PsycCRITIQUES February 10, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 6, Article 6 © 2014 American Psychological Association Happiness Is a Warm Pill? A Review of Happy-People-Pills for All by Mark Walker Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. 277 pp. ISBN 978-1-118-35747-7 (paperback). $24.95, paperback http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0034534 Reviewed by Peter H. Addy Let us suppose that we create a new pharmacological agent, which I shall call “Handwavium,” that has few side effects and is not habit forming. Handwavium increases trait levels of both affective and cognitive aspects of happiness, creating in people a condition termed hyperthymia. What would happen to people and society with the introduction and Food and Drug Administration approval of Handwavium? These are interesting philosophical questions that Mark Walker addresses in his book Happy- People-Pills for All. He argues that daily use of his version of Handwavium would lead to greater autonomy, individual well-being, and societal well-being; people using them would still have appropriate affect and emotion, be genuinely and authentically happy, and would still be essentially themselves. Given the likely positive outcomes of the use of happy- people-pills, it is the civic duty of all democratic governments to foster research into developing them and to ensure their just and equitable distribution for the good of all humankind. Sounds like a good story, right? Walker is a philosopher, and the parts of Happy-People-Pills for All that deal in philosophy and speculation are generally well written and well thought out. Walker defines happiness as being a psychological state and a trait of well-being. Happiness involves an affective (positive mood and pleasure) and a cognitive (being pleased or delighted by things) component. The good life involves happiness but also ideally involves other things, such as athleticism, autonomy, beauty, creativity, friendship, health, intelligence, knowledge, love, pleasure, positive moods and emotions, truth, and wealth. Increasing happiness, he says, may lead to downstream increases in these other aspects of the good life. What is it like to be a hyperthymic person? Throughout the book, Walker gives one example: a brief account of a resilient woman in an article in The New York Times (Friedman, 2002), whom the author described as resilient. Walker could have commented upon the growing literature of resilience research (for example, Southwick & Charney, 2012) and perhaps tied that in to his book, but he does not. Perhaps hyperthymia and resilience are correlated, but Walker never explores this concept. This one example, one person