CAMBRIDGE IELTS 13
TEST 4 (READING)
PASSAGE 3
READING
PASSAGE 3
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions
27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Questions
14-19
Book Review
The Happiness Industry; How the Government and Big
Business Sold Us Well-Being
By William Davies
|
‘Happiness is the ultimate goal because it is
self-evidently good. If we are asked why happiness matters we can give no
further external reason. It just obviously does matter.’ This pronouncement
by Richard Layard, an economists and advocate of ‘positive psychology’, summarises
the beliefs of many people today. For Layard and others like him, it is
obvious that the purpose of government is to promote a state of collective
well-being. The only question is how to achieve it, and here positive
psychology - a supposed science that not only identifies what makes people
happy but also allows their happiness to be measured – can show the way. Equipped
with this science, they say, governments can secure happiness in society in a
way they never could in the past.
It is astonishingly crude and
simple-minded way of thinking, and for that very reason increasingly popular.
Those who think in this way are oblivious to the vast philosophical literature
in which the meaning and value of happiness have been exposed and questioned
and write as if nothing of any importance had been thought on the subject
until it came to their attention. It was the philosopher Jeremy Bentham
(1748-1832) who was more than anyone else responsible for the development of
this way of thinking. For Bentham it was obvious that the human good consists
of pleasure and the absence of pain. The Greek philosopher Aristotle may have
identified happiness with self-realisation in the 4th century BC,
and thinkers throughout the ages may have struggled to reconcile the pursuit
of happiness with other human values, but for Bentham all this was more
metaphysics or fiction. Without knowing anything much of him or the school of
moral theory he established – since they are by education and intellectual
conviction illiterate in the history of ideas – our advocates of positive
psychology follow in his tracks in rejecting as outmoded and irrelevant
pretty much the entirely of ethical reflection on human happiness to date.
But as William Davies notes in his
recent book The Happiness Industry,
the view that happiness is the only self-evident good is actually a way of
limiting moral inquiry. One of the virtues of this rich, lucid and arresting
book is that it places the current cult of happiness in a well-defined
historical framework. Rightly, Davies begins his story with Bentham, noting
that he was far more than a philosopher. Davies writes, ‘Bentham’s activities
were those which we might now associate with a public sector management
consultant’. In the 1790s, he wrote to
the Home Office suggesting that the departments of government be linked
together through a set of ‘conversation tubes’, and to the Bank of England
with a design for a printing device that could produce unforgettable banknotes.
He drew up plans for a ‘frigidarium’ to keep provisions such as meat, fish,
fruit, and vegetables fresh. His celebrated design for a prison to be known
as a ‘Panapticon’, in which prisoners would be kept in solitary confinement
while being visible at all times to the guards, was very nearly adopted.
(Surprisingly, Davies does not discuss the fact that Bentham meant his
Panopticon not just as a model prison but also as an instrument of control
that could be applied to schools and factories.
Bentham was also a pioneer of the ‘science
of happiness’. If happiness is to be regarded as a science, it has to be
measured, and Bentham suggested two ways in which this might be done. Viewing
happiness as a complex of pleasurable sensations, he suggested that it might
be quantifies by measuring the human pulse rate. Alternatively, money could
be used as the standard for quantification; if two different goods have the
same price, it can be claimed that they produce the same quantity of pleasure
in the consumer. Bentham was more attracted by the latter measure. By associating
money so closely to inner experience, Davies writes, Bentham ‘set the stage
for the entangling of psychological research and capitalism that would shape
the business practices of the twentieth century’.
The
Happiness Industry
describes how the project of a science of happiness has become integral to
capitalism. We learn much that is interesting about how economic problems are
being redefined and treated as psychological maladies. In addition, Davies
shows how the belief that inner states of pleasure and displeasure can be
objectively measured has informed management studies and advertising. The tendency
of thinkers such as J B Watson, the founder of behaviourism*, was that human
beings could be shaped, or manipulated, by policymakers and managers. Watson had
no factual basis for his view of human action. When he became president of
the American Psychological Association in 1915, he ‘he ‘had never even
studied a single human being’: his research had been confined to experiments
on white rats. Yet Watson’s reductive model is now widely applied, with ‘behaviour
change’ becoming the goal of governments: in Britain, a ‘Behaviour Insights
Team’ has been established by the government to study how people can be
encouraged, at minimum cost to the public purse, to live in what are
considered to be socially desirable ways.
Modern industrial societies appear toned
the possibility of ever-increasing happiness to motivate them in their
labours. But whatever its intellectual pedigree, the idea that governments
should be responsible for promoting happiness is always a threat to human
freedom.
|
Questions 27-29
Choose
the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write
the correct letter in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet.
27
|
What
is the reviewer’s attitude to advocates of positive psychology?
A.
They are wrong to
reject the ideas of Bentham.
B.
They are
over-influenced by their study of Bentham’s theories.
C.
They have a fresh
new approach to ideas of human happiness.
D.
They are ignorant
about the ideas they should be considering.
|
28
|
The reviewer
refers to the Greek philosopher Aristotle in order to suggest that happiness
A.
may not be just pleasure and the absence of pain.
B.
should not be the main goal of humans.
C.
is not something that should be fought for.
D.
is not just an abstract concept.
|
29
|
According to
Davies, Bentham’s suggestion for linking the price o goods to happiness was
significant because
A.
it was the first successful way of assessing
happiness.
B.
it established a connection between work and
psychology.
C.
it was the first successful example of
psychological research.
D.
it involved consideration of the rights of
consumers.
|
Questions
30-34
Complete
the summary using the list of words A-G
below.
Write
the correct letter, A-G, in boxes
30-34 on your answer sheet.
Jeremy Bentham
|
Jeremy Bentham was active in other areas
besides philosophy.in the 1790s he suggested a type of technology to improve
30 _______________ for different Government departments. He developed a new
way of printing banknotes to increase 31 _______________ and also designed a
method for the 32 _______________ of food. He also drew up plans for a prison
which allowed the 33 _______________ of prisoners at all times, and believed
the same design could be used for other institutions as well. When researching
happiness, he investigated possibilities for its 34 _______________, and
suggested some methods of doing this.
|
A
|
measurement
|
B
|
security
|
C
|
implementation
|
D
|
profits
|
E
|
observation
|
F
|
communication
|
G
|
preservation
|
|
|
|
|
Questions
35-40
Do
the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage
3?
In boxes
35-40 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
|
If the statement agrees with the information
|
FALSE
|
If the statement contradicts the information
|
NOT
GIVEN
|
If there is no information on this
|
35
|
One strength of The
Happiness Industry is its discussion of the relationship between
psychology and economics.
|
36
|
It is more difficult to measure some emotions than
others.
|
37
|
Watson’s
ideas on behaviourism were supported by research on human he carried out
before 1915.
|
38
|
Watson’s ideas have been most influential on
governments outside America.
|
39
|
The
need for happiness is linked to industrialisation.
|
40
|
A main aim of government should be to increase the
happiness of population.
|
ANSWER
KEY
27
|
D
|
28
|
A
|
29
|
B
|
30
|
F
|
31
|
B
|
32
|
C
|
33
|
E
|
34
|
A
|
35
|
YES
|
36
|
NOT GIVEN
|
37
|
NO
|
38
|
NOT GIVEN
|
39
|
YES
|
40
|
NO
|
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