The Path to the Establishment of the Framework of Indonesia Happiness Index

By Jousairi Hasbullah.

Before BPS sets the framework of happiness , I lead all my selected colleagues to explore the path of the thoughts of what is happiness. We did learned several perspectives developed by psycologist expert for example the theory of happiness developed by Prof Bentham, 1970; prof Nusbaum.1992, Martin Seligman.2003. STIGLITZ Commision ( Joseph E.stiglitz, Amartya sen and Jean paul fitossi) on the measurement of social progress; OECD, NEF and Bhutan framework and many others.

There are at least 4 initial perspective of happiness. Hedonism, Desire, Objective List and, Authentic Happiness.

Hedonism (Bentham) sees happiness as a matter of raw subjective feeling, maximizes feeling of pleasure and minimizes feeling of pain. But, this perspective has many problems. How happiness/pleasure is distributed across one'life span, or the statement of happiness means for the whole life. It is not clear yet.

Desire theory (prof Griffin, 1986) sees the fulfillment of desire contribute to one' happiness regardless of the amount of pleasure or displeasure. This theory called as good life means engagement to desire.

Objective list theory developed by Nusbaum sees happiness outside just merely a feeling but incorporate "trully valuable things" in the real world. Happiness consists of human life that achieve certain things worth pursuit. Such a list might include : career, friendship, health, education, income, material comforts, spirit, beauty, love, knowledge, good conscience and related matters. Objective list is also famous as meaningful life. Life of affiliation.

Authentic Happiness developed by Martin Seligman 2003. He argues that the three above theory called as 3 theoretical tradition which explain: 1.The pleasant life (pleasure). 2.The good life (engagement) 3. The meaningful life ( life of affiliation). Authentic happiness synthesize all 3 traditions mentioned. According to Seligman, the good life with spesification to engagement, the original ideas came from Aristoteles and could be interpreted as virtue or excellence or highest human good. What is engagement? It is the pleasure of contemplation in deep absorption and immersion.

The combination of engagement and meaningful life that what Selighman said as EUDAIMONIA. Note: Eudaimonia came from Greek words, Eu: good, Daimon: spirit or as mentioned above it could also called as virtues or excellence: the highest human good.
This 4 perspectives combined with the ideas of Stiglitz commision ( subjective wellbeing), OECD ( life satisfaction) and NEF ( wellbeing, quality of life, life satisfaction) which made up the framework of Indonesia Happiness Index.
Jousairi Hasbullah
JSH Center Bandung. 12 Juli 2018.