Question Is happiness really all that important? A lot of people think so, but that being happy just for happiness' sake is a waste. If there was a "happiness pill" that could make me happy for the rest of my life, I wouldn't take it. Because if I did, I'd get lazy and wouldn't accomplish anything. It seems like the pill would be cheating. But on the other hand, I'm not so sure I'd want to be the most successful person in the world if it meant I could never be happy. So I have to wonder: is it happiness or the things that make us happy that we should value?

Accepted:
May 28, 2008

Comments

As usual with such a philosophical question, much depends on how you define the key concept, happiness. One conception of happiness identifies it with a type (or types) of feeling(s), such as contentment, joy, excitement, and pleasure. These are the feelings a happiness pill would presumably supply. And some utilitarians pick out this sort of happiness as what should be maximized. Some then object along the lines you suggest: utilitarianism seems to entail that we should want to take a happiness pill (and if things would keep running smoothly, for everyone to take happiness pills)--or for us all to enter a Matrix that would keep us all happy--but there seems to be something wrong with living on such a pill (or entering such a Matrix), so there must be something wrong with utilitarianism. This objection works against egoism as well (the view that all we want is pleasure).

Perhaps the intuition here is that only 'authentic' happiness is truly valuable, the sort of happiness that one derives from doing the right sorts of things and doing them well. Such a conception of happiness makes it less subjective (it's not just based on how you feel) and more objective (you can be wrong about whether you are happy, e.g., if you get pleasure from the wrong things). This conception also sounds more like Aristotle's notion of eudaimonia (often translated as 'flourishing'). An interesting question then is whether such flourishing necessarily makes you feel happy (in the first 'pleasure' sense of the word). But it is clear that feeling happy (pleasure) is not sufficient for flourishing, and you can't take a pill to flourish.

The recent movement in 'positive psychology' attempts to study happiness and the connections between pleasure and flourishing. The notion of 'flow' describes that feeling you get when you are doing something challenging and doing it well (sports, music, art, conversation, good sex, mountain climbing, etc.). Though you may act without conscious attention on the details of what you are doing (you are 'in the zone'), you are very aware of what is going on. Perhaps if there was a 'flow' pill, it'd be wonderful to take it. But it seems like authentic flow requires that you are engaged in the activity itself. So, perhaps no pills allowed.

On this topic, I have always been intrigued by Simone de Beauvoir's comments in the introduction to The Second Sex. She says:

But we do not confuse the idea of private interest with that ofhappiness, although that is another common point of view. Are not womenof the harem more happy than women voters? Is not the housekeeperhappier than the working-woman? It is not too clear just what the word happyreally means and still less what true values it may mask. There is nopossibility of measuring the happiness of others, and it is always easyto describe as happy the situation in which one wishes to place them.

In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are oftenpronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being atrest. This notion we reject, for our perspective is that ofexistentialist ethics. Every subject plays his part as suchspecifically through exploits or projects that serve as a mode oftranscendence; he achieves liberty only through a continual reachingout towards other liberties. There is no justification for presentexistence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.Every time transcendence falls back into immanence, stagnation, thereis a degradation of existence into the ‘en-sois’– the brutish life of subjection to given conditions – and of libertyinto constraint and contingence. This downfall represents a moral faultif the subject consents to it; if it is inflicted upon him, it spellsfrustration and oppression. In both cases it is an absolute evil. Everyindividual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existenceinvolves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freelychosen projects.

What this suggests to me is that happiness may be at odds with freedom or transcendence (these latter aren't necessarily the same, of course). The idea seems to be that genuine freedom (and transcendence) are difficult and one is not likely to be happy if one pursues them. And yet, they are more valuable than happiness. (And more valuable than the experience of being free or of transcendence.)

Others are likely to say that virtue is more valuable than happiness, and these two are often in conflict. Many philosophers have tried to argue that there is a necessary connection between virtue and happiness, but it is a hard case to make. For example, we often make commitments to others and it would seem that we have a duty to fulfill those commitments, even if doing so would make us worse off -- and even positively unhappy -- in both the short and long term.

I'm inclined to think that happiness, at least according to most interpretations, isn't the most important or valuable thing. Freedom and virtue are more important to me. Moreover, I'm also inclined to think that actively pursuing happiness isn't the best way to achieve it. This is connected to the idea of "flow" Eddy mentions. Happiness comes when you are engaged in meaningful activity that is well-suited to your abilities (it challenges you, but not too much); it's a byproduct of activity, not the goal of activity.