Happiness
Dr Timothy O’Leary
Abd Er-Rahman III
(Muslim ruler of Spain 912-961 AD)
• “I have now reigned about 50 years in victory or
peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my
enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches
and honors, power and pleasure, have waited
on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear
to have been wanting to my felicity.
In this situation, I have diligently numbered the
days of pure and genuine happiness which have
fallen to my lot.
They amount to fourteen.”
Heinrich Heine, German poet, 1797-1856
• "Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My
wishes are a humble cottage with a thatched
roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest
milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a
few fine trees before my door;
and if God wants to make my happiness
complete,
He will grant me the joy of seeing some six or
seven of my enemies hanging from those trees."
Albert Camus, French writer, 1913-1960
• You will never be happy if you continue to
search for what happiness consists of. You
will never live if you are looking for the
meaning of life.
Hong Kong, 2005
Happy Hour 5-7pm
Drinks 2 for 1
What is Happiness?
• Is it a feeling, a psychological state, a
mood, something that could occur just 14
days in the course of a life?
• Is it something that could be “complete” –
for example, if God were to hang our
enemies in front of us?
• Is it something that cannot be found
through searching? Then how do we
achieve it?
• Through drugs, through alcohol?
Happiness, Chance, Luck
• The English word happiness derives from
the word ‘hap’ which means (good) chance
or fortune.
• The French word bonheur literally means
‘good hour (time)’.
• One of the German words for happiness –
glück – also conveys the idea of good
luck, chance.
• Is happiness just a matter of chance, good
fortune, then? A matter of being in the right
place at the right time?
• Is there nothing we can do to achieve it?
• And, once again, what is it?!
Let’s look at another word for happiness –
the ancient Greek word:
Eudaimonia
Lit. ‘good spirit’, ‘blessed’, ‘doing well’, living
well’.
• Ancient Greek philosophers had a great
deal to say about eudaimonia – about
what it is and how we can achieve it.
• I want to look here at Aristotle’s approach
to eudaimonia.
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
• He wrote a book called The Nicomachean
Ethics, in which he situates happiness
(eudaimonia) as the goal of human life,
and as the outcome of ethical activity.
• In this book he speaks about eudaimonia
and eu zen (‘living well’) as the thing all
human beings aim for.
Aristotle’s eudaimonistic Ethics
• The basic ‘building blocks’ of Aristotle’s ethics
are:
• Every activity has an ‘end’ an aim, a final goal.
The final cause, or ‘end’ is the highest level of
cause. So, every purposive activity has a
purpose – for example: you set your alarm clock
for 7am…
• There is a hierarchy of ends or aims – but: we
call that at which all things aim ‘the good’.
Final End
• So, if all our actions aim at ends, and we
can hierarchise these ends, then what is
the final end for which we aim in our active
lives?
• It is happiness (eudaimonia). We know
this is the absolute good for human life
because it is final and self-sufficient – we
do not seek it for any other reason, but for
its own sake.
Definition
• But what is happiness?
• Aristotle’s preliminary definition:
“Happiness is an activity of the soul in
accordance with virtue.”
• Note: this definition, with it’s emphasis on
activity, relates to the lecture by Dr Ci on
nihilism, powerlessness, and happiness.
Function
• To explain this we need to address the
question of the proper function of man as
such. For Aristotle function is a crucial
explanatory device.
• To know our function we must examine our
nature – what is it?
• Our defining feature, vis-à-vis other life
forms is: reason and action. That is,
unique among animals, we engage in
purposive, rational activity.
• So, if we say that the purpose/function of a
scissors is to cut, the purpose/function of a
good scissors is to cut well/excellently.
• And, therefore, the purpose/function of a
human being is to engage well in
purposive, rational activity.
• Hence the definition we’ve just seen –
“Happiness is an activity of the soul in
accordance with virtue.”
• BUT we must also know what Aristotle
means by soul.
• For the ancient Greeks, the soul is
primarily a way of explaining the difference
between animate and inanimate things.
Plants, animals and humans are infused
with a certain principle that makes them
alive – psuche, soul (psyche).
• The major division within the human soul
is between the rational part and the nonrational part. But the non-rational part has
a sub-division which is capable of
following reason’s orders (although it does
not do so in the ‘incontinent’, or
intemperate, person).
