There’s much I agree with in the article, but I don’t think McCloskey does the movement justice, so I find myself in the unusual position of defending a movement which I’ve also spent a lot of time critiquing.

In some ways, the whole piece is a straw-man attack, in that she defines the movement as purely committed to a hedonic or utilitarian definition of happiness. She then proceeds to make the usual (and justified) critiques of this definition of happiness:

• it assumes that people’s definition and experience of happiness are the same the world over, ignoring linguistic and cultural differences.
• national measurements of hedonic happiness don’t tell us much of use, as national happiness levels seem to stay flat over time no matter what’s happening.
• if we accept the utilitarian principle of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ it could lead to all sorts of unjust policies, like pursuing policies that favour the extrovert / happy majority while punishing the introvert / unhappy minority.
• if pleasant feelings are the sole aim of life, what’s to stop us engineering them with ‘soma’ type chemical interventions.

This ‘new hedonics’, she says, is a travesty of the older Aristotelian idea that:

Happiness is a good story of your life. The Greek word for happiness is “eudaimonia,” which means literally “having a good guiding angel,” like Clarence the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life. The schoolbook summary of the Greek idea in Aristotle says that such happiness is “the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope.”

But to define the politics of well-being as purely committed to a hedonic definition of happiness is to massively simplify the movement. There is a profound awareness within the movement that there are several ways one could define happiness or the good life, and many of the philosophers, psychologists and economists within it are committed to a more Aristotelian or eudaimonic definition of happiness.

Positive Psychology, for example, has for at least decade distinguished hedonic happiness from other forms of happiness, such as ‘meaningful happiness’ or ‘flow’. The new economics foundation, which is the leading think-tank on the politics of well-being here in the UK, also makes this distinction, and tries to find ways to measure a eudaimonic definition of happiness. The UN Summit on happiness last year began with the utilitarian Peter Singer and the Aristotelian Jeffrey Sachs making this distinction. So it’s a straw-man to define the movement as homogenously utilitarian / hedonic.

If, as McCloskey seems to do, you accept a more Aristotelian definition of the good life, as one involving the virtues, character development and the pursuit of meaningful projects, then you are faced with two questions. Firstly, can we measure this more Aristotelian notion of happiness. And secondly, what role if any should public policy play in promoting it.

Aristotelian ethics were built on a foundation of psychology. Aristotle argues that we should pursue the good life and cultivate the virtues because it fulfills our nature and leads it to flourishing. This is a psychological as well as an ethical claim – it’s a form of ‘moral science’. So science should be able to tell us some useful things about whether it’s true or not. It involves some testable claims: that humans are capable of changing their habits through reason, that we can build stable character dispositions, and that the practice of the virtues leads to something we can somehow recognise as flourishing.

McCloskey seems to recognise the role of science in exploring this eudaimonic project: she supports Positive Psychology’s attempts to put virtue ethics on a firm empirical evidence base, and calls their work “gratifyingly sensible”. She seems to like the science when it supports her own Aristotelian definition of the good life, while dismissing any research into a utilitarian definition of the good life as “not science”.

The point is this: if we’re interested in the good life and happiness – and why shouldn’t we be – then this research project will involve both the sciences and the humanities. It will involve both social science and ethics. We have to be very careful in this fusion, careful not to leap from an Is to too rigid or dogmatic an Ought (and I think Positive Psychology does, on occasion, make overly prescriptive claims). But we can’t blithely ignore the relationship between the Is of science and the Ought of ethics. It’s a question of finding the right balance between the two. And why shouldn’t research into hedonic happiness be a part of that project?

Secondly, there’s the question of if or how social policy should be used to encourage eudaimonia or a certain definition of the good life.

McCloskey, who is committed to a bourgeois definition of the free individual, insists that social policy has no role to play in the attainment of eudaimonia. She says: “there are regions of meaning for free adults that social policy, even benevolently applied, should not penetrate”. We should be free, as bourgeois individuals, to pursue our own ‘self-culture’, through the consumption and discussion of cultural products like novels and museums. And that works best in a consumerist, capitalist economy, where ‘high culture’ typically flourishes.

She finds happy economics ‘creepy’ because it seems to go against her liberal individualism, by trying to nudge or tax us towards a ‘puritanical’ and anti-consumerist definition of the good life. We should be left to pursue the good life in our own way without intrusion of social policy, she insists.

