How should we understand social progress, and how should it be measured? These questions have engaged social thinkers and scientists for many decades. In the context of the growing dominancy of national and international indices, the paper advances a strong dual-necessity principle in the conceptualization and measurement of social progress. At the heart of the strong dual-necessity principle is a profound yet neglected conviction that, from a political-normative point of view, the two components of the concept – subjective (representing people’s actual attitudes) and objective (representing external standards of development) – are necessary and only jointly sufficient. The paper defines the principle and initiates assessment and evaluation of it. The paper demonstrates ‘concept structuring’ and exhibits how the distinctive strong dual necessity structure may result in different rankings of countries’ social progress. Hence, it highlights the advantage of having this principle readily available and accessible for researchers, politicians, bureaucrats, and other interested agents and institutions.

Recently political theorists have voiced a desire for political theory to be more involved in and relevant to political science and practice. Turning to a concrete instance, the case of social progress indices, we observe that political theory is already to some extent involved in both. Political theories in some instances inspire well-reasoned and systematic construction of measurements, although the conception of social progress in an index is not always overt. At the same time, social progress indicators and conceptions provide a substantial context to aid the self-reflections of political theorists. This note articulates the bidirectional actual and potential processes at play, with an emphasis on the cases when the conceptions represented by measurement are value-laden and contested. It further differentiates manners by which indicators may contribute to the internal and external assessments of concepts and theories. The study highlights the significance of recognizing and enhancing these multi-level and bidirectional processes. Such improvements would be achieved when political theory, political science and practical consideration come together.

What is the significance of GDP per capita to a society? What does it represent conceptually? These questions have been addressed in past decades, engendering extensive explorations of the limitations of the indicator, yet answers have proved problematic or partial. The paper presents the main conclusions so far drawn and builds upon them to present a new reading of the significance of GDP per capita. At the heart of this reading is the view that, while GDP per capita is not indicative of the welfare of individuals, it is indicative of an irreducible ‘group well-being.’ This view, however, requires one to relinquish the belief that only individuals can be ‘well.’ It turns out that the allegedly orthodox view, which sees GDP as a human-centered indicator, requires an unorthodox philosophical standpoint, one that accepts an irreducible group well-being. The paper presents this alternative interpretation and addresses its upsides and limitations.

Social progress indices assess wellbeing and sustainable development, and reflect distinct conceptions of social progress. Broadly, such conceptions fall into two categories: ‘subjective’ – the attitudes of individuals, and ‘objective’ – external standards. Our starting point is the ‘dual necessity’ claim, namely that the two conceptions have joint-special significance. Technically, we assume only low compensability between them when representing social progress. Although intuitive, low compensability between subjective and objective aspects is neglected in existing conceptions and measurements of social progress. The paper experiments with measurements of social progress as a composition of the two components (subjective and objective) with a very low degree of substitution. Employing the constant elasticity of substitution function (CES), we empirically demonstrate the ramifications of this approach across assessments and rankings of countries. We show that low substitution measurement, and hence low compensability, matter empirically; particularly, they matter the most for middle-ranked countries.

This paper provides a real-world test case for how to approach contemporary preference aggregation procedures. We examine the method of using stated preferences (SP) to structure social well-being indices. The method has seen increasing popularity and interest, both in economists’ laboratory research and by governments and international institutions. SP offers a sophisticated aggregation of peoples’ preferences regarding social well-being aspects and, in this way, provides elegant and non-paternalistic techniques for deciding how to weigh and prioritize various potential aspects of social well-being (health, happiness, economic growth, etc.). However, this method also poses difficulties and limitations from broader political and philosophical perspectives. This paper comprehensively charts these difficulties and suggests that SP methods should be complemented with appropriate deliberation procedures. The paper bridges the distinct perspectives of economists and political theorists in order to make SP an attractive instrument in determining policy.

Social progress indices are key for assessing wellbeing and sustainable development of countries and societies. A pivotal neglected question is the appropriate level of substitution between ‘subjective’ - attitudes of individuals - and ‘objective’ - external standards- dimensions of social progress. Each dimension has its own rationale, history, and indicators. Our starting point is that the two perspectives have a special significance – jointly. Surprisingly, we do not find in the literature an approach that robustly represents this acknowledgment. Our approach addresses this lacuna, and advocates measuring social progress as a composition of the two components with a very low degree of substitution. Employing the constant elasticity of substitution function (CES), we empirically demonstrate the ramifications of this approach across assessments and rankings of countries. We show that the low substitution measurement matters the most for the middle- ranked countries. Representing social progress using two distinct subjective and objective components, with a low substitution elasticity is a robust measurement, that reflects an appealing conception of social progress.

In the context of the broad question of the combination of different indicators of social well-being, this paper points to a distinction between four normative approaches to social well-being. The paper identifies this distinction as a path for pursuing distinct legitimate interpretations of the concept, and hence of its measurement. Analyzing the four approaches—subjectivist, objectivist, pluralist and QSH, inspired by four parallel theories in the philosophy of (individual) well-being—imparts clarity to the act of aggregation. Each approach results in different weighing schemes. The paper analyses these four approaches and their significance for the issue at hand, thereby establishing grounds for a non-arbitrary interpretation of the data represented by indicators and non-arbitrary choice between indices. A particular contribution of the paper is defining and exemplifying the QSH approach, at the heart of which is the normative conviction that a society is not better off unless both subjective and objective aspects have been improved.

Social scientists have engaged extensively with the empirical findings of the Easterlin-paradox. However, any statement regarding the meaning and implications of the paradox are derived only through the mediation of normative assumptions. The paper renders these assumptions explicit (and, therefore, open for political discussion), a necessary step in legitimizing the Easterlin paradox as a compass for politics. Based on the analysis of the assumptions lurking behind the common implications of the paradox, the paper opens the door to alternative implications of the paradox. Thus, it refers to other normative assumptions that combine together the assumptions discussed - and is therefore regarded as pluralist in essence - and singles out one particular strong variant - the ‘dual necessity’ variant. This strong assumption, invariably overlooked in the literature, is defined here and its significant political implications for the Easterlin paradox illustrated.

An appealing concept developed by economists in contemporary happiness studies is that of procedural utility: people’s tendency to value the processes that lead to outcomes in addition to the outcomes themselves. This paper identifies David Hume as an early forerunner of a very similar idea. Moreover, it demonstrates just how Hume used this idea to justify the very idea of commerce. The significance of this is twofold: demonstrating just how Hume is a forerunner of the later concept on the individual level (micro-level), but also pointing to a different approach to the concept of utility on the social level.