Epilogue

Abstract

AbstractIn any country, every citizen has the right to pursue happiness, and the state, as a member of the national community, has an obligation to strive for the welfare of its citizens. As such, it is the basic premise of public happiness to view happiness of individual members of the community as a subject of public interest and responsibility beyond the individual level. Such publicness or public responsibility of happiness is fundamentally based on the fact that individual citizens exist as members not isolated but related to the national community, and that individual happiness is not entirely dependent on individual abilities and resources alone but is to a certain extent influenced by public conditions. For this reason, public happiness, unlike individual-level happiness, demands that people not only maintain an appropriate level of happiness but also require everyone to be equally happy.