Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. The of this little talk is taxes, 's taxes not taxis, quality of life happiness. Now, that's a rather odd of things but I think you'll the connections as we go. So way of introduction, let me just the structure of the talk. It's five parts, roughly. First, I'll talk politics and the so-called quality of . Secondly, I'll contrast this new language traditional economic views of so-called rational man. Thirdly, we'll have a discussion the connection between money and happiness. , I'll make some remarks about human and what it is. So, you , the topics are not too narrow too small. At the risk of , we'll press on, though, with a of some of these things and discussion. And finally, I'll suggest something way of conclusion and a concluding .

OK. Back to the first then now: politicians and the quality life. Now, in 1999, some really remarkable things have happened. Let's start William Hague, here in the UK. is of course the Conservative party of the opposition in parliament, leader the Conservative party, leader of the . Well, he recently admitted that the party in the past had made and that in future the Conservative should broaden its appeal and pay attention to the quality of life. we have that phrase, the quality life. Well, what is this quality life? William Hague defined it so to include in particular protecting the from pollution and so on. So quality of life includes, if it's good, a good environment. Again, and even more important in practice, because is the Chancellor of the Exchequer the government, Gordon Brown, again in in the budget, the budget of Labour government, changed the declared aims taxation. He changed the aims of . And so environmental protection again figured prominently and taxes were to be means of raising the quality of . So there's a finance minister, the minister, in the Labour government, saying he would deliberately use taxes to the environment.

Well, a comment Labour's budget. For example, the Friends the Earth, the environmental pressure group, very much in favour of the greening of the tax system. It been lobbying, campaigning, for the greening the tax system. And they commented this was the most significant transformation the economy since the foundation of Welfare State just after the second war. Well, what taxes are proposed Labour's recent budget? First, increased taxes petrol, diesel, and on company cars. , there would be a rise in on dumping rubbish in landfills. The has a fairly poor record compared many other countries in the so-called world of rubbish disposal. We tend dump it in large holes in ground, where it produces methane, a gas, and other nasties. Again, in Labour budget, there would be tax on commuting to work by public rather than by private car. And would be subsidies to public transport. , the tax on small cars, small cars, would be less than the on big cars.

So, there's package of measures, not all of completely new, but some of them , which are designed to protect the through taxation. Now, the treasury, the finance wing, that is, the treasury that the aim of this budget to shift taxation from good things as work, savings and investment and on to bad things such as pollution. Again, there would be a tax on business use of energy. would be offset by lower national contributions and a resulting rise in , other things being equal. So the has thought of these things and that environmental fiscal policy, taxation policy, make sense.

Now, one two other comments on this budget, financial statement. Again, Friends of the . They thought the government was surprisingly and they applauded this new term. thought the government was serious to the environment at the heart of policy making. Or again, the Sunday quoted studies showing that a shifting of taxation from jobs to resources cut pollution and in fact raise , for example, in service industries. Or the IPPR, the Institute of Public Research, proposed creation of investment in in sustainable enterprises. Revenue from green , it is estimated, could rise from million pounds sterling in the year to 2000 to as high as million pounds in the year 2001 2002. So, it seems, then, that of life is not here just empty slogan but represents a real in economic and environmental policy.

come now to the second part this little talk. I want to this new talk then with traditional values or at least traditional values some economists. Now, the point here that traditionally, economic growth has been good. The new green tax policy can be seen as a new on how economic growth is to achieved. There's a new term here, we hear every day, these days that is sustainability. A rather ugly , what does it mean? It means , or economic life not growth, which be sustained indefinitely over time without its own basis. Now, there are, is true, international influences on Labour's , on the Labour government's policy. This hasn't simply arisen through lobbying and opinion shifts, focus groups and so , in one country. There is, first all, of course the European union, which the UK is a member, its environmental policies historically have been more favourable to environmental protection than of the UK. Again, there are international bodies as the IPCC, the Panel on Climate Change, which investigates monitors so-called global warming, which is, course, the result of the burning fossil fuels, in so far as 's a man made change. Thirdly of , there are the great international environmental , such as the one a few ago in Rio de Janeiro, in , and more recently in Kyoto in .

Now, what is this traditional thought that I referred to. Well, economists have maintained that there is a thing as rational economic man. . How does rational economic man go his business? How does rational economic go about her business? Well, they to maximise their income. They are who try to make as much as possibly for themselves. Now, this oversimplified model of what a human is has come under increasing challenge, indeed, from economists, of course, as as from others. So that the that emerges now is of a less predictable, rather more complex, from economist's point of view, rather less person. So that voters have shown, example, that they're not interested in their income once they have what regard as enough to live on . But, they are concerned, or at they say they are concerned in opinion polls and so on, with things as health, education and the . So then, it's not true that beings simply are concerned to maximise income and spend all their energies that. Or at least, this is what they say they do.

, a point about quality of life. is rather important, surely. We need be thinking only of our own of life. Or I not, I not be thinking only of my private personal quality of life. But course the environment is a shared and it's shared, not only with people here and now, but it's in important respects with future generations. this raises then the question, always the back of one's mind when thinks of sustainability, the question of and why we ought to care future generations of human beings. There's another twist. And that is that might broaden our interest, the widening as Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher, called it, we might broaden our , our circle of concerns to include only human beings and their welfare, environment, but non-human entities and even non-living world. So, that's quite a agenda. We are now looking then some at large scale present and concerns with the environment as opposed a no holds barred simplified view man as an income maximiser.

come now to the third part this little talk. I call it price happiness. The point here is there has been a tendency among economists and others to link income happiness. So, and happiness clearly sounds . Ask parents what they want for children and they say we want to be happy. But what is happiness and is there a direct with cash? Is there a direct between lack of cash, poverty, on one hand and unhappiness, misery, on other hand? Again, can we express in terms of money? Can it cashed out in cash terms? Well, 's raise a couple or so of to the view that we simply to maximise our income. Surely the objection is that most people desire which can't be bought. They desire like friendship. Again, we don't as matter of fact try to get much money as possible, although that be one of our main concerns. value other things. For example, we our spare time, our time for activities, checking up on who's winning cup, being with friends and family, it is. So what can we from this? Surely, not to over-conclude anything, we can simply say that money may be a means to , it is certainly not the only . It may not be the main .

