SDGs, Happiness & Moral Progress,
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Talk on UN Sustainable Development Goals to University of Edinburgh Sustainable Development Association
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SDGs, Happiness & Moral Progress,
- 1. Development goals, happiness, and moral progress
- 2. Interest in ultimate values, since 1800: truth, justice, beauty, virtue, wisdom, happiness ‘Happiness’ and other values in books 1800-2000 (Google Ngram) 1800 Source: Google Ngram Viewer (relative frequency of occurrence in books in English)
- 6. Global goals – remedial, instrumental, and aspirational Prevent, remove, or mitigate harms Produce useful goods and services Facilitate wonderful lives Frombadtogood From usefulness to happiness The OK line
- 7. Varieties of progress Facilitate wonderful lives Moral (eudaimonic) progress The OK line Remedial progress Ergonomic progress
- 8. The OK line Maslow’s hierarchy, positivity, and progress Self- transcendence Self- actualization Mental wellbeing Social wellbeing Resources and conditions preventing, remedying, coping Personal and societal aspirations
- 9. …but there is understandable resistance to appreciative learning and aspirational planning The OK line ‘negative utilitarianism’ Fix if broken Otherwise provide OK conditions
- 10. Millennium Development Goals 1990-2015 Badtogood Means… …ends The OK line Halve poverty and hunger Reduce child mortality Halt spread of HIV/AIDS & malaria Universal primary schooling End gender disparity in schooling Reduce maternal mortality Environmental sustainability Global partnership
- 11. Positive social qualities (4,5,7, 8,10,16,17): lifelong learning, peace, social inclusion, justice, co- operation, and decent work and sustainable production and consumption Resources (6,7,9,11): clean and safe infrastructure and resource flows Minimising human suffering (1,2,3,5,8,11): end poverty, hunger, avoidable illness Minimising planetary harms (12,13,14,15): stable climate, oceans, terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity UN Sustainable Development Goals
- 12. UN SDG ‘Health and wellbeing’ indicators 2016-2030 The OK line NCD premature mortality Maternal mortality Well-being??? Health services Traffic accidents tobacco vaccines AIDS, TB etc Substance abuse Hazardous chemicals Infant mortality
- 13. UN SDG ‘Peace, justice & strong institutions’ indicators 2016-2030 The OK line Organised crime and illegal arms flows violence Social well-being??? Rule of law Participatory decision making Transparent institutions corruption Non- discriminatory laws Global governance Trafficking & torture of children
- 14. How could we evaluate the comparative importance of “greatest happiness” versus “greatest number?” The OK line 10 billion fairly happy people? 5 billion very happy people? www.gapminder.org ourworldindata.orghumanprogress.org
Editor's Notes
- Key sources: United Nations (2018) The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2018. New York: United Nations Lomborg, Bjørn [ed] (2018) Prioritizing Development: a Cost Benefit Analysis of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press
- Remedial – protecting; Ergonomic – providing; Eudaimonic - promoting
- Maslow’s hierarchy depicts two very different kinds of contrast From a bad life to a good life From basic provisioning and material conditions to more sophisticated aspirations and ultimate values Note that social goods sit around the middle, whereas the two top layers are mainly about individual mental wellbeing Notice also that as you shift your attention ‘up’ the hierarchy you are also moving your gaze from ‘external’ conditions to ‘internal’ experiences Note, further, the absence of ‘self-transcendence’ from this model. This misses the fact that some of our most important senses of meaning or purpose in life are about escaping the confines of individualistic or even communalistic or even humanistic self-interest, and realising connection with self-transcendent goods. Refs: Koltko-Rivera, Mark E. (2006) ‘Rediscovering the later version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Self-transcendence and opportunities for theory, research, and unification.’ Review of General Psychology 10,4:302-317
- Normal social science and normal social planning are dominated by ‘negative utilitarianism’
- n.b several goals appear under more than one goal because their targets are diverse – e.g.promoting provision of resources and minimising pathologies.
- Two main meanings of ‘positive’: preferable, better – as in ‘positive emotions’ More emphatic, more important, more sustainable, more substantial, more active, or more ultimately valuable – as in ‘positive justice’ or ‘positive peace’
- Two main meanings of ‘positive’: preferable, better – as in ‘positive emotions’ More emphatic, more important, more sustainable, more substantial, more active, or more ultimately valuable – as in ‘positive justice’ or ‘positive peace’
- Normal social science and normal social planning are dominated by ‘negative utilitarianism’