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Richard Bailey

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British Journal of Sociology of Education

Vol. 30, No. 6, November 2009, 795–802

ISSN 0142-5692 print/ISSN 1465-3346 online

© 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/01425690903236613

http://www.informaworld.com

REVIEW ESSAY

Well-being, happiness and education

Richard Bailey*

Taylor and FrancisCBSE_A_423835.sgm10.1080/01425690903236613British Journal of Sociology of Education0142-5692 (print)/1465-3346 (online)Review Essay2009Taylor & Francis306000000November 2009RichardBailey [email protected]

Happier, by T. Ben-Shahar, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2007, 224 pp., £9.99, ISBN0077123247

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

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 people’s inner lives – now state with increasing regularity

that there is more to life than money and that improving people’s happiness and well- being (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 people’s

pockets but what is good for putting joy in people’s hearts’ (BBC News Channel,22 May 2006). His comments are merely indicative of a wide, non-partisan commit-

ment 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 meaningsenough to fill many PhD theses. It reflects a significant shift in government thinking

from traditional redistributionist social policies towards a focus on people’s 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 thatwell-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’ inschools. Anthony Seldon, Master of the well-known independent school Wellington

College, has been vociferous in his support for school introducing such lessons

because:

*Email: [email protected]



796 Review essay

First, if schools do not, children may never learn elsewhere. Second, depression, self-harming and anxiety among students are reaching epidemic proportions. So are drinkingand drug-taking. Teaching schoolchildren how to live autonomous lives increases thechances 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), whichwould 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 Layard’s bestseller Happiness. Layard is perhapsthe 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 chil-

dren acquiring ‘good attitudes’ (p. 200), by which he seems to mean clear moralvalues through ‘the wisdom of the ages as well-established principles’ (p. 200).

Layard’s 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 withfactors that are super-personal; life goes well, according to the standard objectivist

position, when certain needs or conditions are met, irrespective of subjective prefer-

ences 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 doesinclude numerous mentions of subjective responses to life’s 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 oneducation, Layard offers the following as bases of a new curriculum subject

(‘Happiness Studies’?):

● 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. 200–201).



British Journal of Sociology of Education 797

Layard’s vision of happiness-centred policy-making would be anathema to

Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes, whose book The Dangerous Rise of Therapeu-tic 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 educa-

tion 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 thataim to create empathetic, emotionally literate and happy citizens. Ecclestone and

Hayes argue that beliefs about people’s vulnerability and fragility lie behind the rhet-

oric 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.

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, butnothing 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 audi-ence 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 alwaysdistinguishing 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 doingwell’ (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 person’s capability becomes what Marxcalled “truly human”, that is, worthy, of a human being’ (Nussbaum 2000, 73).

Typical of such work is Robin Barrow’s (1980) Happiness. Aside from the title,Barrow’s book has almost nothing in common with Layard’s. Barrow’s 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 person’s interests, what is good for that person and makes life go well (Haybron2008). 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.



798 Review essay

Layard’s book, it has already been noted, uses the term happiness to mean some-

thing 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-Shahar’s 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). Assuch, the book constitutes an introduction to ‘positive psychology’, which is (accord-

ing to the ‘Positive Psychology Manifesto’),

the scientific study of optimal human functioning. It aims to discover and promote thefactors that allow individuals and communities to thrive. The positive psychology move-ment represents a new commitment on the part of research psychologists to focus atten-tion on the sources of psychological health, thereby going beyond prior emphasis upondisease and disorder. (http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/akumalmanifesto.htm)

Ben-Shahar’s book (and many others with similar titles) takes a tour of the lingua

franca of positive psychology, including ‘flow’, ‘learned optimism’ and ‘goal-

setting’. 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 educa-tion. 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. 93–94).

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 inthe 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. (Csikszentmi-halyi 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 profes-sional discourse draws on a distinction between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ accounts

(O’Neill 1998). Both accounts have their adherents (albeit in different fields) and bothhave their critics. At its heart, the subjective/objective distinction centres on the differ-

ent 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 author-ity 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, there-

fore, 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




for someone is what would make life happiest and place greatest emphasis on the qual-

ity of personal experience. ‘Desire Fulfilment’ theories of well-being focus on thosethings that would allow an individual to fulfil or satisfy his/her desires. Objective theo-

ries, 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 typi-

cally 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, along-

side 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 pleasur-

able experiences are, however, as diverse as are the people who choose them. Thequestion, 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 anindividual a perfect simulation of the experiences desired whilst floating in a tank

hooked up to various psychotropic equipment. The scenario is not unlike Arnold

Schwarzenegger’s 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 thaqtis 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 inauthen-

ticity. Griffin illustrates this point, referring to friendship:

Even if I were surrounded by consummate actors able to give me sweet simulacra of loveand 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 morenoble, 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 experi-ences, 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 Csikszent-mihalyi’s 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 fromthe 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



800 Review essay

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 high-lights 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 activitywith which an individual’s pleasure or satisfaction is relationally associated

(McNamee 1994).

The alternative version of the subjectivist account, desire-fulfilment, claims that

life goes well when one’s 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 rational-

ity, reflection or knowledge), which means that some desires are rejected as inadmis-sible. 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 individual’s 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 exam-

ples of desire fulfilment bring into sharp relief the potential problems of desire fulfil-ment 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 moreobjective, 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 adult’s judgement about his her interest is accepted, it does not

necessarily follow that this should be extended to children. Consider John O’Neill’s

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 persondepends ultimately on what they would want or value. What is good for us is still deter-mined ultimately by our preferences. (1998, 47)

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 people’s 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 women’s perceptions




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 opportu-

nity; 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 well- being if they are unaware that they exist? (Nussbaum 2000). Effectively this is a new

twist on Marx’s 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 Layard’s

position. To be clear, it is not the case that objective and subjective accounts are mutu-

ally 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 objectivelyvaluable activities (Parfit 1984). The main point here is simply that objectivist

accounts are not reliant on personal desires or emotional states. O’Neill (1998) adopts

this stance when he argues that an individual’s well-being is objectively grounded in

human nature. This is an argument inspired by Aristotle’s ethics:

an Aristotelian conception of well-being according to which well-being should be char-acterised not in terms of having the right subjective states, as the hedonist claims nor interms 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, thecontemplation of what is beautiful and wonderful, the development of one’s capacities,

the ability to shape one’s life, and so on. (O’Neill 1998, 3)

The similarities between O’Neill’s account of well-being and Layard’s conception of

happiness are obvious, and serve to highlight the difference between Layard’s and other notions of happiness in the literature. And the criticism most frequently levelled

at objectivists also scores on Layard’s theory: where do the objective values come

from? Many writers, such as O’Neill, base their lists on their interpretations of human

nature. Others, like Nussbaum, talk more generally about universal human capabili-

ties. 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; butevidence 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 west-

ern countries are littering policy documents with talk of well-being, emotional liter-acy, 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, writ-

ten 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



802 Review essay

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.

AcknowledgementsThanks 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-beingon which part of the analysis is based.

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