What do you want to get out of Life? Recently you should have had the opportunity and reason to ask yourself this question. Maybe you want to spend more Time with your Family, or you want a more fulfilling and secure job, or you want to improve your health. But why do people have these needs?
The answer may come down to one thing: happiness.
In our Culture, the obsession with happiness is almost religious. It is the only unjustifiable reason for action: happiness is beneficial and needs no cause. But can life be based on this circular reasoning?
This question is important. Unfortunately, there is very little research data on what people want out of life in this regard. In a 2016 survey, when Americans were asked if they wanted to “achieve greatness or be happy,” 81 percent chose “happiness” and only 13 percent chose greatness. Understandably, 6 percent were shocked by this choice and expressed uncertainty. Although happiness and joy are universal goals, it is difficult for people to know how to define it or how to achieve it.
Happiness and pleasure
More and more factors in life are being used to measure happiness, such as relationships, work, family, health, diet, etc. …… Do these make you happy? If not, are you doing something wrong?
In the modern world, happiness is the closest thing to “goodness” that we have, the source of all other goods. In this logic, unhappiness becomes the “greatest evil”, the greatest evil to be avoided. Evidence suggests that the more excessive the pursuit of happiness, the greater the risk of depression.
In his new book, The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, historian Ritchie Robertson argues that the Enlightenment should be understood not as an increase in the value of reason itself, but as the pursuit of happiness through reason. The forces that determined society’s path to modernity were about happiness, and we are still grappling with the limits of happiness today.
It is easy to think that happiness has always been seen as the supreme good, but human values and emotions are not permanently fixed. Some values that were once supreme, such as honor or piety, no longer matter, and emotions such as “despair” (the closest thing to indifference) have disappeared altogether. The language people use to describe values and emotions, and even the emotions themselves, are unstable.
The modern concept of happiness is mainly pragmatic and not philosophical, focusing on what people call techniques to achieve happiness. People are not concerned with happiness per se, but with how to obtain it. The tendency to see happiness as the opposite of sadness or depression from a medical perspective implies that happiness is a chemical reaction from the brain. Happiness means less of the chemical reaction of sadness and more of the reaction that makes happy.
Martha Nussbaum, a distinguished virtue ethicist, says that modern society views happiness as “a sense of satisfaction or pleasure, a view of happiness as a commodity of the highest order. According to this definition, this view gives the highest value to human psychological states. Self-help books and “positive psychology” promise to open up this state of mind or happy mood. But philosophers are often skeptical of this view of happiness because human emotions are transient and the causes of them are uncertain. However, they ask a related but more broadly relevant question: What is the good life?
Life Choices
One answer is a lifetime of doing what you love, which brings you joy. In some ways, experiencing a life of joy is the good life.
But maximizing happiness is not the only option. Everyone’s life, even the most fortunate ones, is full of pain. Painful loss, painful disappointment, physical pain from injury or illness, and mental pain from enduring boredom, loneliness, or sadness. Suffering is a necessary consequence of living.
For the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 B.C.), the good life was one in which suffering was minimized. The continuous absence of pain gives us peace of mind. This concept has something in common with the modern understanding of happiness. “Peace with oneself” distinguishes the happy from the unhappy, and no one can imagine that a life full of suffering can be a good life. But is minimizing suffering really the essence of happiness?
What if living well increases the amount of pain we experience? Research shows that having loving attachments is associated with happiness, but we know from experience that love is also the cause of suffering. What if it is necessary for life to be painful, or even necessary? The painful death of a parent, child, partner, or friend can be avoided by stopping caring for these people, or by excising them from our lives altogether. But life without the attachment of love will fall short in many important ways, even though it may save us from the pain of losing someone we love. All the good things in life are less painful, and people rarely notice this. Writing a novel, running a marathon, or having a child are all pains caused by the pursuit of an ultimate, joyful outcome.
Epicurus might have said that the inevitable pain actually makes ataxia more attractive. Accepting the inevitable, while minimizing the harm, is the only way to survive. You can also use minimizing pain as a guide to action. If the process of writing a novel brings more pain than the pleasure of completing it, then don’t write it. But if a little pain now can prevent greater pain later, such as the pain of quitting smoking to avoid cancer, then that pain is justified. Hedonistic happiness is about being a good accountant and minimizing pain in the most effective way possible.
But the accountant’s view of happiness is too simplistic to reflect reality. Friedrich Nietzsche, in his book The Genealogy of Morals, points out that we do not merely endure suffering as a means to greater happiness, because “Human beings …… do not deny pain itself; they desire it, even seek it, as long as they demonstrate the meaning of pain, the purpose of suffering.” Nietzsche argues that suffering is not alleviated by pleasure, but by meaning. He doubts that we can find enough meaning to make suffering meaningful, but he points out that Epicurus’ view of the good life is flawed.
In this way, a meaningful life of suffering may be more valuable than a meaningless life of pleasure. As if figuring out what happiness is is not so difficult, we now need to figure out what a meaningful life is as well.
Ignoring this thorny issue for a moment, the modern view that happiness brings the greatest benefit to humanity and that all products spring from it is incorrect.
