Conférence inaugurale (Antonio Trampus)
À propos de la felicità pubblica des révolutionnaires corses du XVIIIe siècle (Erick Miceli)
Abstract:
This paper arises from the interaction between a methodological approach rooted in the history of ideas (through the study of fragments of libraries owned by Corsican revolutionaries and unpublished texts) and a political history based on archival sources. What was the reality of political ideas on the ground? Our aim is to reflect on one of the key terms of the constitution of 16–18 November 1755: felicità. But what does this felicità, elevated alongside libertà as one of the main aims of the new national government, actually represent? Often associated with the term pubblica, the felicità of the Paolists is not individual (as it might have been for the ancient Romans), but collective. The Felicità pubblica is above all a concept or project mobilized by a few in the name of others; it reflects a society that is unmistakably vertical in structure. Although the idea of a nation’s right to happiness is formally proclaimed in a series of little-known printed texts from 1767, the transfer of the idea of collective happiness to the individual level does not unfold in the same way as it did in Anglo-Saxon liberal societies, particularly during the American Revolution, which enshrined the individual pursuit of happiness as a constitutional value. Nevertheless, the Corsican revolutionaries were not unaware of the Enlightenment-era debates on Happiness, one of the central themes of the eighteenth century. While the insurgent islanders’ understanding of this concept remained within the orbit of the Italian Enlightenment—where the notion of happiness was often translated into a Catholic idiom—the Corsicans took a different path, entrusting the collective with the management of Happiness. This approach is a shared feature of Italian republicanisms, which grant felicità a central value. Felicità pubblica is one of the common stakes of the res publica. Where the Paolists introduce a substantial innovation, however, is in the conjunction of felicità with another term: tranquillità. Public happiness can only emerge in a territory where—thanks to the State—populations live in a state of tranquillità! In this aspect of the Paolist conceptual corpus, the island’s republican experiment reuses and reshapes preexisting intellectual material, reformulating it in the process. Ideas are not fixed but alive. The study of the importance of felicità helps us better understand the place of the Corsican Republic in the long continuum of Mediterranean and global republican histories.
Le droit au bonheur comme fondement des droits sociaux (Jean-Guy Talamoni)
Abstract:
The right to happiness, an idea that originated in Corsica in the 18th century, has had a considerable following, from the United States to Bhutan, via many countries including France. This right has generated an interesting body of case law, particularly in the United States, and many researchers have examined the subject. However, a number of questions remain unanswered: its actual nature – is the happiness in question private or public? – the question of its legal scope – how justiciable is it ? Among the avenues that are attracting the most attention, we will focus here on a hypothesis that is attractive in many respects : could the right to happiness be the foundation of all social rights ?
Le droit au bonheur chez les princes des Lumières : une approche comparative (XVIIIème-XIXème siècles) (Thibaut Dauphin)
Abstract:
This article examines the intellectual and political genealogy of the right to happiness, a modern construct closely tied to Enlightenment thought. Through a comparative lens, it analyses how various “princes of the Enlightenment” – monarchs or republican leaders – invoked the notion of happiness in political discourse and constitutional texts, from Sweden to Corsica, from the United States to Latin America, and from Canada to Japan. The study contrasts collective (public felicity) and individual (right to pursue happiness) conceptions, emphasising the rhetorical malleability of happiness, often used as a tool for political legitimation. It reveals the transatlantic circulation of the idea and its adaptation across regimes, revolutionary moments, and political cultures.
Au risque de l’oxymore ? Napoléon Bonaparte et le droit au bonheur (Pierre-Antoine Tomasi)
Abstract:
Examiner l’existence d’un « droit au bonheur » à l’aune de l’action de Napoléon Bonaparte peut apparaître comme une gageure tant, accusé d’avoir été la cause des malheurs de l’Europe, l’héritage de l’Empereur reste controversé. Le « droit au bonheur » s’affirme pourtant comme un élément structurant du constitutionnalisme napoléonien. En effet, pour Napoléon, le but premier d’une Constitution consiste à assurer le bonheur des peuples. L’idée est énoncée avec constance, de ses écrits de jeunesse jusqu’aux Constitutions de l’Empire et de ses Etats satellites. Cet article se propose aussi bien d’interroger la genèse des idées de Bonaparte sur ce point, en insistant sur la part trop méconnue des textes révolutionnaires corses du XVIIIe siècle, ainsi que d’en mesurer les implications concrètes sur le plan du droit constitutionnel. Sur ce dernier aspect, l’élément le plus instructif de l’expérience napoléonienne réside certainement dans le fait que « le droit au bonheur », gravée dans le serment de la Constitution de l’an XII, servit de norme de référence à une sanction juridique, et non des moindres, à savoir le décret de déchéance de l’Empereur adopté par le Sénat en avril 1814.
