positive affect or pleasure and this is certainly not what Aristotle meant. The second usage of happiness has an emotional, psychological or subjective meaning: being happy. There are different ways of interpreting this sense (which will be discussed shortly), but none of them equate to the normative concept of well-being.

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Layards book, it has already been noted, uses the term happiness to mean something much more evaluative than pleasure or satisfaction. His concern is the good life, and so the term most appropriate for his interest in the current parlance is well-being. Tal Ben-Shahars Happier, on the other hand, is unapologetically interested in subjective experiences. His book is apparently based on the most popular course for students at Harvard University, and offers a series of activities and meditations aimed at promoting the overall experience of pleasure and meaning (p. 33). As such, the book constitutes an introduction to positive psychology, which is (according to the Positive Psychology Manifesto),
the scientific study of optimal human functioning. It aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive. The positive psychology movement represents a new commitment on the part of research psychologists to focus attention on the sources of psychological health, thereby going beyond prior emphasis upon disease and disorder. (http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/akumalmanifesto.htm)
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Ben-Shahars book (and many others with similar titles) takes a tour of the lingua franca of positive psychology, including flow, learned optimism and goalsetting. His chapter on education offers a new theory of schooling that he calls the lovemaking model (p. 83). Essentially, Ben-Shahar is making a case for joy in education. Schools, he says, should go beyond the technical aspects beyond the three Rs of Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic to promote a fourth R Revelry (pp. 9394). He quotes one of the founding fathers of positive psychology approvingly:
Neither parents nor schools are very effective at teaching the young to find pleasure in the right things. They make serious tasks seem dull and hard and frivolous ones exciting and easy. Schools generally fail to teach how beautiful science and mathematics can be; they teach the routine of literature and history rather than the adventure. (Csikszentmihalyi 1997, 12)

So, this is a subjective conception of happiness, which is primarily concerned with hedonistic or hedonic experience (Kahneman, Diener, and Schwarz 1999).

Philosophical approaches to happiness and well-being The preceding discussion has highlighted the different ways in which writers have approached the conceptions of well-being and happiness. Much academic and professional discourse draws on a distinction between subjective and objective accounts (ONeill 1998). Both accounts have their adherents (albeit in different fields) and both have their critics. At its heart, the subjective/objective distinction centres on the different responses to the claim of agent sovereignty (Arneson 1999, 116) of whether what is good for people depends on what they desire or they think they desire, or on what they need (whether they desire it or not) or what it is thought by some relevant authority that they need (whether they desire it or not). Evidently, this is not merely an academic discussion, as the conclusions reached lead to quite different notions of the good life and different ideas about who is best placed to judge. It seems wise, therefore, to take a step back and briefly examine the philosophical background to the current debates on happiness and well-being. Subjective theories predominantly take one of two forms: hedonistic, and desire fulfilment. Hedonistic accounts are premised upon the view that what would be best

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for someone is what would make life happiest and place greatest emphasis on the quality of personal experience. Desire Fulfilment theories of well-being focus on those things that would allow an individual to fulfil or satisfy his/her desires. Objective theories, by contrast, are characterised by the belief that certain things are good for people, irrespective of whether or not they want to have them (Parfit 1984). Such theories typically list constituents of well-being, as has already been seen. Hedonistic theories focus on certain qualities of experience. Psychologists have been anxious to distance subjective well-being, a psychological theory of well-being, from hedonistic theories defined in this fashion (Diener, Sapyta, and Suh 1998). Subjective well-being is comprised of a personal judgement of life satisfaction, alongside positive and negative affect (Diener and Suh 1999). The life satisfaction domain, in particular, should ensure a relationship with what is important in life, not just short-term pleasures such as partying and entertainment (Diener, Sapyta, and Suh 1998, 35). This is one of the primary difficulties with hedonistic theories: their scope does not extend beyond the experiences themselves. The ways of achieving pleasurable experiences are, however, as diverse as are the people who choose them. The question, of course, is whether a life filled with these sorts of experiences can be worthwhile. In a famous thought experiment, Robert Nozick (1974) highlighted the limitations of hedonistic views. He described an imaginary experience machine that can give an individual a perfect simulation of the experiences desired whilst floating in a tank hooked up to various psychotropic equipment. The scenario is not unlike Arnold Schwarzeneggers film Total Recall, or game Better than Life from the television series Red Dwarf, in which our heroes find a machine that lets all of their dreams come true. Critics of the hedonistic view object that a life of passivity and simulation is a life not worthy of human agency. They are repelled by the thought of passivity thaqt is characteristic of life in the experience machine. All it has to offer is a simulation of living. A life, less pleasurable but less shallow, is surely superior to one of inauthenticity. Griffin illustrates this point, referring to friendship:
Even if I were surrounded by consummate actors able to give me sweet simulacra of love and affection, I should prefer the relatively bitter diet of their authentic reactions. And I should prefer it not because it would be morally better, or aesthetically better, or more noble, but because it would make a better life for me to live. (Griffin 1986, 9)