• For Aristotle, the way you bring a soul to act well
is through practice, habit, or VIRTUE. In other
words, we need to TRAIN our souls to act well.
• The Greek word which we translate as ‘virtue’ is
arete, which literally means ‘excellence’.
• So, Aristotle’s ethics focuses on what is that
makes a person (and their life) excellent as an
example of human activity.
• Let’s look now in more detail at:
• The role of pleasure
• The Virtues (excellences)
• The ‘Mean’ and moral training
The Role of Pleasure
• The question of pleasure is a very
important one in Greek (and later) thought
about ethics – and about happiness.
• What is the proper place of pleasure in the
‘good’/’just’/’happy’ life?
• Aristotle’s approach to this question is the very
‘commonsense’ one that pleasure is a necessary
component of the good or happy life; but it is not
the final aim or goal of human life.
• He would disagree with hedonists, epicureans,
and many modern people, who believe that
pleasure is the highest good in human life – the
source of happiness.
• Pleasure: the good, justice, etc are
inherently pleasurable – the good man
finds them pleasurable.
• BUT, we need to work on ourselves in
order to find the good/just pleasurable.
Human beings don’t automatically find the
good to be pleasurable.
• AND, of course, some external goods, or
pleasures, are also necessary for full
happiness (eudaimonia): “for you cannot
quite regard a man as happy if he be very
ugly to look at, or of humble origin, or
alone in the world and childless” (p.43).
• So, virtue (excellence) is not sufficient in
itself to make a human being happy.
• Aristotle’s definition of the happy person:
“…one whose activities accord with complete
virtue, with an adequate supply of external
goods, not just for any time but for a complete
life…[and who] will also go on living this way and
will come to an appropriate end.”
Note: Aristotle would say that Abd Er-Rahman III
had misunderstood the nature of happiness.
Virtue
• We call this ‘goodness of action’ virtue
(arete/excellence).
• And, following the division of the soul,
human beings are capable of two kinds of
virtue: intellectual (relating to the rational
part) and moral (relating to the nonrational part).
• Intellectual virtues are taught; moral
virtues are cultivated – the product of habit
(ethos).
• For this introduction we’ll just look quickly
at the moral virtues.
Moral Virtues
• The moral virtues are not implanted in us by
nature; but neither are their opposites. And
unlike sight, for eg., which we have before we
use it, in the case of moral virtues: we acquire
them by exercising them. In the same way as
craftsmen learn their craft – through practice.
• “A state [of character] results from [the repetition
of] similar activities.” So – actions precede
dispositions.
• But how do we acquire these virtues?
The Mean
• The answer is: by acting according to a
mean between deficiency and excess.
• Just as health is destroyed by too much
(eg food) or too little (eg food, exercise),
so it is with the moral virtues.
• So, what is virtue (arete, excellence)?
• Virtue is a disposition – a disposition which
enables the good man to perform his
function well. And we do that when we
avoid excess and deficiency, when we
achieve the ‘mean’ in our actions and our
feelings.
• What is the ‘mean’? It is not the arithmetical
mean. It is ‘not the mean of the thing but the
relative mean’.
• Eg., fear, anger, pity can be experienced and
acted upon to excess or to deficiency.
• “But to have these feelings at the right times on
the right occasions towards the right people for
the right motive and in the right way is to have
them in the right measure, that is, somewhere
between the extremes; and this is what
characterises goodness.” Bk.2, Ch.6, Sect.10-12
• “We may now define virtue as a
disposition of the soul in which, when it
has to choose among actions and feelings,
it observes the mean relative to us, this
being determined by such a rule or
principle as would take shape in the mind
of a man of sense or practical wisdom” .
• Examples of some (Greek) virtues (of
character):
Courage; Temperance; Generosity;
Truthfulness; Friendliness; Modesty.
• These are all acquired through good habit.
• And, when combined with the intellectual
virtues (knowledge, practical wisdom, etc),
they lead to a life of eudaimonia – wellbeing, or well-doing.
• We call the person who achieves this life
“happy” (eudaimon) and “virtuous”
(excellent).
• The point of ethics – and philosophy – is to
achieve this goal.
• Further Reading:
• This article from the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy will be useful
– esp. Section 2.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotleethics/#2