La recherche du bonheur, de la Constitution de Paoli à la Déclaration d’indépendance des États-Unis (Wanda Mastor)
Abstract:
This article examines the pursuit of happiness as crystallized in two major texts, one of which is much better known than the other, even though it is more recent. The Constitution of Independent Corsica of 1755 on the one hand, and the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 on the other. While the Corsican and American revolutionaries shared a common passion for freedom and the pursuit of happiness rather than the proclamation of its right, the contours of happiness were significantly different. The American conception of happiness, inspired by liberal individualism, contrasts with the happiness of the Corsican Nation.
Penser la République comme écrin du bonheur et de la liberté : l’Idéologie de Destutt de Tracy et Cabanis (Laura André Lombard)
Abstract:
The Ideologues, whose core members were Destutt de Tracy and Cabanis, intended to found the republic on a sensualist theory of knowledge fuelled by the physiological studies of Cabanis. The purpose of the science of man that they developed was to gain a better understanding of man so as to be able to teach him the means to achieve happiness and freedom, two terms which, for Destutt de Tracy, were synonymous. This access to freedom involves directing desires towards happiness and presupposes that everyone acquires the ability to judge. This programme can only be achieved if it is supported by the State, in particular through education.
L’ île-utopie comme « lieu de bonheur » dans la pensée d’Étienne Cabet (Deborah Paci)
Abstract:
The small size of the island makes it a laboratory for social experimentation. The geographical characteristics of the island space, namely its separation from other lands, contribute to the preservation of a specificity that lends itself to political uses. This article examines the island utopia as a “place of happiness”, focusing in particular on the work of the utopian socialist Étienne Cabet, author of Voyage en Icarie (1840).
Le bonheur, une ambition déçue du constitutionnalisme révolutionnaire (Ludovic de Thy)
Abstract:
The main part of the actors of the French revolutionary constitutionalism believed that they could bring general and permanent happiness to French society, simply by adopting a constitution. However, when we look at the content of the latter, neither the general principles nor the more specific mechanisms that are presented as leading to happiness are a consensus.
Le revenu universel, préalable nécessaire au droit au bonheur ? (Martine Long)
Abstract:
Although universal income is now widely regarded as a “left-wing idea”, historically it has been defended by very diverse currents of thought ranging from ultra-liberals to orthodox communists. Despite different names and assumptions, three elements characterize this notion: the individual character, the universal character and finally the unconditionality. Beyond controversies, at a time when the main inequality is that of wealth, universal income would be a means to rebuild society, to fight against the categorization of devices and individuals and to restore some equity.
Entre bonheur privé et bonheur commun : l’inévidence constitutive de l’intérêt général à la française. (Lino Castex)
Abstract:
To hold together the force of interest and the force of generality—this is the particularly ambivalent engine of the French doctrine of the general interest. Understanding the meaning of the “happiness of all,” as inscribed in the preamble of the 1789 Declaration, requires a historical recontextualization of this conception of the general. Situated between two theoretical specters—on the one hand, a utilitarianism in the service of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number,” and on the other, a Rousseauist vision of education toward “public happiness”—the French path to the general rests on a constitutive ambiguity that relinquishes neither the value of the individual nor the objective of transcending particular wills. We propose to reconstruct the theoretical crucible of the French conception of the general, in order to better grasp the delicate balance in the political pursuit of happiness, between the right to well-being and the quest for a shared felicity. In doing so, we highlight the persistence of this modern ambivalence within our own political vocabulary.
Le droit au bonheur, une idée émergente en droit comparé (Carine David)
Abstract:
The right to happiness occupies a unique place among fundamental rights and freedoms, as a fundamental right. As the foundation of state organization, yet it is rarely included in constitutions. However, the right to happiness is experiencing significant growth within the framework of the happiness world movement, political decision-makers and civil society, returning to the foundations of social organization, promote the happiness of the greatest number.
