The idea that human flourishing is the proper measure of a
good society goes back to Aristotle, but modern attempts to compare flourishing
internationally using subjective survey data raise difficult questions. That is
illustrated in the scatter chart shown above - which compares the degree of
human flourishing in different countries as measured by the new Global
Flourishing Study (GFS) with average life evaluation data for those countries
using the methodology of the World Happiness Report (WHR). The GFS flourishing
index is based on surveys covering various aspects of human flourishing, while
the WHR data derives from the Cantril Ladder approach: a single question asking
people to rate their lives on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 representing the
worst possible life and 10 representing the best possible life.
One would expect people who give a relatively low rating to
their lives under the WHR approach to be assessed as having a relatively low
degree of flourishing under the GFS approach, and vice versa for those who give
their lives a relatively high rating. Surprisingly, the chart suggests little
correlation between the two indexes. People in Tanzania, Egypt and Kenya, for
example, have lower average life evaluation ratings than people in Sweden, the
U.S. and Australia, yet are assessed under GFS methodology to have higher
average levels of flourishing.
This divergence raises three questions which the following
sections of this essay address:
- Does
the methodology of the GFS incorporate more reliable standards for
international comparisons than the WHR/Cantril approach?
- Is
the GFS approach to measuring human flourishing consistent with
Aristotelian ideas about the nature of flourishing?
- Do
composite indexes provide a more reliable basis for international
comparisons of opportunities to flourish?
Reliability of GFS Methodology
The Global Flourishing Study includes over 200,000 survey
participants in 22 countries. The countries were selected to maximize coverage
of the world’s population and to ensure geographic, cultural and religious
diversity. It is a longitudinal panel study with intended annual survey data
collection for 5 years. The domains of flourishing covered in the study
encompass health, happiness, meaning, character, relationships and financial
security.
More confidence can be placed on analyses using subjective data
for individual countries than on cross-country comparisons because the former pose
fewer problems in interpretation of survey questions. (Recent trends in
indicators of subjective wellbeing in some wealthy countries are suggesting
that young people are experiencing greater difficulty flourishing in those
countries. I strongly support research directed toward improving understanding
of why this is occurring and have made a
personal contribution to this work.)
My main concern in this essay is with excessive reliance on
subjective data in making international comparisons. The authors of the GFS note
that caution is needed in interpreting cross-national differences (VanderWeele,
2025, p.647) but that has not prevented attention
being drawn to country rankings.
The scatter charts shown below suggest that at a national
level there is more correlation between GFS flourishing and “happiness” and “life
satisfaction” indicators than between GFS flourishing and WHR life evaluation. Nevertheless,
the GFS index suggests that people in some countries are flourishing despite
relatively low average scores for happiness and life satisfaction.
The happiness question is: “In general, how happy or unhappy
do you usually feel?” The life satisfaction question: “Overall, how satisfied
are you with life as a whole these days?” There has been extensive research
related to the question of what standard of comparison people use in responding
to such questions. Some research has suggested that people compare their
current state to an adaptation level — a running average of past
experience when asked to rate their happiness or life satisfaction. A large
body of work suggests that relative income often matters as much as or
more than absolute income for self-reports on wellbeing. Cross-cultural
research has found that the implicit comparison standard vary by culture. Moreover,
seemingly trivial contextual factors can dramatically shift happiness and life
satisfaction reports.
In some ways, the GFS is more susceptible to standard of comparison problems than a simple life satisfaction or happiness survey:
- Self-rated health is known to be heavily reference dependent. People assess their health relative to age peers, to their own past health, or to an idealized standard. Which reference point dominates varies by culture and age.
- Questions relating to meaning and purpose are especially vulnerable to context effects, because "meaning" is a highly abstract judgment with no obvious natural metric. Whatever has been made salient by preceding questions — religious identity, family, work — is likely to dominate the response.
- Questions about honesty, generosity, self-control and so on invite comparison to either an ideal standard or a perceived social norm. Those standards can diverge sharply.
