I’m pleased and surprised to hear you say this. I’d thought that the default EA metric was QALYs: I’ve had more conversations than I can count with EAs saying that QALYs are probably not the best metric overall or even for health itself. A couple of points.
There no common sense understanding of the term—unlike ‘health’ - there are also three different and incompatible accounts of well-being (hedonism, desire-satisfaction, objective list).Saying “we’re in favour of well-being” can be equally mysterious.
I think there’s something a bit weird about saying “this is what we actually mean, but don’t tell anyone in case they think we’re weird”. I worry it’s getting a bit, well, Scientological, if you’re at the stage where you have various versions of the truth: one for the public, another for those in the know.
My suggestions is to talk about “HALYs”—Happiness adjusted life years. Not only is this what we actually care about (if we’re utilitarians, though I presume any view should value happiness, all other things being equal), happiness is much more intuitive than well-being and it sounds less silly.
On 2, I don’t mean to suggest having two versions of the truth—I mean we should just say “we want to maximise the number of people who have flourishing lives” or something broader like that, rather than “WALYs”, which sounds like an official metric, but isn’t, and is a bit goofy.
On 1 and 3, I still lean towards talking about wellbeing or flourishing, because happiness sounds too narrow. It depends a bit on who you’re talking to—many people don’t notice the distinction.
Ah, I see. I do think that makes sense: we stress the value of things besides health but shy away from using terms which make us look silly.
And yet whilst ‘well-being’ and ‘flourishing’ are good names, they seem problematically vague to my ears: I imagine a conversation where I say “I want to help people lead flourishing lives” and they pause before saying “I agree, QALYs sounds too narrow … but what exactly do you mean about leading a flourishing life? How are you defining/measuring that?” I think there’s an advantage, if you want to do cost-effectiveness, to having a clear, if slightly wrong, measure. QALYs have the virtue of providing a uniform score sheet.
On your last point, I think that reveals a problem about word use. I don’t see ‘happiness’ being used narrowly in ordinary language at all. It describes a whole host of things: the good life, well-being, life satisfaction, emotions, etc.
In defence of WALYs, and in reply to your specific points:
I don’t share your intuition here. Well-being is what we’re talking about when we say “I’m not sure he’s doing so well at the moment”, or when we say “I want to help people as much as possible”. It’s a general term for how well someone is doing, overall. It’s an advantage, in my eyes, that it’s not committed to any specific account of well-being, for any such account might have its drawbacks.
I worry that, in adopting HALYs, EA would tie its aims to a narrow view of what human well-being and flourishing consists of. This is unnecessary, for EA is just about helping people as much as possible. Even if we were convinced that the only component of well-being was happiness, it would still be an additional claim to the core of EA.
On 1. I agree that the broadness of leaving ‘well-being’ unspecified looks like an advantage, but I think that’s someone illusory. If I ask you “okay, so if you want to help people do better, what do you mean by ‘better’?” then you’ve got to specify an account of well-being unless you want to give a circular answer. If you just say “well, I want to do what’s good for them” that wouldn’t tell me what you meant..
This might seem picky, but depending on you view of well-being you get quite sharply different policy/EA decisions. I’m doing some research on this now and hope to write it up soon.
On 2. I should probably reveal my cards and say i’m a hedonist about well-being. I’m not interested in any intervention which doesn’t make people experience more joy and less suffering. To make the point by contrast, lots of thinks which make people richer do nothing to increase happiness. I’m very happy for other EAs to choose their own accounts of well-being of course. As it happens, lots of EAs seem to be implicit or explicit hedonists too.
I’m pleased and surprised to hear you say this. I’d thought that the default EA metric was QALYs: I’ve had more conversations than I can count with EAs saying that QALYs are probably not the best metric overall or even for health itself. A couple of points.
There no common sense understanding of the term—unlike ‘health’ - there are also three different and incompatible accounts of well-being (hedonism, desire-satisfaction, objective list).Saying “we’re in favour of well-being” can be equally mysterious.
I think there’s something a bit weird about saying “this is what we actually mean, but don’t tell anyone in case they think we’re weird”. I worry it’s getting a bit, well, Scientological, if you’re at the stage where you have various versions of the truth: one for the public, another for those in the know.
My suggestions is to talk about “HALYs”—Happiness adjusted life years. Not only is this what we actually care about (if we’re utilitarians, though I presume any view should value happiness, all other things being equal), happiness is much more intuitive than well-being and it sounds less silly.
Hi Michael,
On 2, I don’t mean to suggest having two versions of the truth—I mean we should just say “we want to maximise the number of people who have flourishing lives” or something broader like that, rather than “WALYs”, which sounds like an official metric, but isn’t, and is a bit goofy.
On 1 and 3, I still lean towards talking about wellbeing or flourishing, because happiness sounds too narrow. It depends a bit on who you’re talking to—many people don’t notice the distinction.
Ah, I see. I do think that makes sense: we stress the value of things besides health but shy away from using terms which make us look silly.
And yet whilst ‘well-being’ and ‘flourishing’ are good names, they seem problematically vague to my ears: I imagine a conversation where I say “I want to help people lead flourishing lives” and they pause before saying “I agree, QALYs sounds too narrow … but what exactly do you mean about leading a flourishing life? How are you defining/measuring that?” I think there’s an advantage, if you want to do cost-effectiveness, to having a clear, if slightly wrong, measure. QALYs have the virtue of providing a uniform score sheet.
On your last point, I think that reveals a problem about word use. I don’t see ‘happiness’ being used narrowly in ordinary language at all. It describes a whole host of things: the good life, well-being, life satisfaction, emotions, etc.
In defence of WALYs, and in reply to your specific points:
I don’t share your intuition here. Well-being is what we’re talking about when we say “I’m not sure he’s doing so well at the moment”, or when we say “I want to help people as much as possible”. It’s a general term for how well someone is doing, overall. It’s an advantage, in my eyes, that it’s not committed to any specific account of well-being, for any such account might have its drawbacks.
I worry that, in adopting HALYs, EA would tie its aims to a narrow view of what human well-being and flourishing consists of. This is unnecessary, for EA is just about helping people as much as possible. Even if we were convinced that the only component of well-being was happiness, it would still be an additional claim to the core of EA.
Thanks for the comments Tom.
On 1. I agree that the broadness of leaving ‘well-being’ unspecified looks like an advantage, but I think that’s someone illusory. If I ask you “okay, so if you want to help people do better, what do you mean by ‘better’?” then you’ve got to specify an account of well-being unless you want to give a circular answer. If you just say “well, I want to do what’s good for them” that wouldn’t tell me what you meant..
This might seem picky, but depending on you view of well-being you get quite sharply different policy/EA decisions. I’m doing some research on this now and hope to write it up soon.
On 2. I should probably reveal my cards and say i’m a hedonist about well-being. I’m not interested in any intervention which doesn’t make people experience more joy and less suffering. To make the point by contrast, lots of thinks which make people richer do nothing to increase happiness. I’m very happy for other EAs to choose their own accounts of well-being of course. As it happens, lots of EAs seem to be implicit or explicit hedonists too.