Happy-people-pills and Prosocial Behaviour

Abstract

There is evidence from the empirical sciences that ‘happiness’ – understood in the social scientists’ sense of ‘positive affect’– leads to prosocial behaviour: the happiest amongst us are more likely to help others. There is also scientific evidence of a genetic component to positive affect: genetic differences can account for some of the observed variances in positive affect. Let us think of ‘happy-people-pills’ as pharmacological agents, modeled on those with a genetic predisposition for high levels of positive affect, which will promote positive moods and em otions in ‘normally’ happy persons . It is argued that if we want to increase prosocial behaviour then we should (other things being equal) promote the use of happy-people-pills. Since we should inc rease prosocial behaviour, we should (other things being equal) promote the use of happy-people-pills. In a short paper like this, I cannot possibly show that everything else is equal. How ever, I hope to establish at least a prima facie case for policy that permits the creation and distribution of happy-people-pills. Perhaps one of the more surprising results of the explosion of scientific interest in happiness is the discovery of a causally symmetrical relationship between happiness and helping others (prosocial behaviour). That is, the happiest amongst us are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviour, and those who engage in prosocial activities are more likely to be happy. This causal symmetry suggests tantalizing prospects for ethics and policy. On the one hand, if we could encourage people to be more prosocial then the causal symmetry finding suggests people will be happier. On the other hand, if we can use the results of the scientific investigation of happiness to make it easier for people to be happy, then prosocial behaviour should increase. In this paper we will examine the idea that it may be possible to boost happiness by utilizing another surprising result from contemporary happiness research: genetics. Genetics play a large role in the level of individual happiness. I will