The Cantril ladder approach used in the WHR was designed to
be self-anchoring to address some of those problems. By asking respondents to
define "best possible life" and "worst possible life" for
themselves, this approach sidesteps the problem of imposing a culturally
specific conception of flourishing.
However, the perceptions that respondents have of the best
possible and worst possible life depend on the reference group they use as a
basis for comparison. That would not pose a problem if there is broad agreement
among people throughout the world on what constitutes the best possible and
worst possible life. Perhaps such broad agreement exists, but I am not aware of
definitive research findings about that.
Aristotelian perspectives
Modern researchers who seek to quantify the extent to which
people are flourishing often refer to Aristotle as a source of inspiration for
their focus on a broad concept of human flourishing rather than on happiness as
an emotional state. That raises the question of whether the GFS approach is
consistent with Aristotelian perspectives.
The GFS view of human flourishing as multi-dimensional is
certainly consistent with Aristotle’s approach. The domains identified in the
overview of the GFS seem to be broadly consistent with Aristotle’s
understanding of the basic goods of a flourishing human (VanderWeele, 2025).
However, from an Aristotelian perspective, it is
disappointing that the study does not acknowledge the central importance of
practical wisdom (phronesis) to individual flourishing. Practical wisdom is the
intelligent management of one’s life with a view to attaining the goods
necessary to one’s own flourishing. The exercise of practical wisdom is so
intimately related to actualization of unique potentialities in the context of
available opportunities that it makes sense to view flourishing as synonymous
with “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom” (Den Uyl and Rasmussen, 2016,
p. 33).
Some research associated with the GFS has focused on mastery
which is assessed by asking: “How often do you feel very capable in most things
you do in life?” (Kim, 2025). There is some overlap between mastery and practical
wisdom: the exercise of practical wisdom involves more than theoretical
knowledge – it requires development of skills necessary to navigate real
circumstances toward genuine flourishing. The mastery concept captures
something of this efficacy dimension — the sense that one can actually direct
one's life rather than being at the mercy of circumstances.
An important difference between mastery and practical wisdom
is evident in the measurement of mastery in the GFS. Self-reported mastery
ranges from 90% of the population in Mexico to 39% in Japan. Do such divergent
responses reflect differences in the exercise of practical wisdom or
differences in the incidence of hubris and modesty in different populations? There
is no way of knowing. Responses to the mastery question capture a subjective
sense of control which may have little to do with wisdom. Genuinely wise people
with accurate perception of their own limitations do not necessarily score
highly in their responses to the mastery question.
My point is that the exercise of practical wisdom – an
activity integral to human flourishing – defies measurement using subjective
survey data. There would be no point in including survey questions about the
exercise of practical wisdom because the perceptions people have about the
quality of decisions they make is often a poor guide to actual decision quality.
A person of deficient character or limited understanding may feel entirely
satisfied with their choices while lacking the practical wisdom required to
make good choices.
Comparing opportunities using composite indexes
In deciding what to measure, it seems to me to be
particularly important to understand the purposes for which measurements are
being made. The overview of the GFS states:
“What we measure shapes what we discuss, what we know, what we aim for and the policies put in place to achieve those aims. We hope that the GFS itself, and the understandings that arise from it, will shift discussion and policy toward the promotion of flourishing” (VanderWeele, 2025, p.647).
That may be true, but it may also be a recipe for futile or
counterproductive government interventions.
It seems to me that the central importance of practical
wisdom to individual flourishing provides a strong reason to be modest about
the ability of governments to promote human flourishing. The most governments
can do is to influence opportunities available. The way individuals respond to
those opportunities rests in their own hands.
It is important to
recognize that governments can have a profound impact on the opportunities for
human flourishing. One of the most important contributions they can make is to
reduce the negative impacts of their policies.
In Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I
identified five basic goods of a flourishing human:
·
Wise and well-informed self-direction
·
Health and longevity
·
Positive relationships
·
Living in harmony with nature
·
Psychological well-being (Bates, 2021).