Positive experiences naturally matter to us as sentient animals, yet a richer sense of well-being extends beyond the scope of such experiences. There are more mundane reasons to question the efficacy of the hedonistic account: numerous studies have found that a positive mood following certain experiences, such as sport or music, can be short-lived (Faulkner and Biddle 2004), possibly because the individual adapts, and the elevated feelings disappear. Some experiences, however, seem resistant to this effect:
The flow experiences (of being caught up in exercise of skills) reported by Csikszentmihalyis subjects also can be related to sense of self, especially when there is room to be proud of the skills involved; and these satisfactions too can be largely exempt from the hedonic treadmill. (Kupperman 2003, 26)

The hedonic treadmill refers to a process of adaptation to increased satisfaction, so even if the circumstances that promote it are maintained, the elevated state will not

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continue. Satisfactions related to sense of self may be of an extended duration, such as when acquiring new skills or knowledge. This point is interesting because it highlights the importance of the type of activity chosen and engaged in. It also, implicitly, cuts away the case for purely pleasurable experiences with its emphasis on meaningful activities and the learning of new skills. Pleasure or satisfaction per se may not be adequate to contribute to enhanced quality of life, and it is important to differentiate between different types of satisfaction and pay attention to the nature of the activity with which an individuals pleasure or satisfaction is relationally associated (McNamee 1994). The alternative version of the subjectivist account, desire-fulfilment, claims that life goes well when ones desires are satisfied. The dominant view of economists and philosophers during the twentieth century (Haybron 2008) is the desire-fulfilment approach that equates well-being with the satisfaction of individual desires (cf. White 2002 for an alternative account of desire-fulfilment that is non-personal). The most persuasive variety of this position is probably when desires are informed (by rationality, reflection or knowledge), which means that some desires are rejected as inadmissible. An appeal of this approach, of course, is that it satisfies the liberal aspiration of non-paternal freedom of choice. One difficulty with this sort of perspective, however, is that it is very easy to conceive of an instance in which an individuals desires might not bear at all on their well-being; indeed, they might be harmful to it. John Rawls (1971) famously imagined a person who, having reflected on alternatives, decides to spend as much time as possible counting blades of grass in city parks. If that seems implausible, consider, instead, someone glued to a television set, or to a computer game, or countless other activities that seem impossible to equate with a flourishing, fulfilling life. Other examples of desire fulfilment bring into sharp relief the potential problems of desire fulfilment theories. Consider the case of an individual whose desires lead to actions that are actually harmful to their well-being, such as those resulting in eating disorders. The fact that it is possible to recognise erroneous judgements suggests something more objective, over and above, the mere satisfaction of desires. This immediately raises another problem with desire fulfilment theories of well-being, at least with regard to its scope. Even if an adults judgement about his her interest is accepted, it does not necessarily follow that this should be extended to children. Consider John ONeills sketch of the most defensible presentation of this position:
Well-being can be identified with the satisfaction of fully informed preferences. The position allows for error but still holds that whether something is good for a person depends ultimately on what they would want or value. What is good for us is still determined ultimately by our preferences. (1998, 47)

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As this quotation makes clear, the desire fulfilment approach adopts the standpoint of a mature adult, looking competently and impartially at his/her or others well-being. There is a further difficulty with desire fulfilment theories: actual desires are highly malleable. One consequence of this phenomenon, which Nussbaum (2000) calls adaptive preference formation, has attracted considerable attention from a range of social scientists from feminists to those studying international development. The philosopher-economist Amartya Sen (1998 ) has shown how peoples assessments of the quality of their lives are mediated by identities, norms and institutions. Women in particular, often find their options constricted by notions of obligation and legitimacy, which affect the decisions they feel able to make. Thus it is that womens perceptions

