The Objectivity of Happiness
St. Mary's
Although not often
carefully distinguished, there are at least three positions one may take on the
relationship between happiness and satisfying one's wants:
(a) Happiness is thinking that you have what you want.
(b) Happiness is really having what you want.
(c) Happiness is having what you want for and
only for a certain subset of wants, namely, those the satisfaction of which
contributes toward the fulfillment of your human telos.
That Aristotle's position
is best captured by (c), see 1098a8-20.
Let me now try to defend
Aristotle's position against (a) and against (b). I can think of four reasons
to prefer Aristotle's account. [note 1]
1. Against (a), let me suggest that we don't think that the
value of, say, being respected is that if we are respected, then we usually
will think that we are respected. Is it really the case that the reason S
ought to be honest is that S's honesty will usually lead to S
coming to believe that S is honest, and that S will accordingly
feel better about herself? [note 2]
We think that this misses what we take to be important, and justifiably so, let
me wager, about virtues such as being respected and being honest. What we take
to be important about being respected is just that others do respect us,
not that we will be more likely to believe that others respect us. Is
the value of me not lying to you that I can then come to believe that I did not
lie to you, or does the value reside simply in the objective fact that I did
not lie to you? [note 3]
An objection to my
argument is that I have not yet tried to explain why it is that I want the
respect or honesty; what's in it for me, if not that I will adopt certain
positive beliefs about myself?
I cannot reply simply that
the extra advantage to me of others' respect for me being genuine (and not
illusory) is that people's actions will reflect this genuine (and not illusory)
respect. That is, I cannot say that genuine respect does, while faked respect
does not, make others treat you better than they otherwise would. I wish that I
could say this and simply be done with it, but I can't, for consider the
following thought experiment.
Let’s say Barbara thinks
that an essential component of her happiness is having friends. And let’s say
that she has whatever other components she thinks are important to her
happiness. So given this, if she has friends, she’s happy; if she doesn’t,
she’s not. Let’s further suppose that Barbara believes that she has friends,
many and deep, but that it turns out that she is thoroughly mistaken. That is,
Barbara's acquaintances are engaged in an elaborate and coordinated plot to
deceive her into thinking that she is respected. Of course the group would then
have to act as though they respect Barbara, and not simply talk as if
they did. Surely Barbara is perceptive enough that she would become suspicious
if the favorable talk was never expressed in favorable action; she may be duped
but not dumb. And since the acquaintances are, ex hypothesi, effective
deceivers, Barbara must get all the same benefits from them that she would have
gotten if they had been her true friends.
Nor can I say that the
deception will last only a while, though perhaps a long while, and so that the
favorable actions will last only as long as the deception does. I cannot say
this because, although true, Barbara may do something worthy of disrespect,
yet the deception may be maintained; so there are scenarios in which genuine
respect could be more ephemeral than illusory respect. An additional reason
that this response is not open to me is that, as Lady Philosophy always has it,
the example can be cast so that Barbara dies without ever having discovered the
deception.
What I want to suggest is
that far from valuing others' respect solely or even primarily as a means to
acquiring the belief that others are treating us well (which is no doubt
a satisfying belief to have), we value others' respect solely or at least
primarily as a means to acquiring the belief that we are good people,
and this matters to us because we want it to be true. This proposal is
significantly different from the alternative implied by (a), for instead of the
possession of a belief (namely, that I am respected) being what matters
(as [a] would have it), my proposal has the truth of a belief (namely,
that I am worthy of respect) as what matters. And I want that belief to be true
not because its being true increases the probability that I will maintain that
pleasant belief [note 4], but simply because I want
to be the sort of person who is worthy of others' respect, for this is evidence
(though not conclusive) that I am a good person. [note 5]
As a test for this, would
you rather be respected by others and not believe that you are, or be deceived
into thinking that you are respected by others? Maybe it's just me, but I would
rather have the first than end up like Barbara. The reality is primary and the
belief secondary.
To see this perhaps more
clearly, think of love. Wouldn't you be missing something if your mate doesn't
love you the way he or she says and acts? In fact, upon discovering an
unfaithful act, doesn't the fact that one had been deceived add to the
hurt? Surely you wouldn't think, "At least I can be glad that I was able
to go so long a time under the impression that Lee was faithful to me!"
Yet if what counted to you had been the mere belief that you were loved,
then the fact that you had had that false belief for so long would mitigate,
not exacerbate, your hurt.
2. As a second argument against (a), note
that when we raise children, we don't raise them to gullibly believe that their
wants are satisfied. But we would put a premium on such easy belief
formation if all we wanted for our children was for them to believe that
they are getting what they want. We try to raise them so that they learn the
importance, say, of having friends or of sharing, not of thinking that
they have friends or that they share.
3. Against (b), note that if we accepted
it, then in order to make our children have the best chance of being happy, we
should bring them up so that they want as few things as possible, e.g.,
that they don't want friends, integrity, or initiative. These are hard to get,
so if our children don't want them in the first place, then they won't be
disappointed by not getting them.
Our response to this line
of thinking would be that such an upbringing would hinder our children,
for things like friends, integrity, and initiative are some of the important
things in life. And they are objectively important, whether or not I believe
that they are important, for they are some of the conditions required for a
full flourishing of our human nature.
4. Another problem with (b), and with (a),
is that they fuse (and confuse) being happy with feeling happy
(that is, with feeling as if I am happy). I can feel happy without being happy,
just as I can feel healthy without being healthy.
Whatever else happiness
is, it is something important. It is the word we use, after all, for what
guides our choices, whether our own happiness, Lee's happiness, or the greatest
happiness for the greatest number. Given that it is so very important, why think
it synonymous for elation? Elation is a good word for that phenomenon which
consists of grins, giggling, and a skip in one's step. My point here is only
that there is some deeper, subtler, more profound state of a person, and name
it whatever you want (I have chosen "happiness," but other good
candidates would be well-being, flourishing, or even eudaimonia),
it cannot be reduced to whistling merry tunes or acquiring merry beliefs.
Endnotes
Send me mail at mstaber at
smcm dot edu
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revised
1/99