Happiness, Beyond the Data
On 10/04/13, by Gary Gutting, the Opinionator
Extracts:
"Happiness studies are booming in the social sciences, and governments are moving toward quantitative measures of a nation’s overall happiness, meant to supplement traditional measures of wealth and productivity. (…)
Happiness involves four things, and the first one is mostly a matter of luck. You have be sufficiently free of suffering — physical and mental — for happiness to be even possible. Suffering can be noble and edifying, but it can also reduce us to a state where there’s nothing beyond our distress that can make it meaningful. (…)
The second requirement for happiness: fulfilling work. Since humans are distinct persons but with essential ties to a community, my work must be fulfilling both individually and socially: I must do something that satisfies me as an individual and that I regard as producing significant good for others. Of course, unless I have the luck of being born rich, my work must also generate enough income to provide me the minimal goods without which happiness is not even possible. The challenge is to find satisfying work with an adequate income. (…)
A third feature of happiness is what the ancient Greeks called the proper “use of pleasure.” Here I am using “pleasure” to refer not to just any feeling of satisfaction but to the immediate gratification of the senses: not only the five physical senses but also the aesthetic sensibilities directed to art and nature. (…) The danger — particularly for a society as rich as ours — is making pleasure the central focus in the pursuit of a happy life. (…) Pleasures themselves often induce a desire for their repetition and intensification, and without moderation from a reflective mind, they can marginalize the work that lies at the core of true happiness. (…)
Finally, and often most important, there is the happiness of human love, where my happiness arises from and contributes to the happiness of my spouse, my children, my friends — even perhaps of all humankind. Such love can take us beyond the domain of mere happiness, into the world of moral and religious values. It can even lead to sacrificing my happiness for another’s. Love is both the culmination of happiness and a reminder that there is more to life than happiness."
On 10/04/13, by Gary Gutting, the Opinionator
Extracts:
"Happiness studies are booming in the social sciences, and governments are moving toward quantitative measures of a nation’s overall happiness, meant to supplement traditional measures of wealth and productivity. (…)
Happiness involves four things, and the first one is mostly a matter of luck. You have be sufficiently free of suffering — physical and mental — for happiness to be even possible. Suffering can be noble and edifying, but it can also reduce us to a state where there’s nothing beyond our distress that can make it meaningful. (…)
The second requirement for happiness: fulfilling work. Since humans are distinct persons but with essential ties to a community, my work must be fulfilling both individually and socially: I must do something that satisfies me as an individual and that I regard as producing significant good for others. Of course, unless I have the luck of being born rich, my work must also generate enough income to provide me the minimal goods without which happiness is not even possible. The challenge is to find satisfying work with an adequate income. (…)
A third feature of happiness is what the ancient Greeks called the proper “use of pleasure.” Here I am using “pleasure” to refer not to just any feeling of satisfaction but to the immediate gratification of the senses: not only the five physical senses but also the aesthetic sensibilities directed to art and nature. (…) The danger — particularly for a society as rich as ours — is making pleasure the central focus in the pursuit of a happy life. (…) Pleasures themselves often induce a desire for their repetition and intensification, and without moderation from a reflective mind, they can marginalize the work that lies at the core of true happiness. (…)
Finally, and often most important, there is the happiness of human love, where my happiness arises from and contributes to the happiness of my spouse, my children, my friends — even perhaps of all humankind. Such love can take us beyond the domain of mere happiness, into the world of moral and religious values. It can even lead to sacrificing my happiness for another’s. Love is both the culmination of happiness and a reminder that there is more to life than happiness."
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