Can We Be Happier?: Evidence and Ethics, Hardcover

A reasoned argument for overall happiness as the aim of a society, and a demonstration of how everyone can help achieve it.

Most people now realize that economic growth, however desirable, will not solve all our problems. Instead, we need a philosophy and a science which encompasses a much fuller range of human need and experience. This book argues that the goal for a society must be the greatest possible all round happiness, and shows how each of us can become more effective creators of happiness, both as citizens and in our own organizations. Written with Richard Layard's characteristic clarity, it provides hard evidence that increasing happiness is the right aim, and that it can be achieved. Its language is simple, its evidence impressive, its effect inspiring.

Richard Layard is founder and former director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. He is the author of the ground-breaking Happiness: Lessons from a NewScience (2005), which has been published in nineteen languages, and (with David Clarke) Thrive: The Power of Psychological Therapies (2014). He is co-editor (with John Helliwell and Jeffrey Sachs) of the annual World Happiness Report, and has been instrumental in the development of improving access to psychological therapies in the UK.