There is evidence that happiness has been
widely viewed as of fundamental importance
for many centuries in Bhutan. According to
Jigmi Thinley, the 1729 legal code of Bhutan
‘stressed that laws should promote happiness
of the sentient beings’ (Thinley 2007:4). This
long history of emphasis on the goal of happiness
is consistent with the view that it is central
to Buddhist teaching.2 In writing about the
history of Bhutan, John Ardussi notes that as
in other Himalayan states where traditional
Tibetan cultural values held sway, ‘it was the
declared obligation of the civil head of state to
maintain law and order so that its subjects
could devote themselves to leading a moral
life and strive for a better rebirth in the
next’ (Ardussi 2005). Similar sentiments about
ensuring necessary conditions for a moral
life have also been influential in European
history. Darrin McMahon notes that St Thomas
Aquinas ‘recognized the necessity of means
to promote higher ends. It was difficult to do
good in the world when one was starving or
sick, difficult to give alms without alms to give,
difficult to live a life of contemplation without
the basic necessities of life fulfilled’ (McMahon
2006:132).
The modern view that the state should strive
to promote conditions that will promote happiness
of citizens is based on a widely shared
value judgement that what promotes human