What Is Happiness?

And the answer is . . .

It depends. (Dan Haybron of St Louis University a philosopher.) What exactly are you asking? The word ‘happiness’ has lots of meanings, and this question probably means one of two things:

1. What is this state of mind that so many people seek in life? (“psychological” happiness)
2. What is it for my life to go well for me? (“well-being” or “prudential” happiness)

Psychological happiness

The most common usage, and the one I and empirical researchers employ. Here ‘happiness’ simply denotes a broad psychological condition, resembling words like ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’. It should not be confused with the emotion or mood of joy or feeling happy: many think we can be happy without feeling happy at all, say by being satisfied with our lives or achieving tranquility. And Aristotle had no theory of happiness in this sense of the term.

What is happiness in the psychological sense? Most writers identify it either with pleasure or life satisfaction, or some combination (e.g., subjective well-being theories). I think ordinary usage centers on matters of emotional state (see below), but “life satisfaction” uses are also common.

Well-being (“prudential”) happiness

Here the word is basically a synonym for ‘well-being’, ‘flourishing’, or ‘welfare’, which are my preferred terms. It refers to what benefits a person, is in her interest, or makes her life go best for her. A natural reading of talk about leading a happy life, as opposed simply to being happy. When people talk about Aristotle’s theory of “happiness,” this is what they mean.

What is “happiness” in the well-being sense? This is a question of value, not psychology. Aristotelian think it’s a life of virtuous or excellent activity, some think it is getting what you want, others simply value pleasure, etc. For an excellent survey of the literature, see: ttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/

The short answer, according to me

Happiness is best understood as catalysis to a person’s overall condition of thriving. This includes moods, many emotions, and a person’s mood propensity, or tendency to experience various moods (which varies considerably over time) along with is contribution to society’s thriving. To be happy is roughly for one’s emotional condition to be solidly positive, with a heavy predominance of positive over negative affect as experienced in society.

So this is what I know about happiness - it is gauge I use to assist me in charting my way into the state of thriving. What makes it all that more important is that for me to thrive I have to contribute to your general thriving as well. In the next post I will move from happiness to taught. As you may or may not know, Changed Life uses primarily online or virtual methods to convey it treatments. So it is natural for me to only discuss those methods as we will use.