Autore: Bruni, Luigino
Titolo: La via italiana alla felicità
Periodico: Psiche
Anno: 2025 - Fascicolo: 1 - Pagina iniziale: 129 - Pagina finale: 141

This article explores the historical evolution of the concept of happiness in economics, emphasizing a distinctive Italian path rooted in classical and humanist traditions. The author reflects on the inadequacies of modern economic measures of happiness, often reduced to utilitarian pleasure, and contrasts them with the richer, virtue-based concept of felicitas publica from Roman and Italian Enlightenment thought. Drawing on thinkers like Ludovico Muratori and Antonio Genovesi, the article traces how 18th-century Catholic Italy – despite its prevailing culture of suffering and mortification – unexpectedly produced a robust civil economy focused on public happiness. This tradition emphasized social well-being, generativity, and virtue over mere wealth accumulation, offering a unique alternative to Protestant, wealth-centered economic models. The work highlights how this civil tradition of public happiness was gradually marginalized, yet remains a vital, if underrecognized, contribution to the history of economic thought.




SICI: 1721-0372(2025)1<129:LVIAF >2.0.ZU;2-2
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.7388/117793
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.7388/117793

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