Now interestingly enough, some research recently from Warwick University by an tends to support this view. The , I'll summarise them, are as follows. , as we know in recent years, risen, for example, in European Union . But happiness, which the research attempted quantify, happiness, well, guess what, it's increased in proportion with income increase. example, the Belgians are picked out this research as, having done surprisingly , anyway they've done well in the stakes, they've increased their income, but, for it, they haven't got much , or indeed any happier. Well, this , then, that there's not a direct between happiness and wealth, income. What research did find was that there one or two factors which did to contribute quite strongly to happiness. 's talk about happiness rather than unhappiness. , the personal characteristics that seem to to happiness are that one is educated, female, and young or old not middle aged. And with few . That's interesting. I mean, this is the basis of what people say feel about things. There we go. are these personal characteristics then, at in western society, which tend to happiness. But the remarkable think here, our present context, is that far away the most important factor in is unemployment. People, presumably people of age, who are unemployed are unhappy a very marked degree. Why that be so we can think about, according to this research it is . So what seems to follow from is that if unemployment is such main factor in unhappiness, then the should work towards high employment rather high incomes, for example, if these goals conflict. High employment, if happiness, it is, matters, high employment then, to this research, is a key in happiness.

OK. So that one question: Is there a direct between cash and happiness? And we seen that there are some grounds doubting it. The second question is happiness itself is a worthwhile goal. , let's turn to one or two on this. Happiness is not as a term as it seems. Let's back to Bentham. Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher, whose introduction to the principles morals of legislation was published in , the year of the French revolution. claimed that what is morally good, , is what gives pleasure and he to equate pleasure and happiness. His , John Stuart Mill, in the middle the nineteenth century, in his essay utilitarianism, which is the name given this sort of view, raised an really that all pleasures, in his , were not equally valuable. So he pleasures into higher pleasures, such as pleasures. It might be the sort thing Mill himself enjoyed doing, philosophy. might be attention to the serious such as certain sorts of music. higher pleasure, he thought, were qualitatively from, and better than, the lower . You know, better to be Socrates than a pig satisfied. So, to up, pleasures of the mind may held to be better than certain of the body, for example.

follow on from Mill's point, we say we're not in a non-stop of Disneyland, just seeking cheap thrills. we might conclude that happiness, even it is equated with pleasure, should be seen only in cash terms, that it may not, in any , itself be worth pursuing. Aristotle, in times, had argued that what is as happiness was something that we 't try to seek, if we seek we don't find it. But it as a bonus if we live good life.

Well, this brings then to the even broader question what a good life is. So 's start here with a suggestion from . His view is that, at least the moral plane, we should live life in accordance with the virtues, accordance with virtue. Now virtue is rather stuffy sounding, Victorian sounding, word, what Aristotle meant by it was qualities of character. Courage is an he takes in his book on ethics. And then happiness will come. we train children to have a to virtue then they will, in , be happy. But not in the sense of happiness, in the sense fulfilment, and having lived a worthwhile . We might look to other philosophers. about Emmanuel Kant, in the century? He thought that from a point of view again, what the life was was living in accordance moral duty. Well, what's moral duty? is, for Kant, revealed by hard thought. So that we choose principles live by which we would wish else to live by, for example.

, we seem to be getting a long way away from budgets into philosophy, but let's come back quote another philosopher with a taste common sense, to some extent. I to present day philosopher Ted Honderich University College London. And he wrote, few years ago, a little article a philosophical journal, trying to analyse human welfare is. Human welfare. And course the implication of such an , surely, in terms of practical policy, that if the article gets it , then human welfare is what we to seek to maximise rather than . Well, not surprisingly, perhaps, Honderich went the old ground of distinguishing basic of human welfare from non-basic aspects. basic aspects are what we need animals, as biological beings. We need , water, shelter, warmth and so on. where this article gets interesting is its discussion of the non-basic aspects human welfare and, what sticks in mind from Honderich's list, for example, self-respect and the respect of others. surely are key items in what might call human dignity, which is a different concept from the satisfaction pleasures.

Well now, we've gone some ground about taxation, so-called quality life, various suggestions as to what is and so on and so and so on. And then we've a look at some traditional answers rather large questions. What can we or conclude from all this? Well, 's note that politicians have recognised in UK recently a concept called the of life, which is to a extent, though not wholly, environmental in nature. In trying to examine what quality of life is, we've come, you've seen, across notions such as . Well, let's just raise a question, , by way of conclusion. We might, I've mentioned this before, we might quality of life and so on, even human welfare if we're some of egoist, as the satisfaction of self interests. But surely also, human are social beings. We're centres of of relationships and so on so even as individuals we can't escape larger group even if we wanted and could we not think then terms of the quality of life hope for humanity and indeed the systems. The quality of life offers for humanity and for non-human systems. so, back to taxation, well, perhaps good thing that the governments are a broader view and the longer .

Thank you very much.