The topic of human happiness or felicity
has a long history. From Plato and Aristotle to the cynics, stoics, epicureans
and skeptics, there have been no end of philosophical treatises defining
happiness and describing different ways of attaining it. Faith, too, speaks of
human happiness within the context of a religious tradition. In theistic
religions, human happiness is achieved through living a ‘godly’ life here on
earth in the hopes of eternal felicity after death. The topic is huge and the
angles are many, but, until now, there has been no concerted effort to organize
our thoughts about happiness into an empirical science.
Philosophers and theologians can only
speculate, the new idea is to bring philosophy into an interdisciplinary arrangement containing both
fairly hard and rather softer social scientific theories. Richard Layard, in
his book “The New Science of Happiness” brings philosophy, psychology,
economics and neurophysiology to bear on the question of human happiness, what
it is, and what we can do collectively and individually to promote happiness in
the world.
On Layard’s reasonable view, happiness
involves both external conditions and the internal attitudes and mental states
of individuals. Again, plausibly, we are not to impose on everyone an idea of
happiness generated by high-minded philosophers or divine-minded theologians.
We are to start with what ordinary people think. What makes this a “science” of
happiness is the use of empirical data in calculating what is or is not
conducive to happiness or an ingredient in the happy life. This empirical
approach uses the results of ‘happiness’ questionnaires. One involves coming up
with a ‘well-being’ index, another with a ‘life-satisfaction’ index. People
taking the questionnaires subjectively rank their well-being or
life-satisfaction.
From these exercises we learn both how
happy a person feels at the given time, and what the person thinks are the main ingredients of a happy
life. What we do not learn from them, however, is how reflective the subjects
of the questionnaires are in making their judgments about what the good life is
for them. What people generally think
will make them happy are just the sorts of things that philosophers and
theologians find far down the list of truly valuable things.
The usual suspects are things like
pleasure, wealth, status, fame, glory, power, good looks, fancy possessions, a
snazzy car and the right address. Take the ends that matter to you and measure
yourself against them. It is only at that
point that you can estimate how happy you are. We need the idea of a
good we are aiming at before we can know how close or far away we are from
attaining it.
The philosophy of choice, for Layard, is
Utilitarianism. We are to conceive of a ‘common good’ and work toward that end
in a non-coercive fashion. Each person’s happiness is of equal value, so
utilitarianism fits a democratic model of government. Within this framework,
and armed with the results of thousands of questionnaires, the other sciences
plug in and bring their expertise to bear.
The new field of ‘positive psychology’
tries to develop interventions, tools or techniques to raise a person's ‘set
point’ of happiness. Each of us has a normal range of happiness, to which we
return after our spirits are lifted or lowered by good and bad events. The set
point of happiness involves a person's genetic inheritance and background, but
also, importantly, the individual's attitude and state of mind. Positive
psychology tries to develop strengths rather than fight weaknesses and flaws.
It looks at healthy functioning people, rather than unhappy neurotics and
psychotics. We discover that diet, exercise and meditation can play a large
role in cultivating a calm mind and tranquil spirit.
“Happiness Economics” looks at the
external conditions that, as people self-describe them, make happiness a
possible project. It may be that everyone ultimately wants to be happy, but
that end is a long way off for someone who does not have enough to eat, clothes
to wear, or shelter from the elements. This new approach factors into its
theory the effects on happiness that different economic arrangements have.
Instead of simply looking at the GNP as an index of happiness and well-being of
a society, the happiness economists consider wider aspects of the society and
people as we find them in life, not the famous “homo economici” of economic
theory. As the King of Bhutan put it, we should be looking instead to increase
the GHP, the Gross Happiness Product.
Finally, neurophysiology is entering
exciting new territory with its sophisticated methods of non-invasive brain
scanning. More and more is being learned about the function of different parts
of the brain in processing information and what lights up when people describe
themselves as feeling a particular emotion or state of mind. It seems clear
that the brain is the physical platform for mental and emotional functioning.
We will continue to learn more about the mind-brain system, though the
philosophical import of all this is still unclear. The question of
consciousness is a very hot topic in philosophy and is likely to continue to be
so in the future.
In conclusion, I confess that I still do
not know if a science of happiness is possible. It is certainly a brave attempt
at integrative thinking. My hesitation in indorsing it comes from a disquiet I
have about its empirical credentials. How can we criticize any life-plan for
happiness? Can we choose between the worth of lives? Just because I find the
idea of lying around all day drinking beer and watching football unappealing,
does not mean that it cannot be another
person’s happiness. I know that philosophers have been critical of what most
people think will make them happy. For Plato, knowledge is virtue, and living
virtuously is the essence of living happily. For Aristotle, happiness is our
final good. On his account, the contemplative life is the happiest, and after
that living in accordance with the moral virtues. The Stoics find our happiness
in fortitude and duty, the epicureans in the pleasures of discourse and high
thinking, the cynics in transcending conventional wisdom and morality, and
skeptics in a willing suspension of belief through which they attain peace of mind.
Perhaps the way forward is to see happiness
under two headings. The first is studied by the science of happiness, the
second by philosophical investigation. The first starts with peoples'
assertions about what makes them happy
and how happy they are. The second starts from reflections on one’s life as a
whole, taking into account how one is feeling at the moment, but not resting
there. The question of the good and happy life is one that each individual must
undertake for himself or herself. It involves choosing a life that reflects
one’s basic values and approach to life. Is it an admirable life or not? I am
not sure that true happiness is compatible with living what, in one’s own view,
is a contemptible, mediocre or purely mundane life. There is no doubt that all
this new scientific work will augment our personal reflections on happiness and
how to achieve it, but I am yet to be convinced that we will be able to make
people happy through a scientific method. I would be happy to be proved wrong.
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