The concepts of quality of life and happiness - Correlation and differences

Abstract

Concern about the quality of life is to a great extent learned and rational. It arises from what humans learn about life, death, incapacitation, suffering, health, and success and from the realization that they need to know more about the quality of life to make decisions. And although during the decision-making process they may be prompted by instinctive impulses, in the main, quality of life decisions are arrived at through deliberating alternatives, predicting the consequences of following. Happiness, life satisfaction and subjective well-being are mutually interrelated - and indeed they are all closely connected with the notion of quality of life - but they are also highly contested constructs. 'Happiness' is perhaps the most contested; indeed, the disagreement about happiness is at an absolutely basic level. One of the leading figures in the study of quality of life and a Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman does not trust people's own statements and beliefs on this topic. Indeed, he goes further than this and claims: 'they do not generally know how happy they are, and they must construct an answer to that question whenever it is raised' (Kahneman, 1999). He claims that the starting point should not be people's subjective views about how happy they are but instead objective measures of those sensations that are associated with the real-time feeling of happiness - in other words, objective happiness. Perhaps the greatest strength of any approach to subjective well-being is that it pays serious attention to people's happiness and life satisfaction. Happiness may not be enough as a measure of quality of life as can be seen from the case of the 'happy poor'. But even though it cannot be a sufficient criterion of quality of life, any measure of quality of life that took no account at all of whether a person was miserable or dissatisfied would surely be lacking an important dimension. It is clear, though, that there is more to quality of life than just subjective attributes such as happiness or satisfaction. There are objective qualities too, and some of these, such as sufficient nutrition, a non-hazardous environment, and a long and healthy life are universally, or virtually universally uncontroversial as components of quality of life.