1. World Happiness report: una lettura applicata allo Zambia
HAPPINESS
 Happiness is an aspiration of every human being, and can also be a measure of social
progress.
 How can we measure it and what does it mean to be happy?
 happiness may have different meanings; one of it can be the expression of emotion in
a given situation and circumstance. I may express my happiness to something maybe
because of the favour someone has done for me. The second can be the happiness
expressed after an evaluation of life as a whole. The second one goes with life
contentment and satisfactions according to what he has done or achieved during his
life time.
What are the consequences of unhappiness?
Happiness is every human beings’ aspiration, yet living unhappy is what we struggle to avoid
at any level. Because unhappy life lead to un health life that has many consequences such as
mental illness. According to the report, mental illness is one of the main causes of
unhappiness.
Mental health and unhappiness
Mental illness is one of the main causes of unhappiness.
 people can be unhappy for many reasons— from poverty to unemployment to
family breakdown to physical illness. (Zambian situation, strike of workers, due to
low salary, unemployment etc.)
 By far the most common forms of mental illness are depression and anxiety
disorders
World happiness report shows that mental health is the single most important determinant of
individual happiness (in every case where this has been studied). About 10% of the world’s
population suffers from clinical depression or crippling anxiety disorders. They are the
biggest single cause of disability and absenteeism, with huge costs in terms of misery and
economic waste.
Mental health or psychological well-being makes up an integral part of an individual’s
capacity to lead a fulfilling life, including the ability to study, work or pursue leisure
interests, and to make day-to-day personal or household decisions about educational,
employment, housing or other choices. The importance of good mental health to
individual functioning and well-being can be amply demonstrated by reference to values
that sit at the very heart of the human condition:
Pleasure, happiness and life satisfaction: There is a long-standing and widely
accepted proposition that happiness represents the ultimate goal in life and the truest
measure of well-being. It is hard if not impossible to flourish and feel fulfilled in life when
individuals are beset by health problems such as depression and anxiety.
Family relations, friendship and social interaction:

2. Individuals’ self-identity and capacity to flourish are deeply influenced by their social
surroundings, including the opportunity to form relationships and engage with those
around them (family members, friends, colleagues). Difficulties in communication as well
as loneliness and social isolation are well-documented concomitant consequences of
mental illness.
� Independent thought and action: The capacity of individuals to manage their
thoughts, feelings and behavior, as well as their interactions with others, is a pivotal
element of the human condition. Health states or conditions that rob individuals of
independent thought and action — such as acute psychosis or profound intellectual
disability — are regarded as among the most severely disabling.
What happens to a happy person?
Effects of well-being (Social Capital)
Well-being depends heavily on the pro-social behavior of members of the society. Pro-
sociality entails individuals making decisions for the common good that may conflict with
short-run egoistic incentives. Economic and social life is rife with “social dilemmas,” in
which the common good and individual incentives may conflict. In such cases, pro-social
behavior – including honesty, benevolence, cooperation, and trustworthiness – is key to
achieving the best outcome for society.
Societies with a high level of social capital – meaning generalized trust, good
governance, and mutual support by individuals within the society – are conducive to pro-
social behavior.
Lack of social capital by any given society, generalized distrust, pervasive corruption, and
lawless behavior (e.g. widespread tax evasion that deprives the government of the
needed funds to invest in public goods).
High social capital raises well-being, by promoting social support systems, generosity
and voluntarism, and honesty in public administration, and by reducing the costs of
doing business. The pressing policy question, therefore, is how societies with low social
capital – riven by distrust and dishonesty – can invest in social capital.
Social capital can be increased by education, moral instruction, professional codes
of conduct, public opprobrium towards violators of the public trust, and public policies to
narrow income inequalities which may lead to social and economic equality thereby
increasing the levels of social capital generalized by trust.
People who are emotionally happier, who have more satisfying lives, and who live in happier
communities, are more likely both now and later to be healthy, productive, and socially
connected. These benefits in turn flow more broadly to their families, workplaces, and
communities, to the advantage of all. happiness and well-being are best regarded as skills
that can be enhanced through training.
Where do we find happiness?
Values and happiness
According to the great pre-modern traditions, whether Buddhism in the East, Aristotelianism in
the West, or the great religious traditions, happiness is determined not by an individual’s material
conditions (wealth, poverty, health, illness) but by the individual’s moral character. Aristotle
spoke of virtue as the key to eudaimonia, loosely translated as “thriving.” Yet that tradition was

3. almost lost in the modern era after 1800, when happiness became associated with material
conditions, especially income and consumption.
RESTORING VIRTUE ETHICS IN THE QUEST FOR HAPPINESS
 What makes people happy? Is it the individual economic well-being or the social
support received from the environment around him or her? Or is it the state of mental
health? Or is happiness a virtue that can be learned or acquired?
 all four types of factors — economic, social, psychological, and ethical — help to
account for the differences across individuals and nations in measured happiness, used
in the “evaluative” sense of life satisfaction.
 Higher incomes and longevity raise happiness, corruption perceptions lower
happiness, and generosity and freedom raise happiness.
 Even though social, psychological, and ethical factors are crucially important in
individual happiness.
 It is generally believed, that the key to greater happiness is through more economic
growth. This emphasis on economic growth as the principal path to happiness is
relatively new, emerging gradually after 1700.
 However, psychologists and philosophies such as Aristotle (moralists) believed that
Happiness was to be achieved by living a “good life,” one imbued with the proper
virtues.
 Unfortunately, with economic growth and the rise of the modern market economy, a
new philosophy of consumerism gradually emerged.
 Individual economic success rose in the hierarchy of social and ethical values as
offering the key to happiness.
 Something new to economic growth opened unprecedented opportunities for large
parts of humanity to achieve improved nutrition, healthy lives, education, and material
comforts, all of which do indeed influence happiness and well-being.
 We have learned however that man does never live by bread alone, — painfully—
too much focus on a pursuing of bread leads not only to obesity but also to a
starvation of other human needs, including social connections, psychological balance,
and virtue.
 For example the financial crisis in 2008, income in the rich countries had already
sharply diminished gains in happiness that could be achieved by an incremental dollar
of national income.

