Who is the happy warrior? Philosophy, happiness research, and public policy

Abstract

Psychology has recently focused attention on subjective states of pleasure, satisfaction, and what is called happiness. The suggestion has been made in some quarters that a study of these subjective states has important implications for public policy. This paper is a revised and updated version of a paper entitled Who is the Happy Warrior? Philosophy Poses Questions to Psychology, which appeared in Law and Happiness, edited by Eric A. Posner and Cass R. Sunstein. The aim of this paper is to confront this increasingly inuential movement within psychology with a range of questions from the side of philosophy.