This makes the naive bourgeois assumption that there is some ‘public sphere’ disconnected from policy. But our ability to pursue ‘self-culture’ depends on social policy: on the education we receive in schools and universities; on our working lives, the meaningfulness of our jobs, the amount of leisure we have; on the media and the ease of access we have to ‘culture’; on the quality of our environment, including everything from housing to policing to the natural environment.

We are not born free, rational, autonomous creatures. We become so, through education. And the quality of that education depends on social policy, particularly in education. McCloskey seems to hold the classic bourgeois illusion of independence. It’s an illusion because it ignores all the social conditions and social policy that allows the middle class that independence.

It reminds me of Habermas’ defence of the ‘public sphere’ of 18th century coffeehouses, where free bourgeois individuals could congregate to freely discuss ideas. But what about those who weren’t allowed into the coffeehouse – the women, working class men, the slaves? The creation of a just coffeehouse which everyone has the education and leisure to join requires social policy.

I also find suspicious her attempt both to embrace an Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia and to argue for unfettered consumerism. It presupposes that we are more free than we are. The Greeks, including Aristotle, recognised that our degree of freedom over ourselves is quite limited, that the cultivation of good character is hard. It takes teaching, practice, leisure, and a culture and economy that is hospitable to this project.

Aristotle thought this project was only possible for a wealthy few, supported by a large caste of slaves (there’s that bourgeois illusion of freedom again, dependent on the enslavement of others).

The challenge, if you accept the eudaimonic project and are also a social democrat, is to try and make this project feasible for the many, not just the few. And it’s also to create a culture and economy that is hospitable to this project – and that necessarily involves social policy, particularly in education. I don’t think you can say ‘leave it to the market’, because the market is infused with its own values and logic which are often inhospitable to the pursuit of eudaimonia. You end up with a culture where even the art is hopelessly saturated with consumerist values.

McCloskey’s notion of bourgeois independence also ignores the Aristotelian idea that part of the good life involves engagement with politics and policy. We reach flourishing partly by engaging as citizens with the mutual creation of our government and society.

The Neo-Aristotelians that McCloskey approvingly quotes, such as Martha Nussbaum, clearly believe that social policy has a role in encouraging eudaimonia. Nussbaum helped to develop the United Nations Development Index, and has also come up with a list of ‘capabilities’ which governments should promote. But Nussbaum then faces the charge that all Neo-Aristotelians have to face: why those capabilities? Why those virtues and not others? How can you prove that they really lead to flourishing? What gives you the right to use social policy to promote them? And how, exactly, will you promote them in the public at large?

You can’t rely, as Nussbaum seems to do, purely on the university as a vehicle for eudaimonic education. Because a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to go to university, or are so saddled with student debt that they have to focus on getting a good job. The attainment of a liberal education for the many rather than the few requires supportive social policy. I personally think it shouldn’t stop at university either, but should involve life-long community learning. But that, too, involves social policy, and the capacity of academics to engage in extra-mural activities rather than being lost in endless managerial paperwork.

In her defence of the status quo (liberal consumerism), McClusky makes the same mistake that Adam Smith made in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith argued in that book that we should all be free to pursue our natural desire for happiness. But he recognised, in his more pessimistic moments, that left to ourselves, we find our happiness in the approval of others, and this natural bias would probably mean that many of us would end up chasing illusory goals of external status, and that this would make us miserable. He both deified nature, and recognised it leads us astray.

But, he concluded, it’s good that we chase these delusions because, even if consumerism makes individuals miserable, it helps the economy grow, and that is good. But good for who? At what point do the needs of the economy become more important than the needs of the individuals who constitute it?

Our natures need institutions to guide them and give them shape. Institutions need social policy to create them and to defend them. If you ignore that in the name of bourgeois individual freedom, then you are abandoning the terrain to other forces – particularly corporations – to shape our nature into the shapes that serve their ends rather than ours.

The challenge, for everyone in the politics of well-being, is to balance the communitarian idea of the good life with a liberal, pluralist insistence on our right to make up our own mind and choose our own way.  It’s to find the right balance between tradition and freedom, between culture and anarchy.

The argument in defence of bourgeois liberalism and laissez faire consumerism becomes particularly untenable when it becomes environmentally unsustainable. Then, clearly, the balance between wisdom and freedom, between culture and anarchy, has been lost.

