A second possibility is to model new pharmacologicals based on the genetics of the happiest amongst us, that is, the hyperthymic. One means to boost the happiness of those in the normal range is to test the efficacy of antidepressants for enhancement. Happiness, conceived as a propensity to positive moods, is a quantitative trait with a sizeable genetic component. Span style='mso-ansi-language: EN-US '> It is argued that we have a moral duty to create, and make available, advanced pharmacological agents to boost the happiness of those in the normal, i.e., the non-depressed, range of happiness. Accordingly, he presents an alternative view of happiness as a state of mind that can be achieved by being resilient in the face of our problems and by enjoying the here and now. Ultimately, this article argues that through building a self-reflexive narrative the writer calls the reader’s attention to the constructed character of the transhumanist view of happiness as an engineering problem. Drawing mainly from Waugh’s seminal work on metafiction, the present work analyzes how the different metafictional techniques Powers uses in Generosity combine with the transhumanist discourse on the possibilities that biotechnology opens up in order to create a happier population. As this work sets out to show, Powers’s greatest success in the novel may be his choice to adopt certain conventions typical of metafiction to provide a fervent critique of this pressing issue. This paper analyzes Richard Powers’s Generosity: An Enhancement (2009), a self-reflexive novel in which Powers explores some of the possibilities and challenges of increasing human happiness levels through biotechnology.

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