Topics Happiness

Question Is it possible to comprehend happiness if one never experiences unhappiness? In a life in which a person has no negative experiences, is it possible for a person to distinguish especially positive experiences? In other words, can happiness exist without something negative to compare it to?

Accepted:
March 4, 2006

Comments

I'm inclined to say No. Not because I think that happiness can only be experienced in contrast to unhappiness. But because I think that something that had never experienced unhappiness simply wouldn't be the kind of thing that could experience happiness (or perhaps even experience much of anything). We are happy when we feel comfortable, when our desires are satisfied, when things are going right. Where comfort is an option, discomfort is too; where satisfaction can be attained, frustration can too; where there's such a thing as a right way for things to go, there's a wrong way too. With the possibility of happiness comes the possibility of unhappiness. So, it's hard for me even to imagine a real being that had never been unhappy without thereby imagining a being that lacked the capacity for happiness (or even lacked any inner life).

You ask whether a being that had never experienced unhappiness could experience happiness. Alex appears to be suggesting that happiness requires the possibility of unhappiness. Now that possibility could exist even if it were never actualized. I find no difficulty in imagining a human being who has never suffered a moment's unhappiness living a very happy life. Further, I can imagine a being who is actually incapable of unhappiness being very happy. Many have thought of God in this way.