This blog post examines whether the development of modern medicine and the social security system has actually increased our happiness.
Attempts to assess happiness have been few and far between. It is unclear whether historians deliberately avoided this question or simply saw no reason to address it. Nevertheless, this question is profoundly important. As a species of animal, and even after undergoing the cognitive revolution, humans have always instinctively pursued happiness, satisfaction, and joy in life. So, have we become happier than people in the past?
To answer this question, we must first clearly define what happiness is. Happiness generally refers to subjective well-being, and there are various perspectives on it. The first perspective holds that happiness is determined by the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations. This perspective is intuitively easy to understand. For example, if I expected 100 but only got 50, I would not be happy, but if I expected 10 and got 20, I would likely be happy. The second is the biological perspective, which views happiness as governed by serotonin secreted within the body. Since it has been scientifically proven that we feel happiness when serotonin is secreted, this perspective can also be considered valid. The third is the religious perspective. Buddhism views emotions as mere fluctuations and believes that chasing after them leads to suffering. From this perspective, whether people recognize this fact determines their happiness.
Given such diverse viewpoints, what criteria should we choose to measure happiness? First, biological criteria are difficult to select. The idea that serotonin relates to happiness is relatively recent; just a century ago, there was no way to measure serotonin levels. Moreover, a strong correlation between serotonin levels and actual happiness has not been definitively proven. For example, in a study comparing platelet serotonin levels between suicide attempt patients and healthy controls, statistically significant differences emerged in psychological trait assessments, but no significant difference was found in platelet serotonin levels. Therefore, it is difficult to view serotonin levels as quantitatively reflecting psychological factors.
Beyond biological criteria, other standards that are difficult to quantify numerically can be considered qualitatively. Among these, the perspective based on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations seems most meaningful. The Buddhist stance is difficult for people to intuitively grasp, and it is also hard to assume everyone would agree with Buddhist doctrine. If Buddhism were used as a standard for happiness, one might infer that the period when Buddhism exerted the greatest influence coincided with the highest average sense of happiness. However, this seems to hold little significance.
Conversely, the perspective based on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations is closely tied to everyday life. This viewpoint also holds empirical validity. This premise can be equally applied not only to people today but also to those in the past. People in any era would have had their own expectations, feeling happiness when outcomes met those expectations and unhappiness when they did not. However, these expectations are shaped by the society in which the person grew up. Indeed, people often struggle to understand societies different from their own. This manifests as generational gaps and also as differences across historical eras. Therefore, it is difficult to speculate which era’s people were happier by comparing modern society with past societies. This is because members of each society would have felt their own expectations and sense of happiness.
Based on the discussion so far, distinguishing the happiness levels of modern and past people seems impossible. Moreover, humans are adaptable creatures. Even someone who acquired a disability later in life can adapt and live with it after 20 to 30 years, though individual differences exist. It is difficult to conclude that past societies were more unhappy simply because they had more violent incidents than modern societies, leading to a higher proportion of people with disabilities. So, what factors influence happiness in the long term?
Psychologists and biologists have identified factors that affect long-term happiness. Diseases that continuously worsen or cause persistent pain reduce long-term happiness. Considering the importance of health in life, this is hardly surprising. There’s even a British proverb: “There is no wealth but health.” If health continuously deteriorates, a decline in long-term happiness is inevitable. Modern people have an advantage over the past in this regard: medical progress. In the past, people often suffered and died from diseases that are now easily treatable, but thanks to advances in modern medicine, such cases have significantly decreased. In this respect, we can say we are happier than our ancestors.
Other perspectives exist on this matter. For instance, some argue that patients with incurable diseases endure unnecessary suffering for longer periods due to modern medicine. However, this is merely an outsider’s viewpoint. If there are patients who wish to live even one more day, however painful, can we tell them that death would be better? Death is a universal phenomenon that all living beings fear. When a patient desires to live longer, modern society, which can fulfill this wish to some extent, can be seen as having actually increased happiness.
Of course, there may also be patients whose suffering is so intense that they wish to be freed from it as soon as possible. Discussions on this very issue are taking place in modern society, and that is euthanasia. Euthanasia is divided into passive euthanasia, which involves discontinuing life-prolonging treatment, and active euthanasia, which involves ending life through the administration of drugs. Passive euthanasia is also called death with dignity. Death with dignity shares a meaning nearly identical to natural death in the past, in that a terminally ill patient suffering extreme pain awaits death without the aid of modern medicine. However, there is one crucial difference. While terminally ill patients in the past had no options for life extension, today’s terminally ill patients do have such options. Furthermore, death with dignity is legally recognized in several countries, including the Netherlands, and discussions about the right to a humane death are actively taking place worldwide. South Korea also recognized euthanasia in a Supreme Court ruling in 2009, and in 2017, it was legalized under limited circumstances. We cannot dismiss all the contributions modern medicine has made to happiness simply because the duration of suffering has increased.
Health is a crucial element of happiness. Of course, health isn’t the entirety of happiness, so we cannot definitively assert that we are happier than in the past. However, considering the current situation, there is ample reason to say that we, benefiting from modern medicine and social security systems, are happier than our ancestors.
