Philosophies of Happiness

A Comparative Introduction to the Flourishing Life

Diana Lobel

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780231545327
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

What does it mean to be truly happy? In Philosophies of Happiness, Diana Lobel provides a rich spectrum of arguments for a theory of happiness as flourishing or well-being, offering a global, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary perspective on how to create a vital, fulfilling, and significant life. Drawing upon perspectives from a broad range of philosophical traditions—Eastern and Western, ancient and contemporary—the book suggests that just as physical health is the well-being of the body, happiness is the healthy and flourishing condition of the whole human being, and we experience the most complete happiness when we realize our potential through creative engagement.

Lobel shows that while thick descriptions of happiness differ widely in texture and detail, certain themes resonate across texts from different traditions and historical contexts, suggesting core features of a happy life: attentive awareness; effortless action; relationship and connection to a larger, interconnected community; love or devotion; and creative engagement. Each feature adds meaning, significance, and value, so that we can craft lives of worth and purpose. These themes emerge from careful study of philosophical and religious texts and traditions: the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus; the Chinese traditions of Confucius, Laozi, and Zhuangzi; the Hindu Bhagavad G?t?; the Japanese Buddhist tradition of Soto Zen master D?gen and his modern expositor Shunryu Suzuki; the Western religious traditions of Augustine and Maimonides; the Persian Sufi tale Conference of the Birds; and contemporary research on mindfulness and creativity. Written in a clear, accessible style, Philosophies of Happiness invites readers of all backgrounds to explore and engage with religious and philosophical conceptions of what makes life meaningful.

Visit https://cup.columbia.edu/extras/supplement/philosophies-of-happiness for additional appendixes and supplemental notes.

Notes

Introduction

1. Nettle, “Introduction,” ix–xi.

2. For a critique of the subjective well-being view of happiness, see Nussbaum, “Who Is the Happy Warrior?” S86–S88.

3. Daniel Haybron in The Pursuit of Unhappiness distinguishes theories of happiness from theories of well-being. He identifies three approaches to happiness, as factual assessments of an individual’s state of mind, the psychological condition of “being happy.” One view is the hedonistic view, in which happiness is identified with pleasure. A second view is the life satisfaction view, in which happiness is being satisfied with one’s life as a whole. A third view, which Haybron defends, is an emotional state view, in which happiness refers to a global emotional condition, including the propensity for certain emotions and moods. Thus, unlike the hedonistic view of happiness, which identifies happiness with a positive balance of pleasant experiential states, Haybron’s view sees happiness as more like the contrary of depression or anxiety. Therefore happiness is not simply a good mood, but a state of psychic affirmation and psychic flourishing. Haybron, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, 182.

Haybron wants to distinguish sharply between happiness as a psychological state and Aristotelian eudaimonia, well-being or flourishing. While he notes that the Stoics and Epicureans promote psychic states such as tranquility and joy, he denies that this is a central feature of Aristotle’s account. However, by defining happiness as psychic flourishing, Haybron himself implicitly acknowledges the intertwined nature of Aristotelian flourishing and the psychological experience of happiness. Haybron emphasizes that the goal of Aristotelian eudaimonia is to promote excellent activity rather than a state of “flow.” However, he also acknowledges that Aristotle’s account of pleasure—so closely tied to engaged activity, done with absorption and interest—clearly resonates with Csikszentmihalyi’s description of flow activities, which we will investigate in Chapters 4 and 11 (ibid., 115). Thus, even on Haybron’s account, Aristotelian eudaimonia would indeed seem to entail psychological dimensions of happiness.

4. For comparable approaches, see, e.g., Ziporyn, “Teaching Philosophy of Religions,” at forty-one minutes and following; Ivanhoe, “Happiness in Early Chinese Thought,” 263–64. Scholars have used the terms thick and thin description to note that although traditions may describe a concept such as “virtue,” “truth,” or “happiness” in different ways—as delineated in a rich, “thick” description—they may nevertheless hold a broad conception that is comparable in a “thin” description. For example, a thin description of the virtue of humility will give a general outline of the virtue—perhaps as having an appropriate attitude toward one’s worth as a person—while a thick account will offer diverse descriptions of what it is to actually hold this attitude. See Van Norden, “Virtue Ethics and Confucianism,” 100; Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, 16–21. Van Norden also notes what he calls the lexical fallacy, the notion that a thinker cannot hold a concept for which there is no specific word in his or her vocabulary. Van Norden responds that we do not need a one-to-one correspondence of terms to assert that thinkers hold comparable conceptions. For example, he argues that the pre-Socratics clearly had some conception of philosophy even though they lived before the Greek term for philosophy was coined by the Pythagoreans; likewise, classical Chinese thinkers hold some notions of “truth” and “rights,” even if they lack specific words or thick descriptions for these concepts. Van Norden, “Virtue Ethics and Confucianism,” 101–2; Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, 21–23. On “thick” and “thin” descriptions, see also Nussbaum, “Non-Relative Virtues”; Ryle, “Thinking and Reflecting,” 474–79; Geertz, “Thick Description”; Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.

5. The aim of the new discipline of positive psychology is not simply to decrease suffering, but to enhance well-being, to realize human beings’ capacity for creative, enjoyable lives. Martin Seligman, one of the founders of the discipline, has also recently added a third pathway to happiness, the life of achievement or accomplishment. Jayawickreme, Pawelski, and Seligman, “Happiness,” 4–10. Positive psychology acknowledges a debt to humanistic psychology; the two disciplines have also engaged in debates on questions such as whether one should emphasize subjective hedonic well-being or objective self-actualization; whether the therapist should take a value neutral stance or encourage ethical commitment to realization of virtues; and whether the discipline has sufficient empirical verification of claims to improve well-being. See Robbins, “What Is the Good Life?”

6. Milner, “Aristotle vs. Aristippus.” Nevertheless, we will find that pleasure holds an important place in Aristotle’s conception of the good life. Pleasure is the appreciation of valuable activity; it reinforces or enhances our worthwhile engagement.

7. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.4 1095a 20. The term eudaimonia is comprised of the particles eu, “well,” and daimon, “divinity” or “spirit.” Richard Kraut notes that “to be eudaimon is to therefore be living in a way that is well-favored by a god. But Aristotle never calls attention to this etymology in his ethical writings, and it seems to have little influence on his thinking. He regards eudaimon as a mere substitute for eu zên (“living well”).” Kraut, “Aristotle’s Ethics.”

8. Is human excellence thereby identical with happiness? The term eudaimonism is used to describe a view that links happiness with virtue; ancient ethical theories connected these two concepts in varying ways. Some thinkers argue that virtue and the exercise of vi...