Putting Gross National Happiness in the Service of Good Development

Gross National Happiness (GNH) has only recently appearedon the international stage,2 yet it was immediately met withsympathy by scholars, political activists, and politiciansaround the world. What is the reason for this strong appeal ofthis concept?In a historical perspective, the reason is probably adisillusionment with the broken promise of economic growthto truly improve people’s lives and bring about a moreequitable society. After a multifold increase of Gross NationalProduct in many societies thanks to almost continuouseconomic growth over more than a century, even thewealthiest societies are still plagued by grave social problemslike unemployment, child poverty, stress etc., and they aredisappointed that the hoped-for benefits of economic growthlargely failed to materialize.In a philosophical perspective, however, the reason for thesympathy extended to GNH seems to be based on an -intuitive or conscious - ethical endorsement of GNH as being1 I am grateful for valuable comments by the members of the“Berliner Forum” on a first conceptual draft of this paper and forsuggestions by Peter Ulrich on section six. All remaining errors aremy own.The question that arises then is if GNH is, or can beconceptualized as, an exhaustive concept of gooddevelopment that entirely fills in the ideal notion of gooddevelopment, or whether GNH is just one aspect of gooddevelopment that has to be complemented by additionalnormative concepts in order to appropriately substantiate theidea of good development.Whatever the answer to this question, the merit and thepotential of GNH to serve as a development concept is worthbeing investigated. To do so, the meaning of GNH has to bespecified since no generally accepted interpretation seems toexist. This is not only a disadvantage of course as thisconceptual openness invites a constructive debate on whatGNH should stand for and how it should be operationalized.These two - essentially ethical - questions will be at the centerof discussion in this paper.The paper is structured as follows: the next section willdiscuss the nature of happiness and its relation to humanbehavior and decision making in order to shed light on therelationship between happiness and ethics. I will then brieflypresent my understanding of (deontological) ethics, beforeexamining the relationship between happiness and economicgrowth on the basis of empirical evidence. I will then proposea particular interpretation of GNH and relate it to the conceptof good development. Towards the end, I will point out someimplications of my interpretation of GNH for itsoperati