Happiness and the Biopolitics of Knowledge: From the Contemplative Lifestyle to the Economy of Well-Being and Back Again

2.1 Aristotle on Happiness and Contemplation

First of all, it is crucial to explain what the contemplative model of happiness and knowledge entails. Aristotle’s conception of happiness and knowledge can function as a source of inspiration to define some of the structural characteristics of the contemplative lifestyle that serve the purposes of this article. As my approach to Aristotelian texts will be predominantly conceptual, a few caveats are necessary from the outset to qualify the specific scope and aim of the following analysis, which does not intend to provide yet another interpretation of Aristotelian ethics. This article does not take a nostalgic look at Aristotle. Accordingly, adopting his conception of happiness and knowledge as a starting point does not involve considering it the ideal of the happy life that has been lost and to which we should strive to return. As explained especially in Section 5, Aristotle’s views on happiness and knowledge cannot be transplanted tout court into the twenty-first century and presented as a norm. Such an attempt would be not only anachronistic but also pretentious. His theory is obviously symptomatic of a particular philosophy in a particular society in a particular epoch. Nonetheless, Aristotle can help us to relativize the economistic and instrumental view of happiness and knowledge that is currently predominant in the Western world. More importantly, Aristotle establishes essential traits of the contemplative lifestyle that do not necessarily depend on his distinctive philosophical theories. They also occur in other ancient and modern conceptions^[3] and are mutatis mutandis still applicable in today’s society, as argued in Section 5.

The following reconstruction of Aristotle’s views on happiness and knowledge draws particular attention to the question of materiality. By “materiality,” I mean the inherent epistemic, ethical, and political embeddedness that defines human lifestyles. This point is crucial to the arguments of this article as both the fundamental difference and the possible co-existence between the contemplative model and the economistic and instrumental model depend on how happiness and knowledge are treated in relation to the materiality of human life.^[4]

2.2 The Materiality of Contemplation

Aristotle asserts that human nature is inherently imperfect, and it thereby prevents us from achieving happiness in its purest form.^[5] Happiness proper belongs exclusively to the divine,^[6] to the extent that it is constantly thinking itself and does not depend on the materiality that inherently characterizes human life.^[7] We can therefore differentiate divine contemplation from human contemplation.^[8] Human contemplation as happiness is ultimately embedded in that materiality, which can be articulated conceptually as epistemic, ethical, and political materiality. Those material conditions cannot be eliminated completely as they define our own human nature. Importantly, as we will see, human contemplation itself requires to a certain degree material resources as its conditions of possibility. In sum, divine contemplation is an ideal we should strive to achieve as much as is humanly possible.^[9]

Epistemic materiality reveals the embeddedness of human contemplation in cognitive factors that are bodily in nature. Aristotle is clearly aware of the embodiment of all forms of human knowledge, including abstract thinking. In a nutshell, human contemplation is never pure as it necessarily relies on lower cognitive factors, that is, perception and imagination,^[10] which presuppose the body. The purest form of contemplation is therefore not attainable for humans, because we are also bodies, from which we cannot separate ourselves. This point is what in essence forms the question of the relationship between potential intellect and active intellect,^[11] which haunted philosophers and theologians for centuries. Human contemplation lies in the most abstract knowledge that can be humanly achieved. We should strive to achieve as much abstract thinking as possible, because real science lies in grasping the principles of phenomena.^[12] However, we cannot dispense with the inherent materiality that defines our knowledge. In other words, we cannot form abstract thoughts without perception and imagination. Compared with divine knowledge and thinking, such materiality can certainly be viewed as an undesirable hindrance. Nonetheless, if we adopt a Kantian viewpoint, we can also argue that epistemic materiality is “a condition of the possibility” of human knowledge. As Kant’s famous dictum reads, “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”^[13]

