Feldman, Haybron and Happy Dispositions

Normally most people would understand what I meant if I said someone had a happy disposition. In this posting I want to explore the connection between a happy disposition and our concept of happiness. Haybron suggests that,

“Happiness has two components: a person’s central affective states and second, her mood propensity …. What brings these states together, I would suggest is their dispositionality.”(1)

Feldman argues Haybron’s suggestion is untenable because it doesn’t allow for the idea of fragile happiness (2). What is fragile happiness? Someone could be happy whilst being unaware that a tumour will soon end her happiness. Her happiness could be called fragile but this fragility does not rule out her having a disposition to be happy. Feldman uses the example of a Grandma suffering from depression and who takes a drug which allows her to be happy, in this case her happiness is fragile and she does not have a disposition to be happy. It would appear that Feldman is correct in his assertion that someone can be happy and not have a happy disposition.

I am inclined to agree with Feldman that someone can be happy and that she need not have a disposition to be happy. However the question I want to examine is a slightly different one; could someone be a happy person and not have a disposition to be happy? Feldman believes someone is happy now if when we consider all the propositions with which she is currently intrinsically attitudinally (dis)pleased with and we then consider the degree to which she is (dis)pleased with these propositions and find the sum to be positive. Feldman uses this idea of momentary happiness to calculate someone’s happiness over an interval. He suggests that in order to calculate someone’s happiness over an interval we use her momentary happiness over time to plot a graph. The x axis measures time and the y axis the subject’s happiness. The area between the graph line and the x axis can then be used to calculate her happiness over the chosen interval. Areas above the x axis are positive and areas below are negative. The subject’s happiness over the chosen interval is just the sum of these areas. From the above I would construe that Feldman believes someone is a happy person if she is happy over some long term interval. This interval might be five years or even a lifetime. A happy person so defined need not have a happy disposition.

However I have some difficulty in accepting such a definition. Let us assume if someone has a positive balance of happiness over ten years that she can be regarded as a happy person. Let us consider Imogen. Imogen was never either really happy or unhappy during her childhood and adolescence. When Imogen was twenty she meet Tom and was blissfully happy for a year. Let us say throughout that year she experienced 10 units of happiness. Unfortunately at the end of the year Tom left Imogen for her best friend Annabel. Imogen is now thirty and for the last nine years she has constantly experienced -0.5 units of happiness. If I am correct in my construction of a happy person according to Feldman then he would regard Imogen as a happy person. Intuitively I would regard Imogen as an unhappy person.

Let us assume that if someone is a happy person she must have disposition to be happy. If my assumption is accepted then we must also accept Feldman’s Grandma is not a happy person. It might appear this acceptance runs counter to our intuitions. In what follows I will try to differentiate between a happy person and a person who is happy. A person who is happy is simply a person who is currently happy. For instance Feldman’s Grandma is a person who is happy. If someone is a person who is currently happy then this fact alone gives me no reason to assume she will be happy tomorrow. I may of course believe she will be happy tomorrow because tomorrow will be her birthday, but the fact she is happy currently, by itself, gives me no reason to predict her future happiness. If however I believe someone to be a happy person I normally expect her to be happy tomorrow. The fact she is a happy person by itself gives me a solid reason for my expectation. If I accept the fact that someone is a happy person alone gives me a reason to predict her future happiness then this reason must be based on something about her as a person. She might have a happy nature, a happy personality or she might simply be a realistic optimist as suggested by Tiberius (4). Feldman’s Grandma’s personality by itself gives me no reason to believe she will be happy tomorrow. The fact Grandma will continue to take her drugs does give me a reason to predict she will be happy tomorrow but this fact is not part of her personality. I would suggest Grandma is not a happy person. I would further suggest a happy person must have some sort of disposition to be happy.

Haybron hints that if someone is happy there is a link between his happiness and the self that does not obtain in the case of (peripheral) pleasure (5). I am doubtful about his hint due to the fragility of happiness as expounded by Feldman above. However I do think there is a link between a happy person and her self. Haybron suggests there is a link between someone’s happiness and her central affective states. He further suggests what distinguishes “central affective states is that they dispose agents to experience certain affects rather than others”. However before accepting Haybron’s suggestions with regard to persons who are happy I must deal with the problems raised by the fragility of happiness as highlighted by Feldman. Let me make it clear that I believe the fact that someone is a happy person’s happiness remains fragile. Let us recall the happy person whose status as such is threatened by the tumour growing inside her. Nonetheless I would suggest the fact she is a happy person means she could cope better with the difficulties facing her ahead rather than a person, such as Grandma, who is simply a person who is happy. Her happiness is fragile but it is not as fragile as a person who is simply happy. The reason why her happiness is less fragile is that she has a disposition to be happy. Dispositions may vanish but I would suggest they don’t vanish overnight. My suggestion should be open to empirical investigation by psychologists. If my suggestion is correct it follows problems associated with the fragility of happy persons does not mean having a disposition to be happy is unimportant as far as happiness is concerned.

1. Daniel Haybron, 2008, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Oxford, page 138.
2. Fred Feldman, 2010, what is this thing called Happiness? Oxford, page 29.
3. Feldman, page 118.
4. Valerie Tiberius, 2008, The Reflective life, Oxford, chapter 6.
5. Haybron, page 130.