Happiness Research: Contributions to Economic Ethics

Empirical happiness research has been gaining wide acknowledgement recently and offers a promising new access to the question how choice and happiness relate to each other. Since this is a central question to both ethics and economics, it seems worthwhile to investigate what this perspective can contribute to economic ethics. The pragmatic approach and the ideological permissiveness of the argument developed here might alienate moral philosophers. Yet, when economic ethics is understood as having not only an epistemological ambition but also a practical one, i.e., as seeking not only to clarify what constitutes good economic and business practice, but also to contribute intellectually to its becoming reality, the present endeavor may be forgiven the dents and bumps in the disciplinary bridges it has attempted to erect.