Racing from Subjective Well-Being to Public Policy : A Review of the Origins of Happiness

The Origins of Happiness makes some valuable contributions to the subjective well-being literature. Of particular note is its emphasis on mental health and criminality, and its use of a life course approach. However, the objective of the book is to explicate the causes of well-being in general and to promote public policy with subjective well-being as its central objective. This is part of a welcome new phase in subjective well-being scholarship in which the field is trying to break into the wider wellbeing discourse and influence government policy. In this endeavor, The Origins of Happiness goes beyond the relatively limited confines of the subjective well-being literature and must therefore meet a different and arguably higher standard. The book fails to do this. First, it does not engage sufficiently with the voluminous literature on well-being in general. Second, it is insufficiently explicit in what it means by well-being. Third, it overlooks shortcomings in the measurement approaches it relies on. Fourth, it does not establish causation. Finally, it employs a welfarist conception of social justice without sufficient justification