La poursuite du droit au bonheur en Chine, au Japon, et dans les deux Corées : Reflets d’une pluralité de modèles de société (Alicia Vanderpotte)
Abstract:
The expression and understanding of emotional experience are neither universal nor unambiguous. Emotional experience arises from the complex interaction of cultural, sociological, economic, historical and legal determinants. The conceptualization of happiness thus differs considerably between China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan, revealing a plurality of distinct social models. In China, although an individualistic conception of happiness is emerging among the population, the Constitution reflects a syncretism between the Confucian ideal of social harmony and Marxistcommunist ideology, articulated through the notion of common prosperity and well-being. This framework structures political discourse and long-term development plans, prioritizing collective happiness. In North Korea, while the founding texts of the regime initially drew upon a Marxist conception of happiness, this later evolved into the Juche doctrine, adopting a nationalist vision of the nation’s prosperity, though reality starkly contrasts with its constitutional claims. Unlike China and North Korea, which rejected the Western individualistic notion of happiness, South Korea and Japan embraced it by incorporating the “right to the pursuit of happiness” into their constitutions. However, they preserved the Confucian cultural dimension through the inclusion of the common good. This right has been effectively implemented through Japan’s decentralized constitutional system and South Korea’s centralized system, with the latter yielding more significant results.
Bonheur individuel et bonheur collectif, à propos des deux faces de la conception juridique du bonheur (Félicien Lemaire)
Abstract:
The legal perception of happiness, inherited from American and French revolutionary declarations, encourages us to consider individual happiness and collective happiness in solidarity, juxtaposing the two approaches. In States that refer to the notions of happiness and well-being in their constitutions, as well as in international texts, the pursuit of collective happiness is, however, more commonly sought by introducing a hierarchy between the two conceptions. Contemporary individualism, concretely displayed in Western societies, disrupts this hierarchy, with the observation of a rise in individual rights. But legal analysis in this area is not limited to the ebb and flow of individualism. The enabling standards contained in constitutions and international law weigh on States. They require them to develop public policies facilitating the pursuit of happiness and well-being, not only on the individual level but also in the collective dimension of rights.
De la chance au choix : La transformation du bonheur sous le prisme de la distance (Mohamed Outahar)
Abstract:
This article offers a critical reinterpretation of the notion of happiness through the lens of an original theoretical framework: The Distance Theory. In contrast to the contemporary conception of happiness rooted in the injunction to constant satisfaction, emotional performance, and self-control, I argue that true happiness lies neither in immediacy nor in achievement, but in the quality of distance between the self and its desires. Here, distance is not understood as absence or rupture, but as a relational, ontological, and reflective space; one that enables awareness, transformation, and the emergence of meaning. From this perspective, happiness is neither a fleeting emotion nor a final state to be reached; it becomes a rhythm of existence, an inner posture grounded in the right positioning between attachment and withdrawal. To rethink happiness in the light of distance is to restore its freedom, the freedom to arise within openness and the in-between. This framework thus invites us to conceive of happiness not as a right to be claimed, but as a quality of being to be cultivated.
L’urbanisme du futur pour accéder au bonheur ? Les leçons à tirer des utopies urbaines depuis le XVe siècle (Emmanuelle Bornet)
Abstract:
Urban utopias are « cities born from a human ideal of thinkers or designers ». They have been developing in literature since the 15th century, and all emphasize the same condition for access to a happy life : the presence of nature in living spaces. The general reflection carried out in this contribution will be essentially anchored in the history of ideas and the philosophy of urban planning. We will study quotes from the main utopian works written since the 15th century and their concrete experiments undertaken during the four industrial revolutions (coal, oil, green energy and the internet). This will allow us to recontextualize historically, sociologically and politically the place of nature in living spaces. We will then perceive its historical importance in access to a happy (urban) life. Finally, we will see that in the 21st century, utopian urban construction is giving rise to new debates : the place of natural heritage and sustainable development in societies and the relevance of generic cities generating standardized happiness for their inhabitants.
