Volume 28 · Number 3 · Spring 2011
The History of Happiness
Thinking and philosophizing about happiness date to the dawn of civilization, though ideas about what happiness is and how to achieve it have changed dramatically.
Aristotle valued intellectual powers over practical ones, noted philosophy instructor G.J. Mattey. For most ancient Greeks, happiness was largely bound up with notions of luck and fortune. The important thing for Aristotle was not to seek happiness for its own sake, but to live virtuously.
Opposing that view, Mattey said, was a Greek named Epicurus and his followers, who considered happiness to be the presence of pleasure and absence of pain. Later, in the Middle Ages, the issue focused on one's relationship to God, but Enlightenment thinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries saw it more as a self-evident truth, to be pursued and obtained in the here and now — on earth, not in heaven.
Indeed, in 1776, America's Founding Fathers declared the "pursuit of happiness" to be one of man's "unalienable rights," along with life and liberty.
In the 19th century, Mattey noted, British utilitarians like John Stuart Mill sought to define and measure the value of actions by how much happiness they produce, the quality of that happiness and how it was distributed throughout society. "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," Mill famously said.
Mattey further explained Mill's reasoning: "The greater the quantity of happiness, spread most widely over the population, that the action produces, the better the action is."
Nietzsche: Unleash the passions
Some thinkers have turned the concept of happiness on its head, Mattey said. One of them was Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century. He considered the age-old philosophical formula that "reason equals virtue which equals happiness to be a disastrous error," said Mattey.
Historically, philosophers have championed reason over the passions, with reason serving as the only force capable of keeping the passions under control. But as Nietzsche saw it, the will to power brings about a greater fulfillment.
"In Nietzsche's view, this suppression of the passions has created a fundamentally 'sick' society," Mattey said. "The happy people have been the great nobilities of the past who were powerful and whose power was not checked by the philosophers' reason or the theologians' God."
Worry: Be unhappy
Believe it or not, happiness has its critics. Is happiness always good?
Author Barbara Ehrenreich, a staunch critic of positive psychology, contends that too much optimistic thinking discourages people from seeking real solutions to real problems. Pain, loss, distress, illness, unemployment and grief are not "gifts," but rather real events that cheerful slogans cannot fix, she maintains.
Adam Phillips, a British psychoanalyst and lay philosopher, in his 2007 book, Going Sane, declared, "the best lives, like the worst lives, are driven lives." Happiness, he argued, is something one may or may not acquire, in terms of luck, and it may represent an unconscious desire for disillusionment.
After all, some people delight in doing bad or wicked things — surely Jack the Ripper took perverse pleasure in his murderous spree in the London of 1888. And tales of evil-doing entertainment enthrall the masses. Phillips suggests comparing how it is to read a book on positive psychology or a European novel full of intrigue and darkness.
In response, UC Davis psychology professor Bob Emmons points to the research supporting the value of happiness — people score better on issues of career, love and health when they are happy. However, he does agree that too much giddy satisfaction is counterproductive.
"Outside of relationships, where the most happy fare best, the best outcomes are attained by those who are moderately happy (7–8) on a 10 point scale, compared to the extremely happy (the 10s). Happier is not always better," Emmons said.
"Moderate" happiness, Emmons explained, can help people in terms of self-improvement and achievement. Other people too optimistic about themselves and everything around them might not shore up their weaknesses, listen to constructive criticism, or heed danger.
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