An Analysis of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness
Abstract: This paper seeks to appraise Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) measure critically and elaborates the conception of GNH and its components, the methodology behind the calculation of the GNH Index and criticisms of and support for such an index from an ethical perspective.
Introduction
The former king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, proposed Gross National Happiness (GNH) as the guiding philosophy of Bhutan’s development in 1972 (Thinley 2007). The monarch uses GNH to measure economic development, culture, governance and spiritual values (Ura and Galay, 2004). This paper seeks to appraise GNH critically and will elaborate the conception of GNH and its components, the methodology of GNH Index and criticisms and support of such an index from a moral-philosophical perspective in the following parts.
What is Gross National Happiness?
In the Kingdom of Bhutan, Gross National Happiness (GNH) has been used to measure the social development since 1972. GNH was established upon the legacy of Bhutan’s government, which states the government is responsible for creating happiness for its people. Otherwise its existence is meaningless (Ura, 2008). The term ‘happiness’, viewed as a common public good, indicates people’s capacities for pursuing wellbeing in sustainable ways (Ura, 2009). However ‘happiness’ for Bhutan is different from ‘happiness’ in Western literature. First, Bhutanese consider ‘happiness’ in an objective way rather than a subjective and monistic way. Second, Bhutanese defined happiness internalizes responsibilities and other relevant motivations explicitly (Ura et al., 2012). For example, the conception of happiness in GNH is experienced from four main factors, equitable socio-economic development, culture, environmental conservation and good governance, (GNH Commission, 2008) to nine domains, psychological well-being, living standards, health, education, culture, time use, good governance, community and ecology (Ura et al., 2012).
Haoqian Chen has an LLB from Renmin University in China and an LLM from the University of Warwick, UK. He currently works at US law firm, Orrick, Harrington & Sutcliff LLP.