Philosophy for Life - official website of author Jules Evans -

Back in 2007, I persuaded my employer, a financial magazine called Euromoney, to send me to Russia to be their first full-time Moscow correspondent. I’d worked for Euromoney for three years or so, hated most of it, but had clung on because it was the first job I got after university, and I was terrified of getting fired and somehow not fitting in with the capitalist economy.

After I’d been in Russia for three months, my editor emailed me to say he was coming out to Moscow. I thought this was rather strange – he didn’t say he was coming out for a story or a conference, just that he was coming out. But I put aside my paranoid concerns, and went to meet him. As soon as I saw him approaching, I knew things looked bad. He looked incredibly sheepish and downcast. We went to a local cafe, and he came out with it: “I’m really sorry Jules, but we’re going to let you go.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was 26. I had turned down another job in London, with Reuters, to move to Moscow; I had moved most of my possessions, learned the language for six months; I had found a flat; I had bid farewell to all my friends. And now they were firing me after three months? “It’s not my decision, Jules, it’s the publisher [Richard Ensor, seen on the left giving one of Euromoney's endless awards to a Croatian businessman called Darko Marinac, shortly before Darko was arrested for fraud. It was an award for 'excellence in corporate governance']. Ensor is worried about the payment protocols, controlling expenses, that sort of thing.” I looked at my editor in shock and growing disgust. “Believe me, I wanted to resign over this”, he said. “But I’ve got two kids and my pension to think about.” Uh-huh.

And so I became a freelancer.

For a couple of weeks, I was in shock. I really didn’t want to return to England with my tail between my legs. But I had no idea if I would be able to stay afloat and make it in this new and strange land. But I discovered, very quickly, that I could. Partly, I was helped by the fact I kicked up the mother of all fusses about how Euromoney had treated me, and got several leading bankers and even the owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere (he also owns Euromoney) to write to the publisher and complain. They were mugging me, and so I drew as much attention to their assault as possible. Sure enough, they got ashamed, and paid me half a year’s salary to shut up.

But I also discovered that freelance life suited me. There were hardly any other freelancers in Russia covering the business and financial sector, and before long I had a whole string of clients, from all over the world. I made far more money than I used to do with Euromoney, and worked for better-known clients: The Times, The Economist, The Spectator, Foreign Policy.

But the biggest reward was emotional. For three years, I had worked for Euromoney, and been terrified of getting fired. I felt I had to fit in with the office environment, which I hated; and that I had to gain the approval of my superiors, some of whom were OK but some of whom were less so.

Suddenly, I didn’t have one guvnor, but several. This changed the power dynamic utterly. If one boss was being too difficult or demanding, I simply worked with them less. I was in control. I could choose how much I worked, and when. I could choose what time I went into the office, or if I went into the office at all. The freedom and autonomy was delicious.

I loved that first year of freelancing. I would work a bit, do some interviews, play some video games, stay out late with friends (why not? no need for an early start in the morning). I was playing Grand Theft Auto at that time, and it struck me: this is my model of employment. In Grand Theft Auto, you are a self-employed hustler from Eastern Europe, trying to make it in New York. You have a range of different employers you can work for, some of whom you meet, some of whom are just voices at the end of the telephone. You go around the city doing jobs and missions for them, cash magically appears in your bank account, and your credibility rises at the same time (unless you mess a job up).

This aptly described my new life (though I was from the West, trying to make it in Eastern Europe, and sadly with less bazookas involved). I probably worked for over 30 different titles and organisations in my time in Russia. Some paid very well for boring work. Some paid less well, but the jobs boosted my credibility because they were well-respected titles. I never met some of my regular clients – just received jobs by email, and then the money appeared in my account.

As the knowledge economy expands, more and more people will be following the Grand Theft Auto model of employment. They will also organise into hubs or syndicates to protect their interests. They will go co-op on missions when it suits them. They will find ways to make the game more social, for example by hiring out office space together.

You can criticise this model of employment: first of all, not everyone has the particular transferable nomadic skills for that sort of market. And that market isn’t suitable for everything: you can’t build a dam or an airplane using freelance consultants. It works particularly well for people in the media. But that isn’t – nor should it be – the whole of the economy. For one thing, I don’t employ anyone. And just because it turned out OK for me, we shouldn’t forget how tough and demoralising unemployment can be, and should do our best to protect people from that experience. And perhaps the GTA model is rather atomised and lonely: what happened to corporations and corporation man?

