Educational Research - the Ethics and Aesthetics of Statistics

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202 R. Smith self-esteem, happiness or well-being as essentially forms of the same thing. The kind of work that needs to be done here is at least as much philosophical as it is statistical. We need to think more carefully about the kinds of self-esteem that are built on a realistic appraisal of the world, and the kinds that consist of little more than a transient ‘feeling good’, brought about perhaps by psychological manipulation (Smith, 2002). Happiness, in turn, is neither monolithic nor an unalloyed good: the more lasting and profound pleasures do not bring happiness of the same kind as moments of joy or the shorted-lived delight caused by eating a good meal (or ingesting other substances). The higher pleasures need to be distinguished from the lower ones, and that work is irreducibly philosophical, as John Stuart Mill taught us (Mill, 1863). As for trust, that other crucial intermediary in Wilkinson’s and Pickett’s account, we need an analysis of trust that at the least allows us to make a distinction between trust and the various kinds of scepticism. Without scepticism there would have been no Cartesian radical doubt and thought since the seventeenth century would have taken a very different direction. With more scepticism, on the other hand, there might have been no invasion of Iraq. If – to take a topical example from the UK – trust in Members of Parliament and bankers is at a record low, it is not obvious that it is more trust that is needed. We find these issues explored in Onora O’Neill’s 2002 BBC Reith Lectures (O’Neill, 2002): the exploration is again philosophical, as it is bound to be. The more we try to address the causal relationships between inequality of income and other elements of our social lives the more we find ourselves trying to understand just what it is – trust, status, self-esteem, solidarity – that ‘gets under the skin’, as the title of Chapter 3 has it. But the more we seek such understanding the more we see that it is ideas such as trust and so on that are crucial. It is a fuller and more sophisticated insight into these ideas that we need, rather than yet another graph or set of statistics to clinch the matter once and for all. If I conclude that Wilkinson and Pickett’s book is best read as a reminder of where more philosophical work needs to be done, that is not meant to be faint praise; it is a way of indicating how epidemiology and philosophy can work fruitfully together. Wilkinson and Pickett thought of calling their book Evidence-Based Politics (p. ix): the glitter of statistics and the reassurance that some people find in possibilities of ‘objective measurement’ must not be allowed to obscure the fact that philosophical thinking is evidence too, and evidence that, on the showing of the examples treated in this chapter, we clearly need. Notes 1. ‘This is the most comprehensive and state-of-the-art work on the measurement of love. It includes descriptions of a theoretical paradigm and two love models, a common mythological framework for theory development and evaluation, an introduction to over 40 theories for love development, maintenance, and dissolution, the integration of research principles and strategies, the compilation of 26 popularly used scales, and illustrations of three empirical research programs in measuring love and intimate relations. The compilation of scales provides information on purpose, function, constructs, psychometric properties, subject response formats,
13 A Bubble for the Spirit Level: Metricophilia, Rhetoric and Philosophy 203 and actual measurement items’. Retrieved 7 February 2010 from http://www.greenwood.com/ catalog/C4273.aspx 2. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/13/happiness-enlightenment-econo mics-philosophy/print. Retrieved 5 February 2010. 3. Retrieved 2 November 2009, from http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm 4. The paragraph reads, in full: The information relevant to valuing quality of life goes beyond people’s self-reports and perceptions to include measures of their ‘functionings’ and freedoms. In effect, what really matters are the capabilities of people, that is, the extent of their opportunity set and of their freedom to choose among this set, the life they value. The choice of relevant functionings and capabilities for any quality of life measure is a value judgment, rather than a technical exercise. But while the precise list of the features affecting quality of life inevitably rests on value judgments, there is a consensus that quality of life depends on people’s health and education, their everyday activities (which include the right to a decent job and housing), their participation in the political process, the social and natural environment in which they live, and the factors shaping their personal and economic security. Measuring all these features requires both objective and subjective data. The challenge in all these fields is to improve upon what has already been achieved, to identify gaps in available information, and to invest in statistical capacity in areas (such as time-use) where available indicators remain deficient. 5. The graphs appear on pp. 82 (infant deaths), 148 (prisoners), 93 (obesity) and 52 (trust). References Cigman, R. (2004). Situated self-esteem. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38, 91–105. Easterlin, R. A. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In P. A. David & M. W. Reder (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honour of Moses Abramovitz (pp. 89–125). New York: Academic. Elkins, G. R. & Smith, D. (1979). Meaning and measurement of love: A review of humanistic and behavioral approaches. Humanist Educator, 18, 7–12. Feinstein, A. R. (1988, March 10). Scientific standards in epidemiologic studies of the menace of daily life. Science, 243(4896), 1255–1256. Gunnell, J. G. (2009). Can social science be just? Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 39, 595–621. Lamiell, J. T. (2009). Why was there no place for personalistic thinking in 20th century psychology? New Ideas in Psychology. Retrieved February 5, 2010, from doi:10.1016/j. newideapsych.2009.02.008 Layard, R. (2005). Annexes to ‘happiness’. Retrieved February 5, 2010, from http://cep. lse.ac.uk/layard/annex.pdf Layard, R. (2009). This is the greatest good. The Guardian, 13 Sept. Lyotard, J. -F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Mill, J. S. (1863) Utilitarianism. Online. Retrieved February 5, 2010, from http://www. constitution.org/jsm/utilitarianism.htm Ness, R. B., & Rothenberg, R. (2007, December 12). Critique of epidemiology: Changing the terms of the debate. Annals of Epidemiology, 17, 1011–1012. Nietzsche, F. (1990). Beyond good and evil (R. J. Hollingdale, Trans.). London: Penguin. Offer, A. (2006). The challenge of affluence: Self-control and well-being in the United States and Britain since 1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Neill, O. (2002). A question of trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Earlier Volumes in this Series Educ
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viii Contents 10 The Good, the Beau
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42 M. Depaepe Schneider, J. (2010).
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44 J.J.H. Dekker (see Section 4.4).
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46 J.J.H. Dekker from their own par
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48 J.J.H. Dekker a cohort study tha
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