Happiness is the Right Metric to Measure Good Societal Functioning

Abstract

Professor Etzioni argues that ‘happiness’ is ‘the wrong metric’ as a measure of a good society. He argues from the perspective of Communitarian Philosophy and uses two kinds of happiness evidence. One is correlational results from survey data and the other concerns ‘self-actualization’ as the highest-order need proposed by Maslow. Unfortunately, both kinds of evidence are flawed for this purpose. First, contemporary understanding of happiness allows a different perspective from the one depicted. Second, correlational results from cross-sectional studies cannot be used to conclude causation. Third, the construct of self-actualization has been discredited as having scientific validity. Overall, Etzioni’s argument rests on an outdated conception of happiness and the invalid interpretation of scientific evidence. It is concluded that happiness is the right metric by which to judge a successful society, as long as the nature of measured happiness is understood.