A Sociology of Happiness: Japanese Perspectives

Written by the sociologists at Kwansei Gakuin University who are engaged in 'Social Research for the Enhancement of Human Well-being,' this study explores issues of happiness from a wide variety of sociological perspectives. It includes: a meta-analysis of suffering; an axiomatic approach to constructing an index for measuring social suffering from an utilitarian perspective; a proposal for a new qualitative methodology for social science research; a Nietzschean analysis of happiness; a proposal to codify linguistic rights drawing on notions of the universal right to pursue well-being; an analysis of the role of folklore in articulating a society's implicit understandings of happiness and suffering; a critical exploration of the impact of social surveillance on happiness; and a clinical sociological approach to happiness and unhappiness.