Ethical materiality concerns the specific lifestyle (βίος, bios) that we must adopt if we want to pursue happiness. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle famously distinguishes between various lifestyles, which he associates with both different goals and various forms of happiness or pseudo-happiness. He differentiates “the contemplative life” from other ways of living, that is, “the political life,” which aims at honor and excellence, “the life of enjoyment,” which pursues pleasure, and “the life of money-making,” which strives for wealth.^[14] Importantly, he also underlines that we cannot adopt the contemplative lifestyle if we lack practical wisdom (phronēsis).^[15] We can interpret this point by saying that practical wisdom is needed to create the conditions that make a contemplative lifestyle possible. Contemplation as such is not involved in human matters, as the highest forms of abstract thinking and science concern the principles of reality, which are not contingent on, or influenced by, the human reality.^[16] Nonetheless, performing human contemplation and attaining the knowledge of principles do not happen in a vacuum. As we are also bodies and our life is also embedded in personal and social relations, practical wisdom is needed to prevent the social embeddedness of our existence from disturbing contemplation. However, the social materiality of human contemplation is not merely an obstacle. As Aristotle also clearly states, “the wise man, even when by himself, can contemplate truth, and the better the wiser he is; he can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers, but still he is the most self-sufficient.”^[17]

Aristotle’s account of the political conditions that characterize human contemplation as happiness is highly symptomatic of the Greek society of the fourth century BC. Pursuing human contemplation presupposes a certain political materiality, that is, a particular organization of society and power relations that allows a few individuals to devote time and energy to the contemplative lifestyle. Aristotle points this out both diachronically and synchronically. When outlining a brief history of the evolution of human knowledge,^[18] he underscores that pursuing knowledge for its own sake is only possible once the basic material “necessities of life” are dealt with. This happened, for example, in Ancient Egypt.^[19] Human contemplation as happiness therefore presupposes a division of labor, which also involves a class division and specific power relationships. This means that human beings who do not (or are not enabled to) commit themselves to contemplation will never achieve the highest form of human happiness.

The question of materiality is also relevant to Aristotle’s differentiation of the various disciplines and types of knowledge. When dividing disciplines into three different groups (productive, practical, and theoretical disciplines), he arranges them hierarchically according to their respective degree of materiality.^[20] Productive disciplines, which rely on technical or technological knowledge, aim at the production of tangible outcomes that lie outside the process of production itself; they comprise not only all forms of craftsmanship but also, for example, medicine and what in modernity has been called “fine arts.” Practical disciplines and practical knowledge concern the organization of individual and collective human life; in other words, they include ethics and political philosophy (today, we would also say: political theory and/or political science). The specific characteristic of practical knowledge is that its goal does not lie in a tangible product; it rather concerns how to live both collectively and individually. The differentiation made by Aristotle between productive (or technical) disciplines and practical disciplines can also be rephrased as follows: productive (or technical) disciplines and their knowledge are defined by a greater degree of materiality than practical disciplines; the latter are therefore superior to the former. Theoretical disciplines and theoretical knowledge (physics, mathematics, first philosophy or metaphysics), that is, science proper, are superior to practical disciplines and practical knowledge insofar as they are more abstract and not instrumental in managing the contingent social and political life of humans. They are pursued for their own sake and are defined by a greater freedom from material necessities and aims. The contemplative lifestyle is therefore viewed as an end in itself.^[21]

4.1 The Biopolitical Horizon of the Economy of Well-Being

The economy of well-being is a typical manifestation of what Foucault characterized as modern biopower.^[30] For the purposes of this article, it is important to underline the crucial relationship between the economy of well-being and a biopolitical approach to knowledge. This connection is the outcome of highly complex historical, social, political, and epistemic processes that spanned several centuries and cannot be addressed in this article. However, at least three factors must be mentioned briefly in this regard, that is, democracy, the triumph of science and technology, and capitalism. These three components are clearly interrelated. Scientific and technological knowledge is not an end in itself; it is not happiness either. It is rather the primary instrument that should enable us to achieve individual and collective happiness, by improving the quality of both our individual lives and the life of society as a whole. Scientific and technological knowledge and the widespread material prosperity promised by capitalism are interdependent and, in principle, no longer constitute the prerogative of a few individuals.^[31] In modern and contemporary Western societies, both knowledge and happiness therefore acquire an unprecedented social and political meaning. Pursuing happiness and well-being through science and technology has become an ideal shared by many intellectuals and governments. More importantly, this economistic and instrumental model of happiness and knowledge is quintessentially biopolitical because it has been implemented at the various levels that define biopolitical interventions in citizens’ lives, that is, discourses, policies, technologies, and lifestyles:^[32]

• Discourses. Discourses are the interpretive and normative frameworks that implicitly or explicitly articulate a certain vision of social and political reality. They define the meaning, truth, and acceptability of specific language games. Discourses inherently presuppose hierarchies to the extent that they are articulated by (political, religious, moral, epistemic, etc.) authorities.