Theoretical Concepts
The American philosopher Robert Nozick proposed a thought experiment to prove this point. Nozick asks us to imagine a “machine that can bring about any experience”. The machine would allow you to experience the happiness of fulfilling every wish. You could become a great poet, the greatest inventor of all time, travel the universe in a spaceship of your own design, or become a favorite chef at your local restaurant. But in reality you will lose consciousness. Because the machine makes you believe that the simulation is real and that the choices you make are the ultimate Destiny.
Would you enter the machine? Nozick says you don’t become someone just because you want to do something, not just to have a pleasant experience. This assumption may seem frivolous, but happiness is not the ultimate good if one is willing to sacrifice infinite pleasure for the sake of true meaning in life. But if Nozick is right, then the 81 percent of Americans who choose happiness over great achievement are wrong, and research shows that most will choose not to enter the machine.
Nozick’s empirical machine was designed to refute utilitarianism, “Happiness is the desirable and only desirable end of life.” In 1826, the philosopher who wrote this statement John Stuart Mill, who wrote it, fell into deep displeasure. In his autobiography, Mill described the currently recognized lack of repressed pleasure: “I was in a state of nervous retardation, as every man occasionally is; not easily enjoyed with excitement; an emotion, which at other times is happy, became flat or indifferent. “
Mill could not get pleasure from life. That would be bad for most people, but for Mill, it meant something more worrisome. He had been taught from birth that the ultimate purpose of life was to maximize human pleasure and minimize human suffering. Mill’s father was a follower of the classical utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and raised his son according to Bentham’s views. Bentham went farther than Epicurus in making happiness the ultimate claim to personal life and the ultimate claim to morality. For Bianchin, all moral, political, and personal problems could be solved by one simple principle-“the greatest happiness for the majority “. But if this is the only principle of life, how can Mill justify his existence?
Through his frustration, Mill realized that Maxim’s utilitarian view, which elevates happiness to the supreme good, is a “pig philosophy” that is only suitable for pigs. Discontent, unhappiness and pain are part of the human condition. Thus, according to Mill, “it is better to be an unsatisfied man than a satisfied pig. He still believed that happiness was extremely important, but gradually discovered that aiming for happiness rarely led to happiness.
Mill believed that one should aim for other goods, and that happiness might be a happy by-product. But it also suggests that the good life may also be unhappy. What Mill recognizes is exactly what Aristotle argued 2,000 years ago-as opposed to living the good life, or achieving what Aristotle called “ultimate happiness (eudaimonia), transient pleasures are secondary.
“Ultimate happiness” is difficult to translate into a contemporary concept. Some scholars, such as philosopher Julia Annas, translate it directly as “happiness,” while others prefer “human flourishing”. Whatever the translation, it contrasts sharply with our modern understanding of happiness.
Aristotle saw prosperity as a complex concept because it encompassed personal fulfillment, moral virtue, excellence, good fortune, and political participation. Unlike Epicurus’ conception of suffering or Bianchin’s “swine” view of pleasure, Aristotle’s view of prosperity is as confusing as prosperity itself.
Like our modern conception of happiness, it is the ultimate goal of life. But unlike happiness, it is achieved through habits and actions, not through mental states. Happiness is not something you experience or acquire, but something you do.
Happiness and Life
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote: “It is not a swallow or a sunny day that makes spring, nor is it a day or a short time that makes a man happy and blissful. “In other words, happiness is a lifelong endeavor, because it is something you must cultivate every day through action. Like the utilitarians, Aristotle believed that happiness and virtue were inseparable.
For Aristotle, virtue is a characteristic that achieves a middle or intermediate position between two extremes. For example, there is bravery between the extremes of cowardice and brute courage, and there is generosity between the extremes of miserliness and money-grubbing. It is a virtue to maintain a balance between the two extremes. But while utilitarians attribute morality to happiness, Aristotle argues that virtue is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for happiness. We cannot be happy without virtue, but having virtue is not a shortcut to happiness either. Moral behavior is itself a part of happiness.
Aristotle argued that the questions of what makes a person happy and what makes a person good are not separate. Janus believed that the relationship between the moral good and the good life determined the direction of ancient philosophy. This is still the question for us today.
In Aristotle’s view, we are happy because of the use of the peculiar human capacity to think and reason. But thinking and reasoning are both social and personal activities: “Man is not an isolated individual; the hermit cannot practice human virtues.” If prosperity requires other people, then happiness requires other people as well. Happiness is not so much an emotional state as it is a good relationship we establish with others.
But even this does not guarantee prosperity. Aristotle believed that happiness is a hostage to fate. Events beyond the control of any individual, including war, unrequited love, poverty, and global epidemics, tend to make human prosperity (and the happiness that comes with it) inaccessible.
This notion of moral luck does not undermine the pursuit of happiness, even if that pursuit frustrates people. Happiness is not a state of mind that can be acquired permanently, but a practice honed in imperfect circumstances.
Realizing this does not guarantee a good life, but it will dispel the false hope of eternal fulfillment. By misunderstanding happiness, modern concepts have increased the potential for disappointment. No worthwhile life should meet the standards set by a hedonistic or utilitarian view of happiness, and thus followers of modern society are doomed to feel disillusioned by the shortcomings of human life. To embrace these flaws, as Aristotle did, and to thrive in their presence.
*Nate Rutherford is a Teaching Fellow in Political Theory at Royal Holloway, University of London.
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