Topics Happiness

Question Is happiness an absolute or a relative state?

Accepted:
November 3, 2005

Comments

Obviously there's more than one thing we might mean in saying that someone is happy. Are we describing a momentary or a stable state? A bright mood and outlook or deep satisfaction? Even if we've sorted these things out, saying simply that someone "is happy" seems to make a yes-0r-no matter out of a matter of degree. That is, the simple "is happy" means "is happy to a great degree". But then "great" reveals more mush; surely what degree of happiness counts as "great" (as settling that the person "is happy") is not a matter that is eternally cast in stone--it might vary from context to context. Perhaps in some contexts, the relevant degree is fixed as something like the 60th percentile of current human happiness (yes, that's full of very artificial precision--just squint while reading for the proper effect). In that case, it seems that indeed it can be a relative matter whether someone, in a particular context, is correctly called "happy". (It would be nuts to say simply that "is happy" means "is happier than 60% of people", for then I could make myself happy just by making lots of people less happy than me. "Happy" doesn't work like that.)

But perhaps you mean, when someone is correctly called "happy", is what makes for the truth of this claim some fact about them that involves a relation between their current state and past states. Sure. For instance, "is happy" might be used to mean "is happy to (what for the person is) a great degree", where a degree being great for a person is a matter of it being better than usual for her.

But I still suspect that I have missed your point. Perhaps you really are wondering whether, as an empirical matter, what in fact gives people a bright mood and outlook, or deep satisfaction, often is a favorable contrast between their present circumstances and past, grimmer ones. That sounds like something that could be (and maybe has been) tested by psychologists. So, from this armchair, I say, "not my job!"

Happy now?

Question Is happiness an absolute or a relative state? Accepted:November 3, 2005

Question Is happiness an absolute or a relative state?

Accepted:
November 3, 2005