• Policies. Policies are the institutional forms into which discourses translate. In other words, they are the manners in which authorities impose discourses. Policies comprise a vast array of statements, regulations, guidelines, norms, and codes that authorities issue and use to shape, guide, and manage individuals’ lifestyles.

• Technologies. Technologies are the instruments adopted by authorities to implement policies. They include a great variety of tools, such as a certain organization of time and space, cameras, gathering data and statistics, monitoring and tracking apps, checklists, assessments, examinations, diagnostic instruments, and a variety of tests.

• Lifestyles. Lifestyles are the manners in which individuals habitually think, feel, and act. Lifestyles define how they react to specific discourses, policies, and technologies. Possible reactions range from docile compliance to criticism, resistance, dissent, and disobedience. Individuals can to various degrees accept and interiorize a certain discourse, thereby obeying the policies issued by authorities and exposing themselves to the corresponding technologies. Alternatively, they can challenge a certain discourse in various manners and adopt lifestyles that resist or oppose those policies and technologies.

In the following sub-section, I will try to identify the biopolitics of knowledge in the EU policy on knowledge and happiness. It is in particular the idea of an “economy of well-being” that deserves a closer examination as it demonstrates the economic instrumentalization of knowledge and happiness that is pursued by EU institutions and policy-makers. Such economic instrumentalization is biopolitical in nature because it involves (i) a distinctive discourse about the fundamental aims of the European Union, (ii) a translation of those aims into concrete policies, which are implemented at various levels with the help of a diverse array of technologies (iii). They play a prominent role when it comes to governing (iv) the lifestyles of EU citizens, especially in educational contexts.

4.2 The Economy of Well-Being: The Case of the European Union

It has often been argued that the European Union is not (yet) a political construction as it remains a quintessentially economic entity. If the political nature of an entity derives from its sovereignty, then we can certainly agree that the EU is still an unaccomplished project as the process of its political integration to a great extent remains a desideratum. The fact that a fiscal union, an EU army, and a common foreign policy are still lacking provides sufficient evidence for this view. This should come as no surprise if we consider the relatively short history of the EU, whose embryo was indeed the industrial and economic organization of the European Coal and Steel Community. While the specific political mission and vision of the EU therefore remains a major point of contention, its biopolitical nature is not controversial. A brief examination of both the EU discourse and its policy documents demonstrates compellingly that the EU is a paradigmatic manifestation of what Michel Foucault famously characterized as biopolitical modernity,^[33] that is, an age in which political institutions increasingly seek to effectively intervene in, and manage, virtually all aspects of citizens’ lives for the sake of their well-being. The biopolitical nature of the EU comes to the fore in all domains of government intervention, such as water management, food security, and the promotion of healthy and sustainable lifestyles. For the purpose of this article, I will concentrate on the relationship between knowledge, education, and well-being. My aim is to point out the economic instrumentalization of happiness that underpins the EU biopolitics of knowledge.

The Treaty of Lisbon proclaims that “[t]he Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples,”^[34] thereby laying the foundation for the biopolitical horizon of the EU.^[35] The principle of the “well-being” of the EU “peoples” is far from a declaration of intent. It clearly and consistently translates into concrete policies aiming at both the macro-level of the EU populations and the micro-level of individual citizens, especially in the context of education, which is known to be a key domain of biopolitical intervention. In a significant resolution of the Council of the European Union, which is also clearly symptomatic of the particular issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we read, for example, that

[e]ducation and training have a vital role to play when it comes to shaping the future of Europe, at a time when it is imperative that its society and economy become more cohesive, inclusive, digital, sustainable, green and resilient, and for citizens to find personal fulfillment and well-being, to be prepared to adapt and perform on a changing labour market and to engage in active and responsible citizenship.^[36]

