We ought to leave \u201chappiness\u201d\u009d to novelists and philosophers \u201d\u201d and rescue it from the economists and psychologists who think it can be distilled into a \u201cscience\u201d\u009d and translated into pro-happiness policies. Fat chance. Government can often mitigate sources of unhappiness (starvation, unemployment, disease), but happiness is more than the absence of misery. If we could manufacture happiness, we could repeal the \u201chuman condition.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Somehow this has escaped the social scientists who want to make happiness the goal of government. They argue that economic output (gross domestic product) doesn\u2019t measure everything that\u2019s important in life \u201d\u201d family, friends or religion, for example. True, but it doesn\u2019t follow that \u201chappiness\u201d\u009d can be targeted as an alternative. No matter….<\/p>\n