What do I want out of life? Surely everyone occasionally finds a reason and an opportunity to ask themselves this question. Spend more time with family, find a more interesting job, or improve your health. But why do we want these things? Most likely, your answer to yourself will boil down to one word: happiness. Our entire culture revolves around the pursuit of happiness. Happiness must be pursued because it is good to be happy. But can you build a life on that kind of reasoning?
Given the importance of this question, we have surprisingly little objective data on what people really want out of life. In 2016, sociologists asked Americans what they would prefer: to achieve great deeds or to be happy? 81% chose happiness, 13% chose accomplishing great deeds, and 6% found the alternative strange and had difficulty answering. Thus, the majority of people consider the attainment of happiness to be the main goal in life. But what is happiness and how can it be achieved?
The number of components of this ghost can grow infinitely. Do your relationships with other people, your work, your home, your body, and your food make you happier? If not, what are you doing wrong? In the modern world, the concept of happiness is almost identical to the summum bonum of the ancient philosophers, the Absolute Good from which all good things arise. According to this logic, the absence of happiness is the absolute evil to be avoided at all costs. There is ample evidence that our fixation on the pursuit of happiness often leads to depression.
There are many guides to finding happiness. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. The end of the story: Promotional Podcasts. In the recently published book “Age of Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness,” historian Richie Robertson argues that the main idea of the century that shaped our world was not so much the triumph of reason as the search for happiness through reason, and that we continue to live within the framework of this project today. Not surprisingly, happiness has always been considered the highest good, but its constituent values and feelings are not something given once and for all. Previously dominant virtues, such as honor or humility, have lost some of their meaning. The words we use to express our feelings are also changing. Modern concepts of happiness are mainly practical rather than philosophical, focusing on what might be called happiness technologies. The focus is not on what happiness is, but on how to achieve it. We discuss happiness in medical terms, as the opposite of sadness and depression, assuming that happiness and unhappiness are the result of some chemical reactions in the brain. “In modern society, happiness is synonymous with contentment and pleasure. The belief that happiness is the highest good essentially means that the most important thing in the world is one’s state of mind,” writes eminent ethicist Martha Nussbaum.
A vast number of books on so-called “positive psychology” have been written, promising everyone the key to eternal happiness. Many philosophers are skeptical of this approach, pointing out that mood is a fickle thing and that the reasons for its fluctuations are uncertain, and they try to develop an objective concept of the good life.
Love is a source of happiness, but it can also bring pain and suffering. One of the definitions is that we are happy when we do what we like and enjoy. But life is not all pleasure. Even the most successful person is full of pain. Loss, disappointment and failure, physical suffering from injury and disease, and mental suffering from boredom, loneliness and sadness. Pain is an inseparable part of our existence as long as we live. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who lived from 341-270 BC, taught that the meaning of life is to pursue pleasure and avoid suffering. The prolonged absence of pain brings a tranquility of mind that Epicurus called “ataraxia,” a term that is close to the modern understanding of happiness. In fact, one of the most common synonyms for happiness is “being at peace with oneself,” and no one would argue that a life full of pain is a good life. But is it all about minimizing suffering? What if happiness brings pain? Love is the most famous and vivid example. What if suffering is necessary, and sometimes we even unconsciously seek it? The pain of losing a seriously ill parent or the final breakup with a partner can be a relief at the same time. A life without love and attachments is deeply harmful, although it frees us from a great deal of pain. Almost everything good in life comes with pain. Writing a book, running a marathon, having a child-all of these things cause pain along the way, but bring joy when the goal is achieved. Epicurus would argue that suffering exists to make his ataraxia more attractive. Try to reduce it, endure what cannot be avoided-that is what it means to live wisely. The primary guide to action is the reduction of suffering. When writing a book, if the pain of creation outweighs the satisfaction of finished work, do not write it. If a little pain today can prevent a worse pain in the future, as the effort to stop smoking can prevent cancer, then it is worth it. According to Epicurus, to be happy one must be a good bookkeeper. But the bookkeeping approach to happiness also oversimplifies reality. Friedrich Nietzsche, in “On the Genealogy of Morality,” claimed that a person endures suffering not only to obtain a pleasure that outweighs it, but also because “he does not reject suffering as such, sometimes even desires it and seeks it, if he sees meaning and purpose in it. In Nietzsche’s view, suffering in life is balanced not by pleasure but by meaning. However, he doubted that a person is capable of finding enough meaning in his suffering to consider it justified. A life of meaningful suffering is more valuable than a life of meaningless pleasure.
Thus, as if the question of the nature of happiness were not enough, we come to the next question: what is the meaning of life? As you search for meaning in life, the fallacy of the modern view of happiness as the sum of sensations will become apparent.
