The Science of Happiness: Professor Peter Hacker

The neuroscience and the psychology of happiness have flourished in the last decade or so, and its results, duly garbled, are often in the popular press. A topic of such wide interest and importance merits careful scrutiny. Any scientific investigation presupposes a conceptual framework that sets the boundaries of truth AND falsehood, transgression of which generates sentences of questionable sense. So the neuroscience of happiness, as well as the psychology of happiness, disregard conceptual questions at their peril. What precisely is meant by ‘happiness’? How is it related to contentment, absence of discontent, enjoyment, or being pleased? Or are these distinctions irrelevant to science? Can happiness be quantified? Can one operationalise happiness in order to squeeze it into a format manageable with current neuroscientific technology? Are happiness and misery equipollent? These are some of the questions Professor Hacker will consider in examining the neuroscience of happiness in its contemporary form. The answers will be of interest not only to those in the narrow domain, but anyone concerned with examining the conceptual coherence of hypothetical models in neuroscience as a necessary preliminary to empirical study. Following the lecture there will be an opportunity to ask questions on this and related topics.
 HOST: Parashkev Nachev
A 45 minute lecture will be succeeded by an equal time of discussion.