Happiness the Pursuit of Happiness

Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Though they were not exactly following English philosopher John Locke's words, when the authors of the United States' Declaration of Independence wrote these words they were standing on the shoulders of many philosophers that had come before them in defining happiness and ascertaining its role in human affairs. Despite the many different complex definitions of happiness that have been developed, it can most simply be understood as the emotional state towards which most -- if not all -- human beings strive, and which leaves them without great desire for any other state. Even this simple definition, however, creates many complex philosophical issues, not the least of which is determining exactly how to lead the type of life that makes one happy, or what could be termed a "good" life in one sense or another.

Though the word "good" is not always used in its moralistic sense, this usage of the word actually has a great deal to do with happiness, especially according to Aristotle's theories. In his work Nicomachean Ethics, he basically theorizes that everything has a purpose, and that the better -- more efficiently, completely, or perfectly -- that purpose is achieved, the better that particular thing is. Happiness, for Aristotle, could be defined as the feeling of fulfillment or contentment at having achieved a purpose. Fulfilling purpose was also the main ethical drive according to Aristotle, and so leading a good life in a moral sense would automatically lead to happiness -- the better or more completely an individual filled his or her purpose, the more ethical that life would be and the more fulfilled (i.e. happy) that person would feel. Though this is a gross oversimplification of Aristotle's ethics, it provides a basic understanding of their relation to happiness.

Socrates, Aristotle's predecessor, was far less certain of what his or any man's purpose was. The search for this purpose, and for other knowledge about life and the universe, somewhat ironically became Socrates' purpose. He felt it was his and everyone else's responsibility to question everything, and to lead a life whose primary and even sole focus was the discovery of truth. This can be related to Aristotle's ethics if it is theorized that seeking truth was Socrates' purpose -- seeking that is, and not necessarily finding. Socrates always claimed that he knew nothing, but he was fiercely proud of his ignorance and understood it better than most other philosophers understood their "knowledge." In this regard, Socrates was incredibly good at seeking the truth, and thus very good at fulfilling his purpose -- he would have been a happy man, probably right up until the time he was imprisoned and put to death.

Though considered more a religious figure than a philosopher, the teachings of Buddha also have profound philosophical implications on how to achieve happiness. According to Buddhist traditions, life is full of suffering, and only by encountering this suffering with compassion and understanding is one able to break away from the cycle of rebirth and enter nirvana. The way to do this is to eliminate all desire; if you do not want anything, you can never be disappointed or hurt. According to Buddha, then, the path to true happiness lies in divesting oneself of everything, material and otherwise, to remove the ties and associations of the world that is imprisoning the spirit. In some ways, this is actually the most rewarding definition of happiness, as it requires an individual to get everything they want in order to make them happy. Getting nothing is incredibly easy, but wanting it is much harder.

According to Ayn Rand, wanting nothing is simply a human impossibility, or at least constitutes an immoral way of life. Her theory of Ethical Egoism is similar to the theory of Psychological Egoism, which postulates that all humans act out of self-interest, and any act that appears altruistic actually has, whether the person acting knows it or not, ulterior motives that will benefit the person somehow. Rand takes this supposed survival imperative and turns it into a matter of morality. Even she must give some credit to Aristotle here; she believes that it is every human's (every organism's, really) purpose to survive, and to amass as many resources as they can that will ensure survival. This explains behaviors like greed and hoarding in an ethically acceptable way -- it is right to survive, and right to take steps to ensure survival, therefore it is right to have as much as one possibly can of any survival commodity, be it food, shelter, or some indirect means of obtaining these -- money, for example.

This contrasts with the other theories of happiness, which demand some form of give and take with the outside world -- through community purpose, seeking truth, or compassion. Ethical Egoism, and the Psychological Egoism it depends on, might very well be the correct theories explaining human behavior and happiness, but if this is the case than humans are very inefficient when it comes to happiness. If everyone behaved the way Ethical Egoism claims they should, then the majority of people would be unhappy the majority of the time, because the bulk of the survival commodities would always be held by a powerful (and very happy) minority. Perhaps this is the fatal flaw of Rand's theory -- rich people are not any more happy than poor, despite their having lived a -- or the -- "good" life.

Morality and Happiness

Happiness, one of philosophy's most commonly examined human emotions, has long been linked -- either as a companion or opponent to -- morality. For many philosophers, the leading of a morally or ethically correct life will automatically lead to happiness, or in some cases actually is a working definition of happiness. For others, usually more cynical thinkers but also some very earnest intellectuals and philosophers, morality as it is generally perceived impinges on happiness, which is derived from selfish pleasures. Regardless of the nature of the connection between these two very human concepts, however, the fact that there is a connection is undeniable and rarely disputed. From the time of Socrates right up to modern thinkers like Ayn Rand, morality and happiness have occupied the same great debates and philosophical works, with an incredibly wide range of opinions and conclusions drawn on the subject.

Aristotle was one of the first to draw an explicit and direct link between the two concepts, in his discussion of purpose and happiness in Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle's general theory, if an individual was living their life in a way that helped them to achieve their purpose effectively, that person would of course be happy (as a function of having succeeded at fulfilling his or her purpose), and would also be living up to their truest potential and would therefore be living in an ethically or morally correct way. That is, it is a moral imperative to live life so as to achieve one's purpose, and achieving one's purpose also leads to feelings of contentment and happiness. According to this oversimplified version of the theory, there is a built in mechanism for achieving happiness -- living morally! Not only that, but living life in a way that was counter-productive to achieving one's purpose -- i.e. In a morally bereft way -- would lead to unhappiness because it would be marked with a lack of success.

The well-known nineteenth century philosopher John Stuart Mill had a different view on happiness. In a nut shell, his theory of Utilitarianism as a system of ethics made something moral when it made most people happy, and immoral when it created more unhappiness. Mill did not actually use the word "happy," but rather "utility" -- how useful an act was in all of its effects determined its morality. For Mill, then, consequence was everything, and the same action in different situations would have very different moral values. Lying to a man intent on mass murder in order to prevent hi from carrying out his nefarious plans would be more useful -- and would create far more happiness -- than telling the truth would, whereas lies in most other situations -- instances of theft, for example -- generally hurt both those involved and society at large. Thus, happiness is not only the product of moral action, but is actually the determining consequence of it.

Immanuel Kant had a very different view on morality. As much as Mill relied on consequence for determining an act's moral value, Kant relied on the actual act itself, to the exclusion of all else. He developed what has been termed the categorical imperative, which means that an act is either good or not good in all situations. The only true good, as Kant saw it, was that which was untainted by any selfish motives but that instead came from a pure "good will." This could not even be termed a desire to do good, as then it would be fulfilling someone's desire to do a good deed, and would therefore have a selfish motive. Kant is one of the very few that attempted to divorce happiness from morality; even though lying to the mass murderer would save many lives, Kant believed that lying was wrong, and therefore one could not lie even in such a situation and remain moral. Unhappy or dead, yes, but definitely not moral.