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of themselves are largely constituted by the circumstances before them, and, as Julia Annas (1993) put it, in a society where women have fewer options, they settle for less. Thus, the less one desires in life the less one is frustrated. The adaptive preference is not necessarily or even typically a conscious act, as norms and expectations become internalised. The privileged quickly become accustomed to their wealth and opportunity; the marginalised frequently adapt their expectations and desires to the lower level of life they are accustomed to. How can they demand fundamental elements of wellbeing if they are unaware that they exist? (Nussbaum 2000). Effectively this is a new twist on Marxs conception of ideology as false consciousness. Relying on personal preference in judgements of well-being will, in contexts like these, simply reinforce dominant structures and stand in opposition to radical change. These sorts of doubts have led many writers towards a conception of well-being that is substantially objective. As has already been seen, this is essentially Layards position. To be clear, it is not the case that objective and subjective accounts are mutually exclusive. It is entirely possible to envisage some sort of mixed theory, such as where well-being could be equated with deriving or desiring pleasure from objectively valuable activities (Parfit 1984). The main point here is simply that objectivist accounts are not reliant on personal desires or emotional states. ONeill (1998) adopts this stance when he argues that an individuals well-being is objectively grounded in human nature. This is an argument inspired by Aristotles ethics:
an Aristotelian conception of well-being according to which well-being should be characterised not in terms of having the right subjective states, as the hedonist claims nor in terms of the satisfaction of preferences as modern welfare economics assumes, but rather in term of a set of objective goods a person might possess, for example, friends, the contemplation of what is beautiful and wonderful, the development of ones capacities, the ability to shape ones life, and so on. (ONeill 1998, 3)

The similarities between ONeills account of well-being and Layards conception of happiness are obvious, and serve to highlight the difference between Layards and other notions of happiness in the literature. And the criticism most frequently levelled at objectivists also scores on Layards theory: where do the objective values come from? Many writers, such as ONeill, base their lists on their interpretations of human nature. Others, like Nussbaum, talk more generally about universal human capabilities. Layard, on the other hand, seems to base his argument on empirical findings. Since any such findings are laden with values and presuppositions, their warrant is undermined by the spectre of vicious circularity: he bases his values on evidence; but evidence is mediated by the values of the researchers. Why bother? There is little doubt that the Happiness Industry is a highly visible and influential strand of contemporary social and educational discourse. Governments in many western countries are littering policy documents with talk of well-being, emotional literacy, social and inter-personal development and the like, and statutory curricula are being changed to create space for such constructs. The aim of this review article, written by a philosopher not a sociologist, has been to explore the presumptions and consequences of some of the different theoretical approaches adopted in the literature. Although it has not been the intention here to propose a further theory, it should be apparent that happiness-talk is much more complex and problematic than seems to be

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presumed by many of the writers in the field. Since ideas, when they reach schools and classrooms, are not merely intellectual artefacts but impact directly on the lives of the young people in their care, such ideas ought to be used with caution. Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Prof. Mike McNamee and Dr Andy Bloodworth, Department of Philosophy, Humanities and Law in Healthcare, Swansea University for collaborative work on well-being on which part of the analysis is based.

References
Annas, J. 1993. Women and the quality of life: Two norms or one? In The quality of life, ed. M.C. Nussbaum and A. Sen, 27996. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Arneson, R.J. 1999. Human flourishing versus desire satisfaction. Social Philosophy and Policy 16: 11343. Barrow, R. 1980. Happiness. Oxford: Martin Robertson. Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1997. Happiness and creativity: Going with the flow. The Futurist September/October: 812. Diener, E., J.J. Sapyta, and E. Suh. 1998. Subjective well-being is essential to well-being. Psychological Inquiry 9: 337. Diener, E., and E.M. Suh. 1999. National differences in subjective well-being. In Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology, ed. D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz, 43450. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Faulkner G., and S. Biddle. 2004. Exercise and depression: Considering variability and contextuality. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 26: 318. Gasper, D. 2004. Human well-being: Concepts and conceptualizations. Helsinki: United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research. Griffin, J. 1986. Well-being. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Haybron, D. 2008. The pursuit of unhappiness: The elusive psychology of well-being. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoggett, P. 2000. Social policy and the emotions. In Rethinking social policy, ed. G. Lewis, S. Gewirtz and J. Clarke, 14155. London: Sage/Open University. Kahneman, D., E. Diener, and N. Schwarz. 1999. Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Kupperman, J. 2003. Comfort, hedonic treadmills, and public policy. Public Affairs Quarterly 17: 1728. McNamee, M.J. 1994. Valuing leisure practices: Towards a theoretical framework. Leisure Studies 13, no. 4: 288309. Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, state and utopia. New York: Basic Books. Nussbaum, M. 2000. Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ONeill, J. 1998. Ecology, policy and politics: Human well-being and the natural world. London: Routledge. Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rawls, J. 1971. A theory of justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sen, A. 1998. Freedom as development. New York: Knopf. Sumner, L.W. 1996. Welfare happiness & ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. White, J. 2002. Education, the market and the nature of personal well-being. British Journal of Educational Studies 50: 44256. Williams, S.J. 1998. Capitalising on emotions? Rethinking the inequalities in health debate. Sociology 32: 1323.

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