Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Utility: Happiness in Philosophical and Economic Thought.(Book review)

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Utility: Happiness in Philosophical and Economic Thought, by Anthony and Charles Kenny. Exeter: Imprint Academic. 2006. Paper: ISBN 1845400526, 17.95 [pounds sterling], $ 34.90. 227 pages.

The authors, Anthony (Oxford) and Charles Kenny (Washington DC), attempt to combine economics and philosophy in the consideration of happiness. The book has three main constituents: welfare, contentment, and dignity. The central thesis is "that income is a poor proxy for any of these. Beyond some minimal level, increasing income appears at best weakly correlated with improvements of welfare, dignity or contentment within or across countries over time" (p. 9).

In the long first chapter, philosophies of happiness are delineated: Aristotle, the Epicureans, the Stoics, St. Augustine, Bentham, Kant et al. It is a great intellectual pleasure to read the chapter: focused on the essential points, witty, profound but well understandable, the reader feels the moral and political commitment of the authors. A broader history of the philosophy of happiness in economics (a lot could be said on Veblen as the most important precursor of happiness research here) is missing in their book and is still a challenge for historians of economic thought. At the end of the chapter the three elements of well-being (and their trade-offs) are introduced a little bit abruptly and unconnected. The very short and necessarily erratic but interesting second chapter deals with happiness in history. Their point is to show that improvements in the social and political model of countries and technological progress as opposed to greater incomes were most important for well-being.

Part two deals with welfare. After an insightful overview on the goods of the body in major philosophies the determinants of welfare are analyzed, based on a tremendous knowledge and masterly arrangement of empirical data concerning health, life expectancies, infant mortalities, average heights as indicators of wellbeing etc. Some surprising results are highlighted: 1) "(I)n Northern Europe, average heights fell from 173 cm in the 800-1000 AD period to 166 cm in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not recovering until as late as the mid-twentieth century--in part due to urbanization and the importation of new diseases" (p. 72). 2) "It was only with the development of significant government interventions covering working hours, water, sanitation and hygiene that UK health indicators ... began to improve--life expectancies climbing seven years from 1870 to 1900 and then a further twelve years from 1900 to 1931" (p. 76). 3) "Rather than income, technology and the growing power of the state appear to have been the driving forces for improved welfare across countries" (p. 100) after some level of minimal income is attained to consume enough nutrients and calories. The great strength of the book is already obvious in this first part, consisting in a combination of philosophical ideas, history of thought elements, empirical data, and historical facts. So the authors go far beyond the burgeoning typical happiness literature that focuses strongly on research of subjective wellbeing.

Part three analyzes the complex dimension of dignity. It includes choice (of e.g. cultural identity and social roles), a worthwhile life (control, ...