ABSTRACT
The case for studying the ethical dimension of happiness is twofold. The first has been touched upon at the end of the previous chapter: if human beings have a free will and if happiness has to do with a person’s judgments, then happiness must have a moral dimension. The second arises out of the underlying motivation of most happiness research: even though few authors explicitly say so, practically all the literature on subjective well-being is ultimately motivated by a concern for good development, and this is clearly an ethical concern. We may therefore expect that, by discussing ethics explicitly, we will come to a more comprehensive, more human, and, therefore, more adequate conception of happiness, as well as understand the appropriate role and limitations of happiness in a conception of good development.
