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Journal of Happiness Studies

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01.12.2008 | Research Paper

The Subjectivity Inherent in Objective Measures of Well-Being

verfasst von: Mariano Torras

Erschienen in: Journal of Happiness Studies | Ausgabe 4/2008

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Abstract

Claims abound that GDP accounting ignores social and ecological problems and misrepresents social well-being. While GDP growth continues to be a policy priority in most countries, it is at best one objective among many in achieving humanity’s “ultimate purpose.” Yet revisions to the income accounts and alternative well-being indicators are also problematic, since they reinforce the illusion that social and ecological impacts on well-being are objectively measurable. Future policy must not only be informed to a greater extent by qualitative and multi-dimensional assessments, but must recognize that any rank-ordering of society’s ultimate ends cannot but be subjective.

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By social well-being I refer specifically to the welfare of society as a whole, the measurement or estimation of which is often classified as “objective” (e.g., Paim 1995). I do not by this term mean an aggregation of the component individual subjective “well-beings”. I will have more to say later about this distinction.

It is beyond my present cope to discuss plausible arguments for why growth may be negative-sum under such a criterion, but the point is amply addressed in the literature. See especially Scitovsky (1977) on this point.

Kuznets (1955) was among the first to note this, presenting evidence that the income distribution in a country becomes more unequal as it begins along its development trajectory, only later to change course toward greater equality.

The HDI differs in that consumption (income) counts as but one of three dimensions. Nevertheless, as I will discuss, the UNDP’s approach is also exceedingly narrow since well-being has many more dimensions, many of which defy quantitative measure.

The diagram is as in Daly (1991, p. 19) save for two minor modifications. I use the label “philosophy and values” instead of ethics because the latter may be interpreted as relating more to narrow questions of individual morality. Also, I label the area of inquiry concerned with the ultimate end “spirituality” instead of religion in order to eliminate any suggestion of institutional influences and to more accurately convey a non-material (or post-material) ultimate purpose.

To De Gregori (1986), ultimate means are those that only become resources once developed by the human hand and human ingenuity. Along similar lines, to Daly (1995) they are the “stuff to which value is added.” Ultimate means are also often classified as “low-entropy” matter-energy, the foundation for (and constraint on) all human activity. See also, e.g., Corning (2002), Ferrari et al. (2001), and Georgescu-Roegen (1971).

Note the hierarchy among different areas of inquiry. Choices made regarding both the path of technological change and the extent of human impact on the environment are a product of the “economics” (i.e. intermediate means-intermediate ends) sphere. We can therefore say that nature and technology are subordinate to economics. The latter is in turn subordinate to “philosophy and values” since it is humanity’s pursuit of the “ultimate end” that directly, if unconsciously, determines our rank-ordering of competing intermediate ends.

In all that follows I will take progress, development, or well-being improvement to refer to success in achieving the ultimate human purpose.

I should be clear that by “subjective” I mean biased or partial and not individual or personal as the word is often used in the literature.

The “positive” assumptions relate to different scenarios for allocation of the resource depletion externalities in the absence of reliable data. The competing scenarios regarding the weight or importance given to the performance of individual subgroups is a “normative” exercise, as discussed earlier. Finally, we might say that the different discount rate assumptions have a positive and a normative aspect—positive in the sense that they may correspond to available estimates of time value preference or capital opportunity cost, normative in that they imply some relative intergenerational preference.

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Titel: The Subjectivity Inherent in Objective Measures of Well-Being
verfasst von: Mariano Torras
Publikationsdatum: 01.12.2008
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Journal of Happiness Studies / Ausgabe 4/2008
Print ISSN: 1389-4978
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-7780
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-007-9084-z

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