Laboratory happiness or human flourishing: the empirical science of wellbeing in phenomenological perspective

In this paper I analyze philosophically the dominant conception of happiness operative in the increasingly popular global movement to empirically define, measure, and promote human happiness: the idea of “subjective psychological wellbeing” (SWB). SWB is presented as an ethically and metaphysically neutral “scientific” view of the human good or wellbeing, grounded purely in empirical psychology, survey data, and neuroscientific findings about the brain mechanisms involved in happiness. I argue that this conception of happiness actually rests upon highly controversial philosophical (non-empirical) presuppositions about the nature of human agency, pleasure, emotion, and the experience of value. I then draw upon phenomenology, the philosophy of emotion, and ethics to argue that this particular conception of happiness, while perhaps suitable for certain limited purposes, is highly problematic when given the leading normative role by the happiness science movement, particularly as a guiding aim of individual decision-making and public policy interventions.