Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Is it possible to measure happiness?

The argument from measurability

  • Original paper in the Philosophy of the Cognitive Sciences
  • Published:
European Journal for Philosophy of Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A ubiquitous argument against mental-state accounts of well-being is based on the notion that mental states like happiness and satisfaction simply cannot be measured. The purpose of this paper is to articulate and to assess this “argument from measurability.” My main thesis is that the argument fails: on the most charitable interpretation, it relies on the false proposition that measurement requires the existence of an observable ordering satisfying conditions like transitivity. The failure of the argument from measurability, however, does not translate into a defense of mental-state accounts as accounts of well-being or of measures of happiness and satisfaction as measures of well-being. Indeed, I argue, the ubiquity of the argument from measurability may have obscured other, very real problems associated with mental-state accounts of well-being – above all, that happiness and satisfaction fail to track well-being – and with measures of happiness and satisfaction – above all, the tendency toward reification. I conclude that the central problem associated with the measurement of, e.g., happiness as a subjectively experienced mental state is not that it is too hard to measure, but rather that it is too easy to measure.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. By contrast, I will ignore what Fehige and Wessels call “the argument from comparability” and I will not challenge the measurability requirement. Not everyone agrees with it: Scanlon (2000) distances himself from the view outlined in the quote above, and Amartya Sen (e.g., 2002) has argued that incomplete orderings need not be an obstacle to social choice. Yet, by and large, proponents of subjective measures of well-being appear to endorse it: “science is about measurement, and if a thing cannot be measured – cannot be compared with a clock or a ruler or something other than itself – it is not a potential object of scientific inquiry” (Gilbert 2006, p. 64).

  2. See Angner (2012) for a more thorough discussion of the two approaches to measurement. The use of the term “theory of measurement” to refer to one specific approach to measurement might generate confusion, but it is the term favored in primary as well as secondary literature.

  3. Not even the most ardent proponents of subjective measures assume the existence of such orderings. And for good reason: as we will see in section 6, empirical evidence suggests that happiness reports are too context dependent to serve the purpose.

  4. The first volume appeared as Krantz et al. (1971).

  5. A reference has been omitted.

  6. For related reasons, the failure of the argument from measurability has no implications for the adequacy of preference-satisfaction accounts of well-being. The argument from measurability is only one argument in favor of such accounts.

  7. References have been omitted.

References

  • Alexandrova, A. (2008). First-person reports and the measurement of happiness. Philosophical Psychology, 21(5), 571–583. doi:10.1080/09515080802412552.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: Americans’ perceptions of life quality. New York: Plenum Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Angner, E. (2009a). The politics of happiness: Subjective vs. economic measures as measures of social well-being. In L. Bortolotti (Ed.), Philosophy and happiness (pp. 149–166). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Angner, E. (2009b). Subjective measures of well-being: Philosophical perspectives. In H. Kincaid & D. Ross (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of economics (pp. 560–579). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195189254.003.0021.

    Google Scholar 

  • Angner, E. (2010). Subjective well-being. Journal of Socio-Economics, 39(3), 361–368. doi:10.1016/j.socec.2009.12.001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angner, E. (2011a). The evolution of eupathics: The historical roots of subjective measures of wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 1(1), 4–41. doi:10.5502/ijw.v1i1.14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angner, E. (2011b). Are subjective measures of well-being “direct”? Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 89(1), 115–130. doi:10.1080/00048400903401665.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angner, E. (2012). Current trends in welfare measurement. In J. B. Davis & D. W. Hands (Eds.), The Elgar companion to recent economic methodology (pp. 121–154). Northampton: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Angner, E., & Loewenstein, G. (2012). Behavioral economics. In U. Mäki (Ed.), Handbook of the philosophy of science: Philosophy of economics (pp. 641–690). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aristotle (1962). Nicomachean ethics. (M. Oswald, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Co.

  • Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4(6), 561–571. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1961.01710120031004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beckerman, W. (1975). Two cheers for the affluent society: A spirited defense of economic growth. New York: Saint Martin’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Shahar, T. (2007). Happier: Learn the secrets to daily joy and lasting fulfillment. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (1999). Why experiment in economics? The Economic Journal, 109(453), F16–F24. doi:10.1111/1468-0297.00399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, A. C. (2008). Gross National Happiness: Why happiness matters for America—and how we can get more of it. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Camerer, C. F., & Loewenstein, G. (2004). Behavioral economics: Past, present, future. In C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein, & M. Rabin (Eds.), Advances in behavioral economics (pp. 3–51). New York and Princeton: Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D. T. (1960). Recommendations for APA test standards regarding construct, trait, or discriminant validity. American Psychologist, 15(8), 546–553. doi:10.1037/h0048255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, A. (1976). Subjective measures of well-being. American Psychologist, 31(2), 117–124. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.31.2.117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cantril, H. (1965). The pattern of human concerns. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chappell, T., & Crisp, R. (1998). Utilitarianism. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy (Vol. 9, pp. 551–557). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cliff, N. (1992). Abstract measurement theory and the revolution that never happened. Psychological Science, 3(3), 186–190. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00024.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52(4), 281–302. doi:10.1037/h0040957.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dawes, R., & Smith, T. L. (1985). Attitude and opinion measurement. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 509–566). New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being. The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55(1), 34–43. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2006). Guidelines for national indicators of subjective well-being and ill-being. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 1(2), 151–157. doi:10.1007/s11482-006-9007-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7(3), 181–185. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00354.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Beyond money: Toward an economy of well-being. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5(1), 1–31. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00501001.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., & Suh, E. M. (1997). Measuring quality of life: Economic, social, and subjective indicators. Social Indicators Research, 40(1–2), 189–216. doi:10.1023/A:1006859511756.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 276–302. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.125.2.276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Lucas, R., Schimmack, U., & Helliwell, J. (2009). Well-being for public policy. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fehige, C., & Wessels, U. (1998). Preferences: An introduction. In C. Fehige & U. Wessels (Eds.), Preferences (pp. xx–xliii). Berlin: W. de Gruyter.

  • Frey, B. S., & Stutzer, A. (2000). Maximising happiness? German Economic Review, 1(2), 145–167. doi:10.1111/1468-0475.00009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frijters, P., Johnston, D. W., & Shields, M. A. (2011). Life satisfaction dynamics with quarterly life event data. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 113(1), 190–211. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01638.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, D. T. (2006). Stumbling on happiness. New York: A.A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, J., & Hojman, D. (2007). Choice, rationality and welfare measurement. Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 2144; KSG Working Paper No. RWP07-054. Version of November 2007. Retrieved from http://ssrn.com/abstract=1030342