I noted that it is possible to teach people about the
virtues of wise and well-informed self-direction, but it is doubtful that
anyone has ever learned to exercise much practical wisdom in the management of
their lives without having to accept responsibility for the choices they make. From
a public policy perspective, it makes more sense to focus on the opportunities of
people to exercise self-direction than to attempt to measure the quality of
choices that they make. That is why I focused on objective measures of liberty
in discussing opportunities for self-direction (Bates, 2021, pp. 65-6).
In considering opportunities for health and longevity, I
argued that objective data on healthy life expectancy is a better indicator than
self-reported health of differing prospects for individuals a long and healthy
life in different countries (Bates, 2021, pp. 67-8).
Subjective data on levels of trust were suggested to measure
differing opportunities for people to have positive relationships with others
(Bates, 2021, pp. 68-9).
I discussed the complex relationships between economic
growth and opportunities to live in harmony with nature (Bates, 2021, pp. 70-73).
Subjective data (WHR life evaluation) was used to indicate differing
opportunities for people to enjoy psychological wellbeing (Bates, 2021, pp.
74-5).
Other researchers have also seen merit in using a mixture of
subjective and objective indicators in making international comparisons of opportunities
to flourish. The OECD’s Better
Life Index is an example of a composite index that incorporates both
objective and subjective components.
Conclusion
The scatter chart that opens this essay poses a genuine
puzzle: why do country rankings of the Global Flourishing Study and World Happiness
Report diverge so sharply? This essay has argued that the divergence reflects
real limitations in both instruments rather than a straightforward vindication
of either. Subjective survey data is susceptible to comparison-basis problems —
the implicit standards people use when evaluating their lives vary by culture,
context, and the framing of preceding questions — and these problems are
considerably more serious for international comparisons than for within-country
research. The Cantril ladder's self-anchoring design offers some protection
against the imposition of culturally specific conceptions of flourishing, and
its results have reasonable face validity when set alongside objective
indicators of living standards and liberty. But whether people in different
countries anchor the ladder's endpoints in comparable ways remains an open
empirical question.
The more fundamental difficulty is philosophical. Both the
GFS and the WHR treat subjective self-assessment as the primary evidence of
flourishing. Aristotle, whose conception of eudaimonia inspired modern
flourishing research, would have been skeptical of this. Flourishing in the
Aristotelian sense is not simply a matter of feeling satisfied with one's life;
it requires the exercise of practical wisdom — the intelligent, well-informed
management of one's life in pursuit of genuine goods. People's perceptions of
the quality of their choices are often unreliable guides to whether they are
actually exercising such wisdom. This is not a limitation that better survey
design can overcome; it reflects something important about the nature of
flourishing itself.
These considerations point toward a more modest and
pluralistic approach to international comparisons. Objective indicators — of
liberty, healthy life expectancy, trust, and material security — can identify
the opportunities available to people in different countries to lead
flourishing lives. Subjective data retains value, particularly for tracking
trends within countries over time. What neither approach can do is measure the
quality of the choices individuals make within the opportunities available to
them. That, in the end, is for individuals themselves to determine — which is
precisely why the central policy implication of an Aristotelian perspective is
not the promotion of flourishing by governments, but the protection and
expansion of the conditions under which people can flourish for themselves.
References
Bates, Winton Russell, Freedom, Progress, and Human
Flourishing (Hamilton Books, 2021).
Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Douglas B. Rasmussen, The Perfectionist
Turn (Edinburgh University Press, 2016).
Kim, Eric S. et. al. “Mapping demographic variations in sense
of mastery across the world a cross-national analysis of 22 countries in the
global flourishing study”, Scientific Reports, 15 (2025).
Lomas, T. et. al. “Exploring associations of three
evaluative subjective wellbeing measures (Cantril's ladder, life satisfaction,
happiness) with 15 childhood and demographic factors across 22 countries”, Scientific
Reports, 16, (2026).
VanderWeele, T. J. et. al. “The Global Flourishing Study:
Study profile and initial results on flourishing”, Nature Mental Health,
3(6) (2025) pp. 636–653.