L’épanouissement humain dans la forme de vie démocratique (Gaël Berthier)
Abstract:
This article examines the nature of democratic happiness and its moral and political conditions. It argues that one of the promises of democracy is to enable each individual to emancipate themselves and to lead a dignified life, grounded in individual autonomy. This autonomy implies the ability to choose one’s values and to construct a reflective relationship to oneself and to others. This framework allows us to conceive of a form of deep happiness, distinct from immediate satisfactions and connected to virtuous activity. It thus leads to a just way of inhabiting the world. Such happiness presupposes integrity—that is, fidelity to what truly matters to oneself—even in the face of value conflicts linked to our vulnerability, and it requires a form of practical wisdom to guide one’s choices. Democratic flourishing also requires a society that protects individuals from domination, understood as arbitrary interference, and that cultivates non-domination as a moral disposition enriching interpersonal relations. This involves attention to others and their claims, to justice, and to nature. Democratic happiness thus appears as a shared task, engaging both individuals and institutions, and oriented by justice, autonomy, and non-domination.
“Les jours heureux”. Normes et droits universalistes du bonheur, de la Résistance à la Vème République. (Remy Badouî)
Abstract:
Happiness has been a legitimate aspiration of politicians and governments since modern times. In the face of the disasters and misfortunes of war, it represents an issue of collective cohesion and good government. In contrast to the Vichy regime, which set the conditions for the country’s rebirth in the misfortune of the Defeat, from 1942 onwards the internal and external Resistance set out the challenges of the French rebirth of a nation freed from the German yoke under the concept of happiness. The de Gaulle and Pompidou years were devoted to this construction.
Potentialités inexplorées. Pour une reconceptualisation normative des catégories actuelles du travail à la lumière du droit au bonheur (Alessio Belli)
Abstract:
This article begins by examining the normative foundations of the right to happiness, attributing to it the status of a constitutional interest: a systematic and teleological reading of constitutional rights and freedoms implies the establishment of the conditions necessary for individuals to determine and pursue autonomously the ends by which they intend to seek happiness and give meaning to their lives. Based on the recognition of the current centrality of work as a crucial area of personal fulfilment, the article then analyses the link between work and the constitutional interest in happiness, drawing on the Aristotelian concept ofeudaimonia – happiness through the exercise of one’s abilities and the cultivation of one’s virtues – and highlighting the emancipatory scope inscribed in this sense in the development of labour law. At the same time, the economic-competitive reorganisation of work and labour law on the basis of categories such as “flexibility”, “employability”, “activation”, etc., is gradually weakening the emancipatory normativity mentioned above, producing widespread forms of commodification. And yet these categories offer potential for individual self-determination that is little or never exploited, and which could foster the free construction of capabilities and the individual pursuit of happiness at work. Thus, in the final sections, the article proposes an update of the emancipatory normativity of labour law through a reconceptualisation of work on Hegelian and Honnethian foundations that could widen the margins of freedom in and of work and construct a legal concept of professionality that can be interpreted as the subject’s self-constitution and self-appropriation, and as a transition towards a right to work that is propitious to the pursuit of personal happiness.
Cultiver le bonheur dans l’éducation : perspectives interdisciplinaires et orientations futures (MIhaela Vancea)
Abstract:
In today’s increasingly complex and fast-paced world, marked by challenges such as climate change, wars, global poverty and rising inequalities, the pursuit of happiness and well-being has become a fundamental goal of education. This paper aims to explore the concept of happiness within the educational context, drawing on insights from various disciplines to highlight its multidimensional nature. Happiness is more than a fleeting emotion; it is a fundamental human aspiration that has been studied across various fields for centuries. From ancient philosophers to modern scientists, understanding what constitutes a ‘good life’ has been central to the study of happiness. In recent decades, interest in well-being has grown, recognising happiness as a fundamental human right with profound implications for policy, society, and individual lives. Within the educational sphere, happiness influences students’ academic performance, social and emotional development, and overall life satisfaction. This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from philosophy, psychology, sociology, and education to develop a holistic understanding of happiness in education. It argues that fostering happiness through interdisciplinary thinking is essential for promoting well-being and cultivating flourishing individuals.
Changer le cours de la justice ? Une famille de la petite notabilité urbaine face à l’institution judiciaire (Laetizia Castellani)
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