Oxford Martin School

Our seminar series on intergenerational justice continued yesterday with a presentation by Professor John O'Neill from the University of Manchester. Titled 'How can each generation live well within limits?', the talk addressed two key questions: is it is possible to maintain or improve well-being without increasing consumption? And, is it possible to extend our time-horizon so that the interests of future persons can be better made to count in current choices?

Professor O'Neill began by outlining two different schools of thought. The Aristotelian idea that well-being is derived from a sense of public involvement and citizenship, and the Epicurean argument that pleasure is obtained by knowledge, friendship, and living a temperate life. Professor O'Neill was quick to state that he stood firmly in Aristotle's camp but applied both philosophical arguments to the idea of sustainability throughout his talk.

What makes us truly happy and how do we measure this happiness? People have very different ideas about what makes them happy and very different ways of measuring it, which can make it hard to get a clear picture. One conclusion drawn early on in the presentation was that we need a low consumption economy to be truly happy. Increased wealth does not, in fact, lead to happiness, and beyond a certain level of wealth, the increases in income and happiness do not correlate. Rather than wealth and consumption, the best benchmarks of true happiness are one's family relationships, sense of worth, health, political freedoms and the quality of wider social relationships within the community. In fact, the increased pursuit of private consumption actually threatens to undermine these positives improve happiness. O'Neill explained that we need to 'free people from false beliefs' and show that consumption and the accumulation of wealth do not necessarily lead to better welfare.

The talk used a number of examples to show that the race for status and relative income is in fact self-defeating. Individuals find themselves on a hedonic treadmill in which as they consume more they want more and life satisfaction remains static. A life that has numerous negatives but improves throughout is better than a life that starts exceedingly well and declines, even if it contains fewer negative moments. The talk also touched briefly on what happens before and after one's death and what impact this has. O'Neill showed how typical measures of well-being would indicate that events before one's birth and after their death should be a matter of total indifference to them. However, it is the entire narrative of experiences that can bring meaning to a situation, even after death. He illustrated the point with a number of scenarios which demonstrated that the perceived quality of a person's life could be affected after their death by vilification or undermining of their ideas or achievements.

A vibrant discussion followed O'Neill's presentation, with many different opinions shared about the meaning of happiness and well-being. What do you think?