Scientific social responsibility and happiness

Coulmas, Florian

Published

Scientific social responsibility and happiness

This paper presents an argument against submitting to market forces in scientific research. It discusses science as an activity that plays an important role in the process of social reproduction, raising the question of how the objects of inquiry, methods and theories should be determined so as to serve the public good. The scientific study of happiness is adduced as an illustration of contradictions that arise between the imperatives of freedom of science and the free market.