Well-being as a Primary Good: Towards Legitimate Well-being Policy

Abstract

The use of well-being research in assessing and creating public policy is gaining popularity. The UKs Office of National Statistics has developed its National Well-being Index to do exactly that, and several other nations have signed up to follow suit. This sway in political will, however, can make the use of well-being research in public policy seem less controversial than it is. Much of the rhetoric around the move towards well-being measures in evaluating policy has centred either around the idea that well-being is what ultimately matters, or at least something we all care about. In this essay, I will argue that such claims are illegitimate from the perspective of political liberalism. The former kind of claim is illegitimate insofar as liberal societies should not base policy on comprehensive religious, moral or philosophical doctrines that many reasonable citizens may not accept. The latter kind of claim is illegitimate insofar as some people care about well-being, or the ingredients of well-being, significantly more than others. Thus, the use of well-being research to determine public policy cannot be justified on either of these grounds. Does this mean that there are no justifiable grounds for well-being policy? Not necessarily. In the remainder of the essay, I explore the possibility that the psychological aspects of well-being can be viewed as a primary good. That is, the preservation and promotion of well-being can be justified as instrumentally valuable for most people. Well-being is instrumentally valuable for most people regardless of their particular intrinsic values. In Rawls terms, well-being can be viewed as an all-purpose good that people are assumed to want whatever their plans. The reason for this is that the psychological aspects of well-being (i.e. the kinds of things typically measured by subjective well-being researchers) tend to be cognitively and motivationally necessary for agency. Without being able to emotionally and cognitively appreciate ones life, one cannot sufficiently pursue ones own conception of the good. Thus, well-being tends to be necessary for leading a good life, regardless of what ones conception of a good life consists in. Even if it is the case, however, that well-being can be viewed as a primary good in this way, it is not necessarily the case that it should be promoted by the state as a matter of justice. The state should only promote primary goods that share certain important features. First of all, a certain primary good must be distributable and objectively comparable if the state is to promote it in a just manner. In addition, the state must be in the best position to promote a certain primary good. That is, the primary good must require institutional support, i.e. public policies related to its existence and continuation. In a related manner, the primary good must be relatively non-fungible. That is, it must not be commonly obtainable through substitutes things other than the goods and services provided by the state. I will argue that the psychological aspects of well-being share each of these features. Thus, according to political liberalism, governments can legitimately provide the social goods necessary for the preservation and promotion of the psychological aspects of well-being. However, I end with a word of caution. The extent to which public policy can promote well-being is not obvious. It may be that only the basic psychological aspects of well-being tend to be necessary for agency. Indeed, it may be that only the absence of the psychological aspects of ill-being (such as chronic depression) is a primary good. This may make a difference to the kind of policies that governments can enact to preserve and promote well-being.