Topics Happiness

Question Why is there no "happiness"ology? It seems that throughout history philosophy has strived to legitimize and analyze most basic human questions except that of what happiness is and how it is achieved. Is this accurate or am I mistaken?

Accepted:
October 12, 2005

Comments

Many, many, philosophers have thought about this issue. The Ancient Greeks, for example, gave a great deal of attention to what they called “eudaimonia”– a word that is often translated as “happiness”. But this translation can be somewhat misleading, since we often use the word “happiness” simply to refer to a momentary state of euphoria, as in, “I was so happy! He finally responded to my e-mail! But then, you know what he said? He told me to stop pestering him. I was so upset.” What the ancients were concerned to understand was not the nature of such euphoric states, but the nature of that state of being that we’ve achieved when we are in a very good state, when we’re doing well, when we’re flourishing. It was such a state that they called “eudaimonia,” and it is this state that is often referred to in philosophical literature as “happiness.” On this understanding, it’s then an open question what is the relationship between being happy and the sort of positive mental state that is described in the report that I noted above. Of course, it should not be a surprise that many people think that being happy is simply a matter of being in such good-feeling mental states. And in Plato’s Protagoras, the character Socrates argues forcefully for this position. One counts as happy, if over a lifetime one has experienced a sufficient quantity of pleasure (whether bodily, emotional, or cerebral), which is not counter-balanced by experiences of pain (whether bodily, emotional, or cerebral). But others have thought that one could be in such positive mental states and yet not really be well-off. I care about more than my own subjective mental states– I care about the welfare of my children, my own grip on reality, my own standing in the community. If I lack these (whether I’m aware of it or not, and so whether I feel mental distress about my loss or not), then to this extent I’m worse off. (For a case that might make this intuition seem more plausible, go here). These sorts of considerations have led some philosophers to conclude that happiness is not a matter of a positive balance of pleasure over pain, but instead is a matter of desire-satisfaction. Even if I’m not aware of the fact that my desires have not been satisfied, to the extent that they are not satisfied, I am worse off, and to the extent that they are satisfied, I am better off (see Plato’s Gorgias, for Socrates’ brief flirtation with this idea.) However, others have thought that I could fail to be happy (in the sense of being well-off or flourishing) even if I were experiencing a lot of pleasure and even if the desires that I had were satisfied. The most famous view of this sort is the one that is endorsed by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. If I were to reduce my desires to those of a grazing animal (e.g., a cow), Aristotle observes, then it may well be the case that all of the desires that I possessed were satisfied and also that I experienced a great deal of pleasure and no pain. Nonetheless, he predicted, no one would consider me fortunate. I would not be regarded with envy, but instead with pity. To be considered well-off, Aristotle believed, I (a human being) must live a life that is suitable for a human being: I must realize my distinctively human capabilities (like those of theoretical and practical reasoning), and I must do so well.

In addition to the classical philosophical treatments of happiness that Jyl mentions, you might be interested to know that there is currently an interdisciplinary journal called The Journal of Happiness Studies which includes philosophical contributions.

A few, but only a few, words on two 19th-century philosophers: Jeremy Bentham and his disciple, who went off in his own, individual direction, John Stuart Mill. Both were utilitarians, and believed in the moral principle: "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." But they understood "happiness" differently. Bentham took it hedonistically: happiness (the good, the summum bonum) is pleasure. Sexual pleasure is a paradigm of the good in this sense: exquisite and exhilarating sensations. There are others: eating, sleeping, playing sports--all fun things. Mill thought that there were lower and higher pleasures: bodily, sensual pleasures, and the pleasures of the mind. These include, for example, reading a poem and enjoying its beauty. For Bentham, "pushpin is as good as poetry," that poetry was good only when and because it could produce sensations similar in kind to the bodily. Not so for Mill, who thought that these pleasures were qualitatively different (and only those who experienced both kinds could pronounce on their relative value). Mill thought that a full human life, one that exhibited what flourishing is for a human, would include both kinds of happinesses. He also thought: it is better to be a philosopher [Socrates] dissatisfied [grouchy, in part] than a pig satisfied. I still haven't decided whether Mill was right about that. Philosophers would tend to say such a thing, wouldn't they?

Question Why is there no "happiness"ology? It seems that throughout history philosophy has strived to legitimize and analyze most basic human questions except that of what happiness is and how it is achieved. Is this accurate or am I mistaken? Accepted:October 12, 2005

Question Why is there no "happiness"ology? It seems that throughout history philosophy has strived to legitimize and analyze most basic human questions except that of what happiness is and how it is achieved. Is this accurate or am I mistaken?

Accepted:
October 12, 2005