4.  The aggressive pursuit of higher income in the United States came at the cost of
declining social capital, mental well-being, and ethical behavior,
Ancient Traditions of Virtue Ethics and Happiness
 Virtue and happiness were seen as intrinsically intertwined. One achieved happiness
by living the right kind of life. The sages instructed us not to follow our base instincts
for sensual pleasures and material possessions, but rather our higher potential for
compassion and moderation.
 The better path was acknowledged to be hard work, to be won through study, training,
self-discipline and the emulation of great people.
 Buddhism teaches the path to escape from suffering. According to Prince Siddhartha
to escape from suffering, an individual must have the right state of mind towards
material good and also towards other people.
 Suffering can be overcome only by acknowledging the transience of all things and all
relations, and living in mindfulness of that transience. Moreover, since all things and
all people are naturally interdependent, with the untrained “ego” leading to a false
sense of separation, we gain happiness by our compassion towards others.
 impermanence and interdependence. Human beings tend to grasp for sensual
pleasures, personal possessions, and attachments that are in fact impermanent, and
these then become a source of inevitable suffering through the disappointment of loss
and envy of others.
 Impermanence and interdependence of all things, according to the Buddha, the
individual can achieve a healthier approach to life. The Buddha called for a Middle
Way that steers between hedonism and asceticism, and a spirit of compassion in place
of untrammelled ego.
 It calls to avoid causing harm to others through the wrong kind of behavior, such as
lies or livelihoods that bring harm to others. The Buddha teaching calls to train the
mind through meditation and mindfulness so as to avoid false attachments to transient
pleasures.
 In short Buddhism holds that happiness must be achieved through striving, using tools
of learning from masters, habitual practice, and the exercise of the mind and will.
 And one of the Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard, emphasizes that “achieving durable
happiness as a way of being is a skill. It requires sustained effort in training the mind

5. and developing a set of human qualities, such as inner peace, mindfulness, and
altruistic love.”
 He noted that Happiness, is “a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be
difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.”
 Buddha and Catholic church through St. Thomas Aquinas, both saw one’s life task as
living in the right manner through education, training, practice, and self-discipline.
 Yet for Aristotle, individual happiness is secured within a political community, or
polis as man is a social animal that relates with others. Therefore, the polis should
organize in its institutions to promote virtuous behavior.
 Virtue, according to Aristotle, is the path of moderation between these excesses.
Emotions and actions, wrote Aristotle, “admit of excess and deficiency and the
mean”.
 This kind of virtue leads to a deep well-being, termed eudaimonia, which promotes
both the psychological strength of the individual and social harmony.
 Eudaimonia is the telos, the end goal of human beings; it is the summum bonum, the
highest good.
 Aristotle emphasized that virtue must be cultivated, above all, through the exercise of
reason over emotions even though that requires instruction, especially of the young.
 We must therefore practice what is right and get the habit of doing it.
Comparative between Buddhism and Aristotle
 Both emphasized that more material possessions do not lead to happier lives. Both
regarded hedonism and greed as threats to social stability. Both believed that the
tensions between the individual and the community could be moderated through an
ethic of virtue, in which individuals live their lives in accordance with the dictates of
human nature and social realities. And both believed that the “right path” (for
Buddha) and “virtue” (for Aristotle) require training, education, practice, and
cultivation of the mind.
 In summary, Buddhism, Aristotelianism, or Roman Catholicism— is that happiness is
achieved by harnessing the will and the passions to live the right kind of life.
Individuals become virtuous through rational thought, instruction, mind training, and
habits of virtuous behavior.

6.  All three traditional philosophies taught that the unrestrained passions can mislead
individuals onto false paths that result in worldly suffering, and in the case of
Christian doctrine, eternal damnation.
Virtue Ethics to Consumerism
Unfortunately, the economic world with its philosophy of consumerism, regard material
goods as the very key to happiness. They developed a “utility theory” in which each
individual’s utility or well-being is determined by the possession and consumption of
material goods, mainly through market purchases. However, such has brought a lot of
changes in society, individual world perception have totally changed from a social or
community point view to self-centred thereby creating viable differences in society.
The utility theory is egoistic, because it focuses on the individual’s relationship to
commodities, rather than to other individuals and their well-being.
At the same time, it is materialistic, in that it focuses on goods and services purchased in the
market, rather than on ideas, values, or behavior.
 Jeremy Bentham states that “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two
sovereign masters, pain and pleasure” from which happiness is the sum of individual
(egoistic) pain and pleasure, rather than virtue.
 He asserted that “In every human breast … self-regarding interest is predominant over
social interest; each person’s own individual interest over the interests of all other
persons taken together.”
 The kind of sociality that is typical of human beings is a qualified type of sociality—
which we must call reciprocity, friendship, mutual assistance, or fraternity, all
basically synonyms in the vocabulary of Genovesi and of the other authors belonging
to this tradition: “Man is a naturally sociable animal: In what way then is
 man more sociable than the others? … [in] the reciprocal right to be assisted and
consequently his reciprocal obligation to assist us in our needs.
 There is no civil and economic development can be achieved without man having
“confidence in the government, the magistrates, and his fellow citizens,”10 who are
the first and most important resources for any kind of collective and individual
development.
 “nothing is more necessary than public trust in a wise and easy circulation.