The document lays particular emphasis on the well-being of all parties involved in the educational process. It is important to understand how well-being is instrumentalized in this context. As far as teachers and trainers are concerned, it must be noted that well-being is presented not only as an end in itself, which comprises teachers’ “satisfaction,”^[37] but also as a key element that is vital to the quality of education provided by them.^[38] In other words, if teachers experience well-being, they teach better. The same idea applies to students. While the Council stresses the importance of facilitating the well-being of teachers – for example, by introducing and implementing policies that should reduce occupational stress and create an optimal working environment^[39] – it also mentions numerous issues that can harm the well-being of students and should therefore be addressed, especially the various forms of violence and discrimination that can take place in an educational context.^[40] If learners experience well-being, they learn better. The well-being of teachers and students is therefore viewed both as a condition and as a goal of education. It thus seems defined by what I would call a biopolitical circularity to the extent that the well-being of teachers improves the quality of teaching and gives them a sense of purpose (“satisfaction”); also, the well-being of students is fundamental to learning and includes at the same time their aim in terms of “personal fulfillment.”^[41] By increasing the productivity of both teachers and learners, well-being is ultimately crucial to economic growth. Remarkably, well-being affects the content of education as well, because teachers are also considered learners who must be trained to teach their students how “to live, work, and act towards sustainable development.”^[42]

In the context of the EU biopolitics of well-being, knowledge itself is not considered a mere end as it must rather serve as a means of making possible and facilitating the well-being of citizens. This perspective becomes apparent when we examine the policies concerning the European Research Area (ERA), which explicitly subscribe to the aim posited by Article 2 of the Treaty of Lisbon. The free circulation of “researchers, scientific knowledge and technology” and the support of “all research and innovation … activities” must be conducive to “peace, the Union’s values and the well-being of its peoples.”^[43] A key component of this vision is the idea of “knowledge valorisation,” which means translating knowledge “into sustainable products, services, solutions and knowledge-based policies that benefit society.”^[44] Knowledge valorization therefore becomes an integral part of research, which must also comprise “entrepreneurial practices, processes, competences and skills.”^[45] Researchers are explicitly expected to adopt an entrepreneurial attitude, thereby committing themselves to valorizing their research results. Two significant conceptual deviations from the contemplative model must be noted. Knowledge does not coincide with happiness. It is also devoid of an intrinsic value as it is not pursued for its own sake. Knowledge must be applicable to concrete problems and “benefit society.”

While the instrumental role of knowledge is abundantly clear in the EU policy documents and needs no further elaborations, the definition of well-being is less perspicuous. The EU Council’s conclusions on the economy of well-being can perhaps help to clarify the actual scope of the idea of well-being put forward by the Treaty of Lisbon:

People’s wellbeing is a principal aim of the European Union. The Economy of Wellbeing brings into focus the raison d’être of the Union as enshrined in the Treaties and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The creation of an environment that enables people to reach their full potential and to enjoy their fundamental rights is a central component of the Economy of Wellbeing. At the same time, sustainable and inclusive economic growth and resilience function as enablers for the wellbeing of people, societies and the planet.^[46]

The quote repeats the principle established by the Treaty of Lisbon but contains significant elucidations of the notion of well-being, which is described as “the raison d’être” of the EU biopolitical construction. Importantly, the passage also introduces a structural connection between well-being and economy. The primary aim of the EU is not simply well-being, whatever it may mean; it is rather well-being understood in economic terms. In other words, it is not so much well-being as the economy of well-being that constitutes “the raison d’être” of the EU. Compared with the Treaty of Lisbon, the passage seems to provide some more details about the nature of the envisaged well-being. Not only is the well-being of the EU people defined as a state or condition in which citizens are able “to reach their full potential and to enjoy their fundamental rights.” The economy of well-being is also portrayed as the management of the conditions that make well-being itself possible. Interestingly, the ambitious idea of well-being seems to acquire a cosmic scope insofar as it concerns not only the well-being of EU citizens but also that of “societies and the planet.”

