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3

Enabling Conditions and Thresholds

To pursue happiness is to pursue the good we seek as an end in itself, that thing which, realized, expresses itself as justified satisfaction with life as a whole. The object of government is to provide a framework within which people—all people, of all temperaments and talents—can pursue happiness. The question remains: What does any of this have to do with practicalities, not social philosophy?

As a way of framing the question, I will use the notion of “enabling conditions.” As the name implies, an enabling condition does not cause something to happen (governments do not make people happy), it permits something to happen (governments behave in ways that leave people able to be happy). And so with specific policies: Government policies affect the conditions that enable people to pursue happiness and thereby may be considered effective or ineffective, good or bad, efficient or inefficient. Why are food stamps good? One reason might be that food stamps are good because they keep people from starving. The very practical, down-to-earth proposition is that you can’t pursue happiness if you’re starving. Hardly anyone will disagree. Stated more formally as an enabling condition,

It is impossible to pursue happiness without a certain amount of material resources.

This seems self-evident—enough so, at any rate, that it makes sense to inquire how social policy interacts with this enabling condition. What does the policy called food stamps have to do with the enabling condition involving “enough” material resources to pursue happiness? And having asked that question, it then makes sense to ask (still sticking to the very practical issues involved) what “enough” might mean.

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With material resources, I began with the most obvious of all enabling conditions. As soon as one pushes further, the room for disagreement increases. One quickly reaches possible “enabling conditions” that some will find marginal, irrelevant, or conceptually redundant with the conditions that have already been defined. I have no interest in pushing the limits. Anyone who wants to develop a definitionally taut, orthogonal set of enabling conditions for happiness is welcome to try to do so; I will not. The objective is not to set up an internally consistent intellectual system but to ask how some obviously important enabling conditions of happiness relate to day-to-day life and day-to-day social policy in the United States of America in the latter part of the twentieth century. For this task, we have an excellent conceptualization already available, and I draw upon it for organizing the succeeding chapters.

Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy

In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow published an article entitled “A Theory of Human Motivation,” which argued that human needs fall into a few basic categories arranged in a hierarchy.¹ At the most primitive level, man needs to survive. Withhold food from a man, and food will be what he most wants; for him, utopia is a place with enough food. “Freedom, love, community feeling, respect, philosophy, all may be waved aside as fripperies which are useless since they fail to fill the stomach. Such a man may fairly be said to live by bread alone.”²

When enough food is available, utopia stops being a place with enough food. Other needs surface. “A want that is satisfied is no longer a want. The organism is dominated and its behavior organized only by unsatisfied needs.”³ Maslow identified five categories of need and ranked them in this order:

 Physiological needs (food, water, shelter, sex).

 The need for safety (predictability, order, protection from physical harm).

 The need for intimacy (belongingness, friendship, relationships with spouse and children).

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 The need for esteem (self-respect, recognition, and respect from others).

 The need for self-actualization (expressing one’s capacities, fulfilling one’s potential).

Maslow argued that these needs are met roughly in the order listed. People whose basic physiological needs have not been met are absorbed first in satisfying them, then in ensuring their safety, then in forming intimate relationships of love and friendship, then in attaining self-esteem, and finally in fulfilling their special potentialities. This order is not immutably fixed (and is not important to this discussion in any case). People trade elements of one good for elements of another, people value different goods differently, but such is the general sequence.

Maslow went on to become a major figure in psychology, with a controversial body of work that extends far beyond his original needs hierarchy. My use of Maslow is limited to this: He provides a useful way of organizing an unwieldy discussion. Taken together, his five categories are a capitulation of the enabling conditions for the pursuit of happiness—which is to say, if all of them were met, it is difficult to see how a person could claim that he was prevented by external conditions from pursuing happiness.

I have adapted them for purposes of this discussion under the chapter headings of material resources (corresponding to physiological needs), safety (safety needs), and self-respect (esteem needs). The discussion of self-actualization has been folded into a somewhat broader topic that embraces as well the concept of intrinsic rewards—taken together and dispensing with jargon, the label “enjoyment” is as good as any.

Omissions

I have omitted a separate discussion of the need for “belongingness” and intimacy in this part of the book not because social policy is irrelevant (quite the contrary), but for two other reasons. First, some of the most important ways in which social policy enables people to form intimate relationships with others are through the other enabling conditions, especially self-respect (self-respect being

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an enabling condition not only for happiness in general but also for the development of relationships with others in particular). Second, I will be arguing much later in the book that the formation of “little platoons” (chap. 12) is the nexus within which the pursuit of happiness is worked out. What Maslow calls the need for belongingness is not just one of the needs, it is the key for meeting the others as well.

