Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

Arien Mack Editor’s Introduction PERIODICALLY WE DEVOTE AN ISSUE OF SOCIAL RESEARCH TO A concept that figures importantly in both our private and public lives and about which much has been written. In the last 10 years, we have published issues on “Martyrdom, Self Sacrifice, and SelfDenial,” “Fairness,” “Busyness,” “Courage,” and “Shame.” These issues have in common a concern for how the meanings of these key concepts may change over time and how their importance may wax and wane. For our summer 2010 issue, we have chosen “Happiness” as our subject. Like the themes that preceded it, “Happiness” has been central to discussions of our public and private lives from as long ago as the ancient Greeks. In fact, happiness is, of course, what all U.S. citizens are given the right to pursue even ifwe are not certain ofjust what it is we are pursuing. It is what Aristotle believed was the proper end of life—“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose oflife, the whole aim and end of human existence”—and it is the basis of the proper state according to Bentham: “The greatest happiness ofthe greatest number is the foundation ofmorals and legislation.” In recent years, efforts to measure happiness have multiplied a hundredfold and are flourishing in the fields ofeconomics and psychol­ ogy, among others. There is even a Gross International Happiness proj­ ect that, with its roots in Bhutan, involves institutions in countries all over the world. The aim of the GIH project is to develop measures of a country’s well-being that go far beyond simply its gross national prod­ uct and per capita income to include measures ofthe quality ofthe lives of individuals. This effort is driven at least in part by the finding of an almost complete disconnect between the rise in the standard of living and reported happiness. Editor’s Introduction xi So the time seemed right for an issue that looks at some of the thinking about happiness, about what is new and what persists. This issue contains 13 papers addressing the theme of happi­ ness through multiple lenses. Using our unique synoptic approach, the issue knits together the many strands of scholarship on this subject through papers exploring research on the psychology and economics ofhappiness; papers on the role ofhappiness in political theories, such as utilitarianism and consequentialism: and more generally on the role ofhappiness in the idea ofthe welfare state and in religious traditions. At the same time, the issue looks back at what happiness meant to the ancients and how it figured in the great literature ofthe past. Ofcourse, like all issues of this journal, our coverage is never complete, but I think it is complete enough to give our readers a sense of the current thinking on the subject. xii social research ...