At first, the relationship between economy and well-being seems sufficiently clear. Economy manages the “enablers” of well-being and seems to play a merely instrumental role. Upon closer examination, however, we easily realize that this is not the case at all. The fact that well-being is approached from an economic viewpoint illustrates the biopolitical discourse typical of the EU. Accordingly, the relation between well-being and economic growth is defined by a distinctive biopolitical circularity or, as they put it, by “the mutually reinforcing nature of wellbeing and economic growth.” The crucial passage that sheds light on the specific biopolitical scope of the economy of well-being reads as follows:

The Economy of Wellbeing is a policy orientation and governance approach which aims to put people and their wellbeing at the centre of policy and decision-making. While people’s wellbeing is a value in itself, the Economy of Wellbeing underlines the mutually reinforcing nature of wellbeing and economic growth. Taking wellbeing into account in all policies is vitally important to the Union’s economic growth, productivity, long-term fiscal sustainability and societal stability.^[47]

The passage makes crystal clear that well-being is not a higher value but is itself viewed as an enabler of economic growth. In other words, well-being itself plays an instrumental role in relation to the economy. To be more accurate, it is not simply the economy that matters in this context; it is rather economic growth that is central to the idea of the economy of well-being. This mutual implication of well-being and economy, which to a large extent corroborates Foucault’s thesis about the intrinsic relationship between biopolitics and capitalistic economy in modernity,^[48] is described as the basis of the economy of well-being.

The question here arises whether and to what extent such biopolitical interdependency, or circularity, is real. In this regard, we must first consider how policy documents further define well-being. The basic idea adopted by EU policy-makers, who are inspired by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) notion of “multi-dimensional well-being,”^[49] is that GDP does not suffice to define people’s well-being. As the OECD paper on the economy of well-being states, “policy-makers are not only promoting well-being as an intrinsic good, they are also investing in people’s potential as a key driver for long-term economic growth, societal resilience and stability.”^[50] Accordingly, four “policy areas” are vital to the economy of well-being, that is, “education and skills,” “health care,” “social protection and redistribution,” and “gender equality.”^[51] A brief look at the OECD well-being framework allows us to easily recognize the quintessentially biopolitical perspective that defines not only the “material conditions” of well-being – i.e., “income and wealth,” “jobs and earnings,” and “housing” – but also the components of the “quality of life” (i.e., “health status,” “work–life balance,” “education and skills,” “social connections,” “civic engagement and governance,” “environmental quality,” “personal security,” and “subjective well-being”).^[52] When the OECD paper specifies the key factors of the “sustainability of well-being over time,”^[53] its second list in no way deviates from a typical biopolitical, economistic, and managerial approach, and includes four items, that is, “natural capital,” “human capital,” “economic capital,” and “social capital.”^[54]

In terms of discourse, the two lists are indicative of the predominantly biopolitical view that pervades the idea of happiness as well-being. The first list includes various items that contribute to psycho-physical flourishing and material prosperity, which governments and institutions are expected to facilitate and manage. The second list is even more explicit as it openly discloses the crucial shift of discourses that is typical of the biopolitics of well-being. “Capital,” which is in the first place an exclusively economic concept, has been displaced and repurposed to articulate a completely new vision of life and happiness. It has been displaced because it is no longer a merely economic term. It is equally applied to nature, humans, economy, and society. Remarkably, the phrase “economic capital,” which would be redundant and pleonastic in the light of the original meaning of “capital,” now designates one of those key dimensions. At the same time, the concept of “capital” has been repurposed. The economistic view has been expanded to such an extent that it now encompasses all dimensions of life, including the sphere of nature. Displacing and repurposing the concept of “capital” ultimately means that it has been narrowed and widened at the same time. The crucial point is that the alleged “virtuous circle,” ^[55] or interdependence, of well-being and economic growth, which the OECD paper and EU policy documents explicitly posit as the foundation of the economy of well-being, is not symmetrical. The predominant approach remains economic. The natural, human, the economic (in a narrow sense), and the social are all integrated into the dimension of capital (i.e., the economic in the wide sense of the word). In other words, the phrase “the economy of well-being” does not refer to the specific domain of economy (in the narrow sense of the word) but rather to economy understood as the capital-oriented management of the natural, the human, the social, and the economic. Hannah Arendt’s reflections about the increasing economicization of the political and public life therefore seem fundamentally correct,^[56] even though a number of historical and conceptual objections have been levelled against it.^[57]