But keeping those criticisms in mind, I’ve found that the GTA model is fun. And judging by the latest employment figures, it’s catching on: this year, there are 168,000 new additions to the ranks of the self-employed, which is a record. I’m sure that many of them were, like me, unwillingly shoved into self-employment. But hopefully some of them will learn to love it.

Now, I occasionally receive offers of full-time employment from publications. And I’m sometimes tempted to accept. I worked for one magazine for a year, which was fun, but I still couldn’t help feeling that a lot of the time in the office is just killing time. You know that sort of dead atmosphere in an office, when everyone is just watching the clock? You’ve basically sold your whole day, five days a week, to someone else. I get a lot more done in my own time. And I can go for a walk in the park, play sport, have leisurely meetings that I actually enjoy. Life is better.

You think you’ll miss the office banter. That’s why we like sit-coms like 30 Rock, which portray an idealised version of an office, where everyone helps each other and laughs together, and the CEO is a friendly father-figure. But, like a lot of sit-coms, 30 Rock is selling a version of community that no longer exists: or at least, I haven’t found it (if you have, let me know! I’ll put together a wall of fame of companies people actually enjoy working at.)

I went to work full-time at one title last year, and I couldn’t believe how bad the atmosphere was. There was no banter at all, just desultory descriptions of PR events and conferences, and the occasional row over responsibilities, like caged animals biting each other. I handed in my notice after three days, realising I far preferred working for myself. I know that some offices are much more fun, but we can build our own places of work – where free people come together out of choice and passion to work together. Places like the Hub Westminster, for example.

As The Office put it: ‘All you’ve got in common is that you walk around on the same bit of carpet for eight hours a day’. So why do it? Why not connect with people who really want to be there, who really share your passion?

Philosophy for Life - official website of author Jules Evans -

Philosophy for Life - official website of author Jules Evans -

He was effusively introduced by Layard as ‘the leader of the well-being movement’, and the man who had first inspired Layard to believe economists could measure well-being. But he himself was surprisingly cautious and pessimistic about the whole national well-being measurement project. He said:

There are many different ways of achieving well-being. How you compare those different approaches on a scale is something I don’t know. If well-being is truly multi-dimensional, then policy-makers will have to make judgement calls. It’s a value judgement which aspect of well-being you decide is more important.

That’s a very important point, and one that I’ve tried to make as well. Your definition of well-being involves value judgements and moral judgements. Someone who believes in God, for example, will have a different definition of well-being to someone who doesn’t. Likewise, one person’s definition of well-being might emphasize feeling good, while another’s would emphasize doing good.

And yet our government has very eagerly embraced the idea that there is such a thing as a ‘science of well-being’ – in other words, that we can arrive at a value-free definition of well-being, which because it is value-free, governments can simply impose on their populations without a vote or any ethical debate. This is a real mistake.

So, I asked Kahneman, has the British government been hasty in embracing one particular definition (a utilitarian definition) of well-being that we all have to accept and fit into? He replied:

It’s a matter of temperament. Your government is full of optimists like Richard Layard. I’m more pessimistic. If I was doing it, we’d be waiting a long time before we made any decisions. There will be trade offs, and I have no idea how you’d assess the trade offs. And I find the idea of a single measurement of well-being very complicated.

He was also pessimistic about how much governments can do to lift national well-being levels (however they define it). He said:

We should know that the levers of policy that are available to governments are not going to make a huge difference. The impacts will be small and local. The main factor for our individual well-being is heritability. We can train people to be slightly happier, but only to some extent. I am more focused on reducing misery than promoting happiness.

So the ‘leader of the well-being movement’ is very sceptical about attempts to collapse well-being into one index measurement, and sceptical about policy-makers’ hopes that such an index could help governments have a major impact on our happiness levels.

Why is it British journalists and policy makers always fawn so helplessly over every visiting American psychologist (Martin Seligman, Richard Thaler, Daniel Kahneman, Daniel Goleman) and fall over themselves to turn their latest ideas into policy? We’re like a banana republic, handing over the keys to government to any foreigner with a book deal and a fancy job title. ‘You are from Ivy League college? Wow, is great. Please to write us constitution, yes?’

Kahneman is far more humble and cautious than others – but the likes of Seligman, Thaler, Goleman and David Brooks have barely cleared customs before they’re having a major impact on British policy. Whatever happened to British pragmatism, caution, and awareness of the limits of government?

Philosophy for Life - official website of author Jules Evans -