Happiness

Happiness is one of those topics that seems so simple of the surface but when you start thinking about what it really means the picture gets fuzzy. A lot of philosophical problems are like that.

Some philosophers think that happiness is a temporary feeling: ‘I was unhappy yesterday but I’m happy today’. So is it the same as pleasure or different?

Some think it’s more long term: a general feeling of satisfaction about the way your life is going over all.

These accounts locate happiness in our subjective states.

Other philosophers think that happiness relates to objective facts. It’s a value judgement we make on a whole life: whether it is a flourishing life over all. The term ’well-being is often used in this case instead of ‘happiness’ and attempting to measure well-being has become the aim of social policy in some countries.

Some think that only a virtuous life can be said to be happy so they would say a person like Jimmy Saville must be unhappy almost by definition. The  Buddhists and classical Greek Stoics believe that only virtue has value so that health and good fortune are irrelevant.

Still others, like Jordan Peterson, argue that “It’s a luxury to pursue what makes you happy; it’s a moral obligation to pursue what you find meaningful.”

We tend to think that happiness is a great good in life, and maybe the greatest good. But perhaps discontent with one’s experiences and one’s life can be better as it impels us forward to reflect and enquire more deeply into our aims and purposes in life. Perhaps even misery can be good.

“‘Here lies X, he had a happy mind’. Fancy that on your stone? Wouldn’t you rather have inscribed, courtesy of Joseph Conrad: ‘One could not refuse him a measure of greatness, for he was unhappy in a way unknown to mediocre souls’.” (Howard Jacobson).

So what do you think? Is happiness a feeling, a value judgement and are there things more important than happiness?

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If you don’t read anything else, read this...

What is it to be Happy?

Interesting stuff on Happiness...

• A Short History of Happiness

• Against the Pursuit of Happiness

• Forget happiness and seek long-term goals

• Happiness & Positive Psychology

• How Philosophers Define Happiness Differently

• How to Find Meaning and Purpose in Life

• On Happiness by Siobhan Lyons

• Philosophers on Happiness

• Philosophy of happiness

• Socrates on Happiness

• The Philosophy of Happiness

• Theory of Happiness

• Well-Being

• What is Happiness?