The EU biopolitical approach to knowledge, well-being, and economy is also pellucid when it comes to the idea of “A New Skills Agenda for Europe.”^[58] In the context of the economy of well-being, the knowledge individuals are expected to acquire is described in terms of “skills,” which should enable them to deal with the rapid and challenging transformations of contemporary society. Education and training, reduced to “skills,” must enable individuals to contribute to the economic growth of European society in particular. This economicization of knowledge also results in the emphasis placed on the entrepreneurial nature of skills. Entrepreneurship becomes an ideal that must be pursued by all citizens and is applicable to all domains of life, including the spheres that in pre-modern times were separated from the economy. At this juncture, we should recall what Paolo Virno has convincingly pointed out when explaining the real nature of biopolitics. According to Virno, the actual object of biopolitics is not so much life as “labor-power.”^[59] In accordance with his Marxist approach, Virno explains that labor-power is the capacity to work and encompasses intellectual skills, mental habits, behaviors, and communication skills.^[60] In other words, knowledge has now become the object of biopolitical management for the sake of productivity. Managing knowledge therefore means managing its embeddedness in both the body and the mind of a hybrid figure that lies at the intersection of the citizen, the worker, and the entrepreneur. This confirms Arendt’s description of the modern human being as an animal laborans, whose horizon is confined to the basic necessities of life and who is a member of a society of “laborers and jobholders.”^[61] Arendt is not the only thinker who drew attention to this epochal change that defined modernity. We also find similar diagnoses in thinkers such as Patočka and obviously Foucault.^[62] They describe such a shift in terms of the increasingly important role the management of biological life plays in institutions’ goals and governmental practices.

4.3 Fundamental Differences between the Contemplative Model and the Economistic and Instrumental Model

The differences between the contemplative model, especially the version outlined by Aristotle, and the economistic and instrumental model, which underlies the economy of well-being, could not be more significant. They become tangible in at least five interconnected aspects.

1. Aristotle equates the highest form of happiness with the highest form of knowledge. This equation has become obsolete in the modern and contemporary biopolitics of knowledge as happiness has been reduced to well-being, which is essentially understood as psycho-physical flourishing and material prosperity.

2. According to the OECD framework, happiness as well-being includes dimensions of human existence that the Aristotelian model considers to be part of the material “necessities of life.”^[63] Aristotle thinks they must be managed for the sake of happiness proper but do not coincide with it. In other words, contemplative happiness transcends well-being. A certain degree of well-being is a necessary, yet not sufficient, condition for happiness as contemplation.^[64]

3. In accordance with the Aristotelian model, contemplation is an end in itself and is desirable for its own sake only. It can never be instrumentalized and cannot be understood in productive or technical terms either. I have demonstrated the extent to which the economy of well-being subordinates knowledge to well-being and economic growth.

4. The instrumental role of knowledge becomes particularly conspicuous when it is viewed in relation to the necessities of life. In present-day society, knowledge is considered a formidable tool to manage those necessities and make well-being possible. This also applies to the most abstract and theoretical forms of knowledge, which have also been instrumentalized. In his outline of the evolution of knowledge, Aristotle clearly differentiates between the knowledge that enables humans to cope with the necessities of life and the knowledge that is free and pursued for its own sake. This differentiation is not relevant in modern and contemporary society.

5. Finally, Aristotle views the embeddedness of knowledge as an intrinsic limitation that humans should try to overcome or cope with as much as possible. The purest form of knowledge must be as free as possible from the materiality that characterizes our existence as humans. It is true that Aristotle also underlines the function of well-being when it comes to facilitating and making possible the contemplative lifestyle. However, well-being in this sense is not an end in itself but should be considered conducive to knowledge as contemplation. The opposite happens in the present-day biopolitics of knowledge, as knowledge’s impact on well-being and economic growth is valued the most.