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Insurance is pervasive in many social settings. As a cooperative device based on risk pooling, it serves to attenuate the adverse consequences of various risks (health, unemployment, natural catastrophes, and so forth) by offering policyholders coverage against the losses implied by adverse events in exchange for the payment of premiums. In the insurance industry, the concept of actuarial fairness serves to establish what could be adequate, fair premiums. Accordingly, premiums paid by policyholders should match as closely as possible their risk exposure (i.e. their expected losses). Such premiums are the product of the probabilities of losses and the expected losses. This article presents a discussion of the fairness of actuarial fairness through three steps: (1) defining the concept based on its formulation within the insurance industry; (2) determining in which sense it may be about fairness; and (3) raising some objections to the actual fairness of actuarial fairness. The necessity of a normative evaluation of actuarial fairness is justified by the influence of the concept on the current reforms of public insurance systems and the fact that it highlights the question of the repartition of the gains and burdens of social cooperation.

Happiness has become a central theme in public debates. Happiness indicators illustrate this importance. This article offers a typology of the main challenges conveyed by the elaboration of happiness indicators, where happiness can be understood as hedonia, subjective well-being, or eudaimonia. The typology is structured around four questions: (1) what to measure?—i.e., the difficulties linked to the choice of a particular understanding of happiness for building an indicator; (2) whom to include?—i.e., the limits of the community monitored by such an indicator; (3) how to collect the data?—i.e., the difficulties stemming from objective and subjective reporting; (4) what to do?—i.e., the concerns about the use of happiness indicators in public policy. The major points of normative contention are discussed for each of these dimensions. The purpose of this article is to contribute in a constructive manner to happiness research by offering an overview of some major philosophical and political challenges of building happiness indicators. The conclusion underlines the importance of the strategy of diversification- hybridization, which consists in setting a variety of indicators or composite indicators that articulate different understandings of happiness. It is stressed that happiness indicators raise democratic and institutional issues with which normative thinkers should deal.Le bonheur est devenu un thème central dans les débats publics. Les indicateurs de bonheur illustrent cette importance. Cet article offre une typologie des principaux enjeux contenus dans le travail d’élaboration d’indicateurs de bonheur quand ce dernier est compris comme hedonia, bien-être subjectif ou eudaimonia. La typologie est structurée autour de quatre questions : 1) que mesurer?, où sont en jeu les difficultés liées au choix d’une compréhension particulière du bonheur pour construire un indicateur; 2) qui inclure?, c’est-à-dire comment tracer les limites de la communauté morale qui est l’objet d’un tel indicateur; 3) comment collecter les données?, où on interroge les difficultés propres aux techniques subjectives et objectives de collecte de données; 4) que faire?, où on soulève l’enjeu des craintes quant à l’usage d’indicateurs de bonheur dans les politiques publiques. Les points majeurs de dispute normative sont discutés pour chaque dimension. Nous espérons ainsi contribuer de manière constructive à la recherche sur le bonheur en offrant un aperçu de quelques défis philosophiques et politiques majeurs relatifs à la construction d’indicateurs de bonheur. Nous concluons en soulignant l’importance de la stratégie de diversification-hybridation qui consiste à mettre en place des indicateurs variés ou composites articulant différentes compréhensions du bonheur. Ces indicateurs soulèvent des enjeux démocratiques et institutionnels que les penseurs normatifs doivent considérer

The social benefits expected from academia are generally identified as belonging to three broad categories: research, education and contribution to society in general. However, evaluating the present situation of academia according to these criteria reveals a somewhat disturbing phenomenon: an increased pressure to produce articles (in peer-reviewed journals) has created an unbalanced emphasis on the research criterion at the expense of the latter two. More fatally, this pressure has turned academia into a rat race, leading to a deep change in the fundamental structure of academic behaviour, and entailing a self-defeating and hence counter-productive pattern, where more publications is always better and where it becomes increasingly difficult for researchers to keep up with the new research in their field. The article identifies the pressure to publish as a problem of collective action. It ends up by raising questions about how to break this vicious circle and restore a better balance between all three of the social benefits of academia.

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Public insurance is commonly assimilated with redistributive tools mobilized by the welfare state in the pursuit of an egalitarian ideal. This view contains some truth, since the result of insurance, at a given moment, is the redistribution of resources from the lucky to unlucky. However, Joseph Heath (among other political theorists) considers that the principle of efficiency provides a better normative explanation and justification of public insurance than the egalitarian account. According to this view, the fact that the state is involved in the provision of specific insurance (primarily health and unemployment insurance and pensions) is explained and justified by the greater efficiency of the state, in comparison with markets, in addressing market failures such as moral hazard or adverse selection. Our argument is that while insurance, intrinsically and idealistically, may diverge from a redistributive scheme, it is nevertheless difficult to deny that insurance has nothing to do with equality. More precisely, we argue that insurance may be understood as an egalitarian tool if our understanding of equality is broadened to include relational equality. Our paper aims to briefly recap the debates surrounding public insurance as a redistributive tool, advancing the idea that public insurance may be a relational egalitarian tool. It then presents a number of relational arguments in favor of the involvement of the state in the provision of specific forms of insurance, arguments that have been overlooked given the domination of luck egalitarian approaches in these debates.