Happiness is important, but not the only thing

Seligman's new approach helps deal with one objection - the monism of looking at happiness alone.

Amartya Sen, whose bookThe Idea of Justice we were discussing here, says:

The central issue is not the significance of happiness, but the alleged insignificance of everything else, on which many of the advocates of the happiness perspective seem to insist. (p273)

This was one of the problems of the older utilitarian tradition.