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The Exploration of Happiness pp 195–226Cite as

The Four Qualities of Life Ordering Concepts and Measures of the Good Life

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Part of the book series: Happiness Studies Book Series ((HAPS))

Abstract

The terms ‘quality-of-life’, ‘well-being’ and ‘happiness’ denote different meanings; sometimes they are used as an umbrella term for all of value, and at other times to denote special merits. This paper is about the specific meanings of the terms. It proposes a classification based on two bi-partitions; between life ‘chances’ and life ‘results’, and between ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ qualities. Together these dichotomies imply four qualities of life: (1) livability of the environment, (2) life-ability of the individual, (3) external utility of life and (4) inner appreciation of life. This fourfold matrix is applied in three ways: firstly to place related notions and alternative classifications, secondly to explore substantive meanings in various measures for quality of life and thirdly to find out whether quality-of-life can be measured comprehensively. This last question is answered in the negative. Current sum-scores make little sense. The most inclusive measure is still how long and happily people live.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”.

  2. 2.

    In the Netherlands in the 1970s, the ‘limits to growth’ movement used the slogan ‘not welfare, but well-being’ (In Dutch: Geenwelvaartmaarwelzijn). In this context, the capriciousness of the term is emphasized. Interestingly, the term was soon taken over by social workers, who came to call their services ‘well-being work’. Hereby, the term well-being came to denote a very limited meaning, in fact far more limited than economic welfare, which denotes all goods and services produced in society. Still the suggestion of encompassivenes remained, much to the pleasure of the profession.

  3. 3.

    For an overview of the various definitions of ‘quality of life’ see: Fernandez-Ballesteros (1996). A review of definitions of happiness canbe found with Veenhoven (1984, pp. 16–17).

  4. 4.

    In sociology, the term ‘life-chances’ is used in the more limited meaning of access to scarce resources in society.

  5. 5.

    There are three main meanings of health: The maxi variant is all the good (WHO definition), the medium variant is life-ability, and the mini-variant is absence of physical defect.

  6. 6.

    A problem with this name is that the utilitarians used the word utility for subjective appreciation of life, the sum of pleasures and pains.

  7. 7.

    Frankl’s (1946) logo-therapy aims to make people believe in meanings of their life they do not see.

  8. 8.

    This quality-of-life is the subject of the Journal of Happiness Studies.

  9. 9.

    This analogy fits to the extent that the profit of a firm also reflects the degree to which functional demands for the business are met. Yet unlike functional needs for human functioning these demands are not fixed genetically and nor are they linked so closely to affect-like signals.

  10. 10.

    ‘Doing interesting things’ can also be seen as a quality in itself, especially when the person does not like it. In this interpretation this item should be placed in the utility quadrant, because it represents some kind of perfection.

  11. 11.

    The well known Bar-on (1997) EQ-tests measures positive mental health.

  12. 12.

    This is commonly referred to as the ‘top-down’ effect in evaluations of life. e.g. Diener (1984).

  13. 13.

    Subjective well-being is also inferred from non-verbal cues, such as smiling, and from signs of despair such as suicide and excessive risk taking. Unfortunately, these ‘objective’ indicators appear to fit subjective reports rather badly. Physical measures are not available; the ‘hedometer’ still waits for invention.

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Acknowledgments

I thank the following colleagues for their helpful comments: Ruud Abma, Joop Ehrhardt, Henk DeHeer, Ems Lans, Roelof Hortulanus, Jan Ott, K. Schinkel, Peggy Schyns and Theo VanWilligenburg.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Erasmus University Rotterdam, P. O. Box 1738, 3000, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Ruut Veenhoven

  2. North-West University, Mmabatho, 2745, South Africa

    Ruut Veenhoven

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  1. Ruut Veenhoven
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Correspondence to Ruut Veenhoven .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Pathophysiology, and Transplantation, University of Milan, Via G.B. Grassi 74, Milan, 20157, Italy

    Antonella Delle Fave

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Veenhoven, R. (2013). The Four Qualities of Life Ordering Concepts and Measures of the Good Life. In: Delle Fave, A. (eds) The Exploration of Happiness. Happiness Studies Book Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5702-8_11

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