Reflexiones jurídicas sobre el derecho a la felicidad y el bien común constitucional

Abstract

This manuscript is the product of the research project Una discusión respecto al derecho a la felicidad (A discussion on the right to happiness), managed from the Legal Clinic of the Faculty of Law of the University of Santo Tomás (Bogotá). The concept of happiness is polysemic, because a range of meanings coexist in it and because its sign and signifier - as a structure of the concept itself within the multiple contexts in which it is used - can vary. That is to say, it has its own semantic and semiotic character, to the point that by extending it with the noun law it can hold a particular concept, with a legal repercussion in terms of the effects and the iusphilosophical nature of this. In other words, happiness comes to be both adjective and noun. In this sense, one of the strongest philosophical currents that has tried to discern about this concept has been the moral aspect, since it has indicated that "every human act is good insofar as it is suitable to generate happiness or can be coherently integrated in a happy life "1.