Before leaving the list of enabling conditions, a few comments about two obvious missing ones. What about human needs for freedom? Justice? Maslow argues that they are not separate categories, but rather “preconditions for basic need satisfactions.”⁴ It is perhaps an indication of the underlying coherence of Maslow’s system that, despite my own predisposition to treat freedom as an enabling condition and the disposition of many other commentators on social policy to treat justice as an independent enabling condition, it turns out to be awkward to do so. Few of us wake up in the morning looking forward to the day because we are free or live in a just society. We are much more likely to wake up looking forward to the day (if we are so fortunate) because of other things that freedom and justice have made possible—they are the enabling conditions of the enabling conditions, if you will. In a book about the felt satisfactions of life, freedom and justice seem to be examples of things that from day to day are good for a wide variety of other things and are better discussed in that context.

The Strategy for the Discussion

For the next four chapters of this book about public policy, I ask that you temporarily forget about specific policies. In fact, the key to this enterprise is precisely not thinking about policies (which we will begin to do instead in part 3) and instead concentrating on what it is we want to accomplish regarding each of the enabling conditions, ignoring for the time being how to do so through government programs and largely ignoring even whether it is possible to accomplish such things through government programs. We have identified (I am asking you to agree) four extremely important enabling conditions for the pursuit of happiness: material resources, safety, self-respect, and “enjoyment.” Perhaps public policy can contribute a great deal to the

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achievement of these conditions, perhaps not. We don’t know yet, because we haven’t yet thought about what the conditions consist of. When a person is living in a situation where the enabling conditions have been met—where he has “enough” material resources, safety, self-respect, and access to enjoyment to pursue happiness—what will be the characteristics of each of those states of affairs?

THRESHOLDS

My general strategy will be to superimpose upon the concept of “enabling condition” the concept of “threshold.” To illustrate, consider the role of food as an element in the enabling condition “material resources.” Has anyone been happy while starving? Only, one may assume, under the most extraordinary circumstances. Has anyone been happy while having only a Spartan diet, with little variety but adequate nutrition? Of course; it happens all the time. There is a threshold before which it is nearly impossible to pursue happiness, after which the pursuit of happiness becomes readily possible. The first question to ask of enabling conditions will be, Is there a threshold state and, if so, where does it lie? Is there such a thing as “enough” material resources to enable one to pursue happiness? “Enough” safety? “Enough” self-respect? “Enough” enjoyment?

An intuitive first response is that surely there is not such a thing as “enough” of these goods that can be defined concretely or generalized across all people. But that really amounts to saying that “threshold” can be a complex concept, not that thresholds do not exist. For example, continuing the food example, don’t people who have a wide variety of foods tend to enjoy life more than people who must live on beans, other things being equal? The answer is probably “yes,” if “enjoyment” is understood to mean “pleasure,” and given the multitude of exceptions that are wiped away by that catchall, “other things being equal.” But it is just as obvious that there are limits. At some point along the diet continuum from “beans and rice” to “every food in the world,” the correlation between “access to amount and variety of food” to “ability to pursue happiness” drops to zero. Such a thing as a threshold exists, though we defer the question of where it is to be found.

Or consider the case of a person for whom good food provides the rewards that Bach provides for a music lover. Is his threshold the same

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as for the person who hardly notices what he is eating? In one sense the gourmet’s threshold is different: The appreciation of food is for him a significant source of aesthetic enjoyment, whereas it is not for the indifferent eater. But in another sense his threshold is the same: If tomorrow the gourmet is told by his doctor to subsist on a few bland foods for his health, he can nonetheless continue to pursue happiness (even though he has been deprived of an important source of enjoyment), just as the indifferent eater can.

An examination of the threshold state and whether one exists will lead us to other kinds of analyses. For example, suppose there is a clear-cut threshold condition (a point below which happiness cannot be pursued and above which it can) but it differs widely among people. In this case, it becomes critically important that social policy maximize the ability of each person to put himself in a situation satisfactory to his own needs. Now, in contrast, imagine that there is no threshold condition for anyone, but instead everyone agrees that more is better: If you have two units of X, you are better able to pursue happiness than with one unit of X, and this holds true for all values of X. In such a case, social policy should be more concerned about pumping out an endless supply of this magic good and seeing that it is equitably distributed than with allowing people to seek their own level.

WHY NO MORE THAN ENABLE?

It may seem a minimalist approach to policy—just to “enable” people to do something (why not go further, and help them do it?), to worry just about reaching a “threshold” (why not go beyond, and supply a plenitude?). But the minimalism is intrinsic, not arbitrary. To understand the perspective of the chapters that follow, it is essential to understand first of all that when the topic is the pursuit of happiness, “enable” is as far as the government can go.

In the world of public policy that the television networks describe every evening on the news, governments face choices of how much to do, because the policies that get talked about the most are policies based on problems. A problem is shown—a flood in Pennsylvania, homelessness in Manhattan, traffic congestion in the skies, a scientific finding that a certain level of radon is dangerous—and always there is the question, What is the government going to do about it? Is it going

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to stand idly by? Reconsider its position? Invoke its powers? Propose new legislation? Increase the number of flight controllers? Issue new federal regulations?

Generally, the possible responses are characterized as choices among things to be done. The more primitive option—“doing something” versus “doing nothing”—is irrelevant for most issues. The fire department may choose to send one or two or three engines to a fire, based on an assessment of how many are needed to put out the fire. But the fire chief does not mull over each fire alarm, deciding whether to respond at all.

