![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Redefining Happiness
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 01:41 pmAfter finding out I would be teaching ENG 102 instead of 101 next semester, I thought I might dust off my old "Theories of Happiness" course because although I love "The Psychology and Philosophy of Games" (my normal ENG 102 course these days), I don't love it enough to want to do it three times in a row. This got me to thinking yet again about happiness, what it is and how it might be attained.
Redefining happiness was triggered by an article I read in Elephant Journal and have since lost. I actually didn't like the article that much because of its hectoring tone, but its definition of happiness intrigued me; it was something like "making progress towards a valued goal" (I forget the actual wording, which reminds me of Ingrid Bergman's definition of happiness—"good health and a bad memory"). After turning this over in my head for a while, I decided it wasn't quite what I was looking for but very close, and came up with the following provisional definition:
State works somewhat better than "goal", since it isn't something that you simply work toward, achieve then forget about—it could be semi-permanent or need constant maintenance. The point is that goals are future-oriented, and while this is often true for happiness, it may be also based in the present. I was originally thinking of using "state/event" (a term I got into the habit of using when I was learning Lojban) but that would be ungainly, and I think "state" logically implies "event".
Value is important because to be in a condition worthy of the term happiness, the person has not only to want the state that is achieved or being worked towards, but also has to value it. Here the most useful definition of "value" is Gary Watson's: "an agent's values consist in those principles and ends which he—in a cool and non-self-deceptive moment—articulates as definitive of the good, fulfilling, and defensible life." 1 Here I'm trying to skirt round the perfectionist debate; while the question of whether certain human activities have inherent, objective value is very interesting, I don't want to get into it here, so I'm opting for a weak theory of value. This still allows us to posit a state of false happiness, though, for it is possible for someone to think that something is valuable while in fact its realisation would nullify things that the agent really does value.
Realisation isn't exactly the word I want, but it's the closest I can get to a word that encompasses "progress toward", "achievement" and "maintenance", all of which may be involved in happiness. (If I were writing this in Turkish, I'd probably say "oluş(tur)mak".) The feeling of moving toward a goal is one of the most common emotions associated with the words "happiness" or "enjoyment", as game designers know all too well. In its active form, when one is using ones capabilities to bring about a result, it is the basis of Csikszentmihalyi's "flow" experience. It may also, however, be a more passive feeling of pleasant anticipation, when you aware aware that something good is coming but you are not the agent of that event. Next comes acheivement, associated with emotions such as satisfaction, triumph and joy, and again it may be active or passive. Finally, there is a state of contentment associated with awareness that a valued state is present and continuing. The current vogue for expressing gratitude is related to this.
My use of "realisation" here is also a kind of recursive pun, in that it is not enough that the state be realised, one must realise that it is being realised. You will not be happy because your friend has recovered from an illness if no one has told you about it.
Finally, happiness is an engendered condition. While bliss may be purely neurochemical, happiness is both hedonic and eudaemonic. Although we're swimming in murky semantic waters here, I'd say it is possible to feel happy without actually being happy, as in the oft-used example of the heroin addict who feels happy so long as he has a supply of the drug but whose life is disintegrating as a result. I would also argue, though, that someone who feels miserable because of some chemical imbalance in their brain should not be regarded as happy even though they are achieving all their life goals. It is also worth emphasising that although happiness is engendered by the realisation of certain states, these states do not have to be external. If what you value most is a certain state of mind (e.g., bodhicitta or Stoic apatheia) then you'll be happy so long as you are in that state; on the other hand, if what you value most is an external goal (e.g., wealth or world peace) then your happiness is dependant on the degree to which that is realised. Thus arguments about happiness are in fact often really arguments about what we should value.
So there you have it. As I said, it's not the most elegant definition of happiness I've seen, but it does seem to work remarkably well. Maybe I'll write more about that later.
1"Free Agency," in Gary Watson (ed.) Free Will (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) p. 105.
Redefining happiness was triggered by an article I read in Elephant Journal and have since lost. I actually didn't like the article that much because of its hectoring tone, but its definition of happiness intrigued me; it was something like "making progress towards a valued goal" (I forget the actual wording, which reminds me of Ingrid Bergman's definition of happiness—"good health and a bad memory"). After turning this over in my head for a while, I decided it wasn't quite what I was looking for but very close, and came up with the following provisional definition:
Happiness is a condition engendered by realisation of a valued state.I admit this is not elegant, but it gives me the flexibility I need. Let's look at it one word at a time, and backwards.
State works somewhat better than "goal", since it isn't something that you simply work toward, achieve then forget about—it could be semi-permanent or need constant maintenance. The point is that goals are future-oriented, and while this is often true for happiness, it may be also based in the present. I was originally thinking of using "state/event" (a term I got into the habit of using when I was learning Lojban) but that would be ungainly, and I think "state" logically implies "event".
Value is important because to be in a condition worthy of the term happiness, the person has not only to want the state that is achieved or being worked towards, but also has to value it. Here the most useful definition of "value" is Gary Watson's: "an agent's values consist in those principles and ends which he—in a cool and non-self-deceptive moment—articulates as definitive of the good, fulfilling, and defensible life." 1 Here I'm trying to skirt round the perfectionist debate; while the question of whether certain human activities have inherent, objective value is very interesting, I don't want to get into it here, so I'm opting for a weak theory of value. This still allows us to posit a state of false happiness, though, for it is possible for someone to think that something is valuable while in fact its realisation would nullify things that the agent really does value.
Realisation isn't exactly the word I want, but it's the closest I can get to a word that encompasses "progress toward", "achievement" and "maintenance", all of which may be involved in happiness. (If I were writing this in Turkish, I'd probably say "oluş(tur)mak".) The feeling of moving toward a goal is one of the most common emotions associated with the words "happiness" or "enjoyment", as game designers know all too well. In its active form, when one is using ones capabilities to bring about a result, it is the basis of Csikszentmihalyi's "flow" experience. It may also, however, be a more passive feeling of pleasant anticipation, when you aware aware that something good is coming but you are not the agent of that event. Next comes acheivement, associated with emotions such as satisfaction, triumph and joy, and again it may be active or passive. Finally, there is a state of contentment associated with awareness that a valued state is present and continuing. The current vogue for expressing gratitude is related to this.
My use of "realisation" here is also a kind of recursive pun, in that it is not enough that the state be realised, one must realise that it is being realised. You will not be happy because your friend has recovered from an illness if no one has told you about it.
Finally, happiness is an engendered condition. While bliss may be purely neurochemical, happiness is both hedonic and eudaemonic. Although we're swimming in murky semantic waters here, I'd say it is possible to feel happy without actually being happy, as in the oft-used example of the heroin addict who feels happy so long as he has a supply of the drug but whose life is disintegrating as a result. I would also argue, though, that someone who feels miserable because of some chemical imbalance in their brain should not be regarded as happy even though they are achieving all their life goals. It is also worth emphasising that although happiness is engendered by the realisation of certain states, these states do not have to be external. If what you value most is a certain state of mind (e.g., bodhicitta or Stoic apatheia) then you'll be happy so long as you are in that state; on the other hand, if what you value most is an external goal (e.g., wealth or world peace) then your happiness is dependant on the degree to which that is realised. Thus arguments about happiness are in fact often really arguments about what we should value.
So there you have it. As I said, it's not the most elegant definition of happiness I've seen, but it does seem to work remarkably well. Maybe I'll write more about that later.
1"Free Agency," in Gary Watson (ed.) Free Will (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) p. 105.