Can happiness be considered the highest value? The American philosopher Robert Nozick did a thought experiment. Suppose we have a machine that can make any wish you have come up with come true, but only virtually. You can conquer the universe in a ship of your own making, be the greatest poet or inventor in history, or a popular chef in a local restaurant. In reality, you will sleep in a capsule. Are you going to plug the fork into the socket? According to Nozik, no, because a normal person wants to achieve something and be someone in reality, not just in sensations. The hypothetical situation may seem contrived. But if we are willing to sacrifice unlimited pleasure for real meaning, it means that the concept of happiness as the highest value is false. And if Nozick is right, then the 81% of Americans in the survey who preferred happiness to great achievement are wrong. Incidentally, the majority of participants in Nozick’s experiment said they would not use the machine. Nozick’s dilemma refutes the well-known postulate of utilitarianism that “happiness is the desired and ultimately the only desired goal. The philosopher who said this, John Stuart Mill, did not achieve it himself, but was a victim of depression. “I was in that state of melancholy to which every man is occasionally subject; insensible to joy and every pleasant excitement, when that which at other times gives pleasure seems empty,” he wrote in his Autobiography in 1826. In other words, life did not bring joy to Milla. For most people, this is simply bad, but for Milla, with his philosophical mindset, it led to even more troubling thoughts. From birth, he was taught that the highest and ultimate goal of life is to increase pleasure and decrease suffering for mankind. Mill’s father was a follower of the founder of classical utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, the author of the famous principle that “the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people is the truth”. Bentham reduced all moral, political, and personal problems to this principle, going further in Epicureanism than Epicurus himself. If we follow this logic, John Mill should have recognized his own life as unsuccessful and meaningless. Disappointed with Bentham’s philosophy, Mill called it “fit only for pigs” and concluded that man was not born to be happy. Dissatisfaction, disappointment, and pain are not deviations from the norm, but a natural state, and “it is better to be a dissatisfied man than a satisfied pig,” he wrote. Happiness is, of course, good and important, but the constant pursuit of it rarely leads to it. According to Mill, one should strive for other things, and happiness can come as a by-product, a bonus, as they would say today. If a person does not experience happiness, it does not mean that he is living wrongly. If Bentham was a follower of Epicurus, Mill also had a predecessor in the ancient world – Aristotle. Two thousand years ago, he taught that transient feelings of happiness are less important than the “right life” according to Aristotle, eudaimonia and eudaimonism. It is difficult to translate this word into modern languages. The philosopher Julia Ennas translates it as “happiness”, while other authors translate it as “flourishing of the personality” or “virtue”. In any case, it is something very different from most modern concepts of happiness. According to them, happiness is a state of the soul, while Aristotelian eudaimonia is behavior and action. It is not what you feel, but what you do.
And perhaps happiness lies in doing one’s duty well and being satisfied with oneself? In contrast to the Epicurean calculus of suffering and pleasure and the Benthamite cult of pleasure, Aristotle’s views of the good life were comprehensive, including self-satisfaction, moral virtues, excellence in the performance of duties, success, and active citizenship. “Just as a swallow and a sunny day do not make a spring, so a brief moment of happiness does not make a man blessed by the gods,” wrote Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Eudaimonia is achieved through daily actions throughout life, and happiness is inseparable from virtue, he taught. According to Aristotle, virtue always lies in the middle between extremes, such as courage between cowardice and recklessness, and generosity between avarice and extravagance. It can be said that virtue is the maintenance of the right balance. Where utilitarians reduce morality to human happiness, Aristotle sees virtue as an important but not the only part of eudaimonia. One cannot achieve the flourishing of the personality without virtue, but virtue itself does not necessarily lead to eudaimonia; it is a part of it. Aristotle insisted that the questions of what brings happiness and what makes a person good cannot be separated. The idea of an inextricable link between ethics and the good life is key to ancient philosophy, as Ennas points out. It remains relevant today. According to Aristotle, we achieve perfection by using the unique human ability to think and reason. But thinking is as much a social act as it is an individual one: “A hermit cannot display the best human qualities. Therefore, society is necessary for happiness. Happiness is not only a personal emotional state, but also perfect relationships with others. But this does not guarantee prosperity. Aristotle recognized that happiness depends largely on luck. Events beyond our control – war, unwanted love, poverty, or an epidemic – can destroy happiness. But a person must continue to strive for eudaimonia, even in the face of temporary defeat. According to Aristotle, happiness is not a state that can be achieved once and for all, but a practice that we pursue throughout our lives, with greater or lesser success, even under unfavorable conditions. Realizing this does not guarantee us a good life, but it does dispel the illusory hope of eternal satisfaction. Such an understanding of happiness actually increases the risk of eternal disappointment. No real life conforms to the Epicurean or Utilitarian standards of happiness, and their current adherents are doomed to dissatisfaction when they inevitably encounter the dark side of existence. Would it not be better, following Aristotle, to accept their existence and strive to make our lives better in spite of them? You can read the original article on the BBC Future website.