In such cases, it is appropriate to think in terms of the government “doing a little” versus “doing a lot.” The public may debate whether the fire department should institute a fire prevention program or require fire drills or add paramedics to its fire-fighting teams. People may argue for a stripped-down fire department or an extensive one. Similarly, people may argue over the size of a road-building program, the scope of a Medicaid program, the eligibility rules for government-paid scholarships to colleges. In all such cases, governments have open to them the choice of doing a lot or a little.

But now consider the question, “How much should the government do to help people pursue happiness?” At first, it sounds reasonable: Surely the government has, in this case as well, choices to make about how much to do. Won’t expanding the scholarship program (for example) do more to help people pursue happiness by expanding educational opportunity? But on reflection, that example does not refute the proposition that governments can only enable people to pursue happiness. An expanded scholarship program enables more people to pursue happiness (by expanding the number of people who are enabled to pursue happiness through access to education). But the “how much” question would have to be phrased in terms of the magnitude of aid available to a given individual: Does a government that provides full scholarships “do more” to help a given person pursue happiness than a government that provides half scholarships? If that’s the case, does providing a personal tutor for each recipient do more than not providing a tutor? And if that’s the case, does . . . But the point, a simple one, should be clear. People pursue happiness, governments cannot. The thing called “educational opportunity” always has to be

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transmuted by the individual who gets the opportunity into the process called “the pursuit of happiness.” It can never be the thing-itself. And, while different people respond in different ways, it is intuitively obvious that at some point (for now, never mind where) the government will no longer be doing more to help people pursue happiness by providing them with ever more lavish educational services more tenderly provided. It will be doing less.

And so with all governmental functions in their relationship to the pursuit of happiness. If a government chooses to build a lot of roads, it may build a lot of roads. If it chooses to treat a lot of sick people, it may treat a lot of sick people. But if it chooses to “help people pursue happiness a lot,” it can only go so far. It may not choose to pursue happiness on behalf of anyone. That must remain the quintessentially personal, undelegatable task of life. The government can “do as much as it can” to enable, but it can do no more than enable.

This is not necessarily equivalent to “government should do as little as possible.” Rather, it is a question of choosing the things to do. Consider by way of analogy the work of a park ranger responsible for maintaining a hiking trail through a wilderness area. His work is curiously contradictory. The people who use his trail have certain expectations—they do not come prepared for a Special Forces survival course—and so if he does his job right, the footpaths will be maintained. Perhaps there will be a guardrail at a treacherous spot. But when the guidebook specifies that backpackers who take a certain trail should be on the lookout for grizzlies, he will do them no favors if he goes out and shoots the grizzlies. If a trail is rated as a rough and rocky climb, he will do them no favors by smoothing and paving the trail. And when it comes to the land off the trails, the whole point of his job is to protect it, not to alter it—which in turn can involve delicate tasks that require the ranger to expend a great deal of effort so that as little as possible is changed.

The park ranger’s job is to prepare the wilderness so that it enables people to enjoy visiting a wilderness area—and there is no way in the world he can do an iota more than that. In describing the details of his job, the question is not how much is done, but choosing the things to be done and then determining whether those things are done right.

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“Enabling” applies to any activity in which the doing is the thing. I could have evoked as appropriately the preparation of other kinds of facilities—a play perhaps, or a party. Sometimes the preparers have a lot of work to do (designing the set, preparing the lighting), sometimes their work consists of doing nothing with forethought (choosing the right mix of guests and then standing aside). The question is not how much the preparers do, but whether they do it right. Does the stage manager enable the actors to give a good performance, does the host enable the guests to have a good time? And that is what I will be asking about the human activity that is most thoroughly a case of “the doing is the thing,” the pursuit of happiness: What does enabling consist of, and (in very general terms in this part of the book) how might these understandings affect what government does?

Often I will be suggesting that the things that are not done, the areas in which policy consists of deliberately refraining from action, are as critically important to enabling the pursuit of happiness as the things that policy actively tries to do. Or to return to the original analogy, I will be asking you to consider a world in which the fire department leaves certain types of fires unattended, not because it has too little equipment but because it would be a bad idea to put out the fire.

It is not such a radical thought—I am surrounded at this moment by hundreds of fires in my neighborhood that the fire department is ignoring and that everyone agrees the fire department should ignore. There’s one a few feet away from me, keeping my coffee warm. In the case of fires, of course, we all know that fire departments are for putting out uncontrolled fires and there is no need to specify that fires in stoves and furnaces don’t count. But the example calls attention to the peculiar problem facing this particular book on policy: In deciding what constitutes a good “policy for putting out fires,” one first has to decide what fires one wants put out. In the case of fire departments, the decision rules are obvious; that’s why we don’t have to think about them. In the case of pursuing happiness, the decision rules are not so obvious. The purpose of the four chapters that follow is to think about decision rules before thinking about policy. This still leaves room for saying that governments should “do a lot” or “do a little”—but only once we have decided what needs to be done.