Yeah I agree that trading off happiness for meaning can make sense. I would just point out the following from the article I linked to:
But the warnings for prospective parents are even more stark than ‘it’s not going to make you happier’. Using data sets from Europe and America, numerous scholars have found some evidence that, on aggregate, parents often report statistically significantly lower levels of happiness (Alesina et al., 2004), life satisfaction (Di Tella et al., 2003), marital satisfaction (Twenge et al., 2003), and mental well-being (Clark & Oswald, 2002) compared with non-parents.
I’m not sure how selective the author may (or may not) be being here, and there could certainly be confounding variables that aren’t controlled for in the studies (I haven’t looked at them so can’t really say). The reason I draw out that quote is that ‘life satisfaction’ may be the best overall measure of wellbeing we have, and it should incorporate ‘meaning’ to some extent, so that Di Tella study should be concerning.
It would be cool for someone to do an in-depth review of the evidence on how children impact on wellbeing. Maybe I will, if I find the time...
So, how did the World Happiness Report measure happiness? The study asked people in 156 countries to “value their lives today on a 0 to 10 scale, with the worst possible life as a 0 and the best possible life as a 10.” This is a widely used measure of general life satisfaction. And we know that societal factors such as gross domestic product per capita, extensiveness of social services, freedom from oppression, and trust in government and fellow citizens can explain a significant proportion of people’s average life satisfaction in a country.
In these measures the Nordic countries—Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland—tend to score highest in the world. Accordingly, it is no surprise that every time we measure life satisfaction, these countries are consistently in the top 10. [...]
… some people might argue that neither life satisfaction, positive emotions nor absence of depression are enough for happiness. Instead, something more is required: One has to experience one’s life as meaningful. But when Shigehiro Oishi, of the University of Virginia, and Ed Diener, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, compared 132 different countries based on whether people felt that their life has an important purpose or meaning, African countries including Togo and Senegal were at the top of the ranking, while the U.S. and Finland were far behind. Here, religiosity might play a role: The wealthier countries tend to be less religious on average, and this might be the reason why people in these countries report less meaningfulness.
Interesting, especially that Togo and Senegal are top of the ranking! I’d imagine the Togolese and Senegalese are having quite a lot of children as well.
compared 132 different countries based on whether people felt that their life has an important purpose or meaning, African countries including Togo and Senegal were at the top of the ranking, while the U.S. and Finland were far behind.
I haven’t explored this in depth, but it’s worth stressing that this indicates that measures of meaning appear to lead to a much more counter intuitive ranking of countries than LS or happiness.
If meaning matters more to well-being than happiness or life satisfaction, then we are probably very, very wrong about what makes a life go well.
To be fair to Kaj they only said that one may rationally trade-off happiness for meaning, not that meaning intrinsically matters more.
For example you could theoretically have both meaning and happiness as components of wellbeing, with both having diminishing marginal contribution to wellbeing. In this case it would likely be best to have some meaning and some happiness. If one was very happy, but with no meaning, one could rationally trade off happiness for meaning to improve overall wellbeing—and this wouldn’t require thinking that meaning is intrinsically better than happiness.
I agree its uncontroversial that if there are multiple elements of well-being that don’t necessarily have equal weights—there will be a point at which getting more of the thing that matters less will be better overall than getting the thing that matters more.
Since Kaj included the Bryan Caplan quote it seemed to imbue the comment with a bit more opinion on what matters.
And most thoughtful traditions say to focus more on meaning that happiness. Meaning is how you evaluate your whole life, while happiness is how you feel about now. And I agree: happiness is overrated.
Getting back to the point. If a potential parent is told “you’ll be less happy but your life will have more of (whatever meaning means).” I’m trying to express, that if that potential parent asked me if they should take that tradeoff (from a self interested perspective), I’d say “make sure you’re getting a heck of a lot of meaning for every unit of happiness you lose”.
Full disclosure: I’ll probably make that tradeoff even though it doesn’t seem like a great bargain.
As a deeper aside, it’s odd that he defines meaning pretty much as life satisfaction / evaluation which is normally “how you evaluate your whole life”. They obviously aren’t the same to people if they give opposite rankings of countries.
As a deeper aside, it’s odd that he defines meaning pretty much as life satisfaction / evaluation which is normally “how you evaluate your whole life”. They obviously aren’t the same to people if they give opposite rankings of countries.
Yeah I think he may actually be referring to life satisfaction, but calling it meaning as a sort of informal short-hand. I’m not sure “meaning” is a very common wellbeing metric anyway.
Yeah I agree that trading off happiness for meaning can make sense. I would just point out the following from the article I linked to:
I’m not sure how selective the author may (or may not) be being here, and there could certainly be confounding variables that aren’t controlled for in the studies (I haven’t looked at them so can’t really say). The reason I draw out that quote is that ‘life satisfaction’ may be the best overall measure of wellbeing we have, and it should incorporate ‘meaning’ to some extent, so that Di Tella study should be concerning.
It would be cool for someone to do an in-depth review of the evidence on how children impact on wellbeing. Maybe I will, if I find the time...
Fair point. Though apparently measures of ‘life satisfaction’ and ‘meaning’ produce different outcomes:
Interesting, especially that Togo and Senegal are top of the ranking! I’d imagine the Togolese and Senegalese are having quite a lot of children as well.
I haven’t explored this in depth, but it’s worth stressing that this indicates that measures of meaning appear to lead to a much more counter intuitive ranking of countries than LS or happiness.
If meaning matters more to well-being than happiness or life satisfaction, then we are probably very, very wrong about what makes a life go well.
To be fair to Kaj they only said that one may rationally trade-off happiness for meaning, not that meaning intrinsically matters more.
For example you could theoretically have both meaning and happiness as components of wellbeing, with both having diminishing marginal contribution to wellbeing. In this case it would likely be best to have some meaning and some happiness. If one was very happy, but with no meaning, one could rationally trade off happiness for meaning to improve overall wellbeing—and this wouldn’t require thinking that meaning is intrinsically better than happiness.
Very fair Jack!
I agree its uncontroversial that if there are multiple elements of well-being that don’t necessarily have equal weights—there will be a point at which getting more of the thing that matters less will be better overall than getting the thing that matters more.
Since Kaj included the Bryan Caplan quote it seemed to imbue the comment with a bit more opinion on what matters.
Getting back to the point. If a potential parent is told “you’ll be less happy but your life will have more of (whatever meaning means).” I’m trying to express, that if that potential parent asked me if they should take that tradeoff (from a self interested perspective), I’d say “make sure you’re getting a heck of a lot of meaning for every unit of happiness you lose”.
Full disclosure: I’ll probably make that tradeoff even though it doesn’t seem like a great bargain.
As a deeper aside, it’s odd that he defines meaning pretty much as life satisfaction / evaluation which is normally “how you evaluate your whole life”. They obviously aren’t the same to people if they give opposite rankings of countries.
Yeah I think he may actually be referring to life satisfaction, but calling it meaning as a sort of informal short-hand. I’m not sure “meaning” is a very common wellbeing metric anyway.
Big +1