  • Griffin, J. (1986). Well-being: Its meaning, measurement, and moral importance. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurin, G., Veroff, J., & Feld, S. (1960). Americans view their mental health: A nationwide interview survey. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harsanyi, J. C. (1977). Morality and the theory of rational behavior. Social Research, 44(4), 623–656.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, H. (1940). Chart for happiness. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haybron, D. M. (2000). Two philosophical problems in the study of happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1(2), 207–225. doi:10.1023/A:1010075527517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haybron, D. M. (2008). The pursuit of unhappiness: The elusive psychology of well-being. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • John, O. P., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Measurement: Reliability, construct validation, and scale construction. In H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 339–369). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, J. A. (2001). Personality psychology: Methods. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (Vol. 16, pp. 11313–11317). Oxford: Pergamon. doi:10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/01671-5.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, L. V., & Thissen, D. (2006). A history and overview of psychometrics. In C. R. Rao & S. Sinharay (Eds.), Handbook of statistics (Vol. 26, pp. 1–27). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Judd, C. M., & McClelland, G. H. (1998). Measurement. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 180–232). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D. (1999). Objective happiness. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 3–25). New York: Russell Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D. (2003). A psychological perspective on economics. American Economic Review, 93(2), 162–168. doi:10.1257/000282803321946985.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., & Krueger, A. B. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(1), 3–24. doi:10.1257/089533006776526030.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D. A., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2004a). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The Day Reconstruction Method. Science, 306(5702), 1776–1780. doi:10.1126/science.1103572.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. (2004b). Toward national well-being accounts. American Economic Review, 94(2), 429–434. doi:10.1257/0002828041301713.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krantz, D. H. (1991). From indices to mappings: The representational approach to measurement. In D. R. Brown & J. E. K. Smith (Eds.), Frontiers of mathematical psychology: Essays in honor of Clyde Coombs (pp. 1–52). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Krantz, D. H., Luce, R. D., Suppes, P., & Tversky, A. (1971). Additive and polynomial representations (Vol. 1). New York: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, A. B. (Ed.). (2009). Measuring the subjective well-being of nations: National accounts of time use and well-being. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Layard, P. R. G. (2005). Happiness: Lessons from a new science. New York: Penguin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46(2), 137–155. doi:10.1023/A:1006824100041.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mandler, M. (1999). Dilemmas in economic theory: Persisting foundational problems of microeconomics. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mas-Colell, A., Whinston, M. D., & Green, J. R. (1995). Microeconomic theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mongin, P., & D’ Aspremont, C. (1998). Utility theory and ethics. In S. Barberà, P. J. Hammond, & C. Seidl (Eds.), Handbook of utility theory (Vol. 1, pp. 371–481). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, state, and utopia. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum, M. C. (2008). Who is the happy warrior? Philosophy poses questions to psychology. The Journal of Legal Studies, 37(S2), S81–S113. doi:10.1086/587438.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piccinini, G. (2009). First person data, publicity and self-measurement. Philosophers’ Imprint, 9(9), 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pigou, A. C. (1952). The economics of welfare (4th ed.). London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabin, M. (2002). A perspective on psychology and economics. European Economic Review, 46(4–5), 657–685. doi:10.1016/S0014-2921(01)00207-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rabinowicz, W., & Österberg, J. (1996). Value based on preferences. Economics and Philosophy, 12(1), 1–27. doi:10.1017/S0266267100003692.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, D. (2005). Economic theory and cognitive science: Microexplanation. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubinstein, A., & Salant, Y. (2008). Some thoughts on the principle of revealed preference. In A. Caplin & A. Schotter (Eds.), The foundations of positive and normative economics: A handbook (pp. 115–124). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rust, J., & Golombok, S. (2009). Modern psychometrics: The science of psychological assessment (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scanlon, T. (2000). What we owe to each other. Cambridge: Belknap.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, N., & Strack, F. (1999). Reports of subjective well-being: Judgmental processes and their methodological implications. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 61–84). New York: Russell Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, D., & Suppes, P. (1958). Foundational aspects of theories of measurement. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 23(2), 113–128. doi:10.2307/2964389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. (1985). Commodities and capabilities. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. (2002). Rationality and freedom. Cambridge: Belknap.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sumner, L. W. (1996). Welfare, happiness, and ethics. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutherland, N. S. (1995). The Macmillan dictionary of psychology (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tiberius, V., & Plakias, A. (2010). Well-being. In J. M. Doris & The Moral Psychology Research Group (Eds.), The moral psychology handbook (pp. 402–431). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Trout, J. D. (1998). Measuring the intentional world: Realism, naturalism, and quantitative methods in the behavioral sciences. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tversky, A. (1996). Rational theory and constructive choice. In K. J. Arrow, E. Colombatto, M. Perlman, & C. Schmidt (Eds.), The rational foundations of economic behaviour: Proceedings of the IEA conference held in Turin, Italy (pp. 185–197). Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ware, J. E., & Sherbourne, C. D. (1992). The MOS 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36): I. Conceptual framework and item selection. Medical Care, 30(6), 473–483.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watson, G. (1930). Happiness among adult students of education. Journal of Educational Psychology, 21(2), 79–109. doi:10.1037/h0070539.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, J. S., Brown, S. M., & Conlin, P. R. (2009). Blood-pressure measurement. The New England Journal of Medicine, 360(5), e6–e9. doi:10.1056/NEJMvcm0800157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, W. (1967). Correlates of avowed happiness. Psychological Bulletin, 67(4), 294–306. doi:10.1037/h0024431.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Zvi Biener, Robyn Dawes, Greg Frost-Arnold, Daniel Hausman, Brian Hepburn, Harold Kincaid, Peter Machamer, Gualtiero Piccinini, Nicholas Rescher, Don Ross, Sam Wren-Lewis, and anonymous referees for constructive comments on earlier drafts. Errors remain my own.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive 3F1, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

    Erik Angner

Authors
  1. Erik Angner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erik Angner.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Angner, E. Is it possible to measure happiness?. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 3, 221–240 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-013-0065-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-013-0065-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation