In this
posting I want to examine the relationship between meaning, love and happiness.
Most psychologists seem to believe that there is no relationship between
meaning and happiness, see for instance Baumeister, Vohs, Aaker and Garbinsky
(1). They often look for such a relationship by asking subjects to complete
surveys about how happy they are and how meaningful they find their lives. The
subjects are often free to use their own definitions of meaning and happiness. Psychologists
usually find there is no relationship between the two. This lack of a relationship
leads most psychologists to adopt the separation thesis which holds that
meaning and happiness are unconnected. It seems to me that there is a negative
relationship which questions this separation thesis. This negative relationship
holds that having a life devoid of meaning and being unhappy are correlated.
Before
examining this negative relationship we must be clear what concept of meaning
we are using. Firstly meaning can be defined in an objective way. This
objective sense of meaning holds that certain things on a list give someone’s
life meaning. For instance someone’s life might be said to have meaning if he
does useful things, has loving relationships and is optimistic. Secondly meaning
can be defined in a subjective way. For someone’s life to be meaning is roughly
for him to find it meaningful, for her to judge it as meaningful. In what
follows I will only be concerned with meaning defined in a subjective way.
Whilst I will not pursue the matter further here I believe someone whose life
contains certain items from an objective list is more likely to have a happy
life than one whose life does not. However let us now consider someone who
believes his life to be meaningless. Someone who simply lives from moment to
moment. I have suggested in the past such a person would suffer fro the
unbearable lightness of simply being, see my posting on riots
and the unbearable sense of simply being . I would suggest such a person is
a dissatisfied person and as a consequence is not a happy person. It is
important to note that I am not suggesting here that satisfaction is linked to
happiness, I will do so latter, but I am suggesting dissatisfaction is linked
to unhappiness. It might be objected that whilst I have suggested that someone
who lives from moment to moment is likely to be unhappy, I have provided no
argument to support my suggestion. My objector might now suggest it is
perfectly possible for someone to be a ‘happy go lucky person’ who pays no
attention to either his past or future. In response I would follow Christine
Korsgaard by arguing our nature as human beings means we have a psychic
necessity to choose (2). I would further argue that we cannot choose if we
don’t care about anything and that we cannot care about anything if we don’t
have some sense of meaning in our lives. Someone who is happy go lucky chooses
this lifestyle.
Let us
accept that someone who has no subjective meaning in life is likely to be a
dissatisfied and unhappy person. It follows there is a correlation between meaning
and unhappiness. This correlation gives us a reason to at the very
least question the separation thesis. Why then should Baumeister and his
associates report no correlation between happiness and meaning? Antti Kauppinen
argues that this correlation is dependent on the concept of happiness employed.
On a purely hedonic account of happiness there is indeed no correlation but with
a broader definition there is a correlation. For someone to be happy according
to Haybron is,
“for one’s
emotional condition to be broadly positive – involving stances of attunement,
engagement and endorsement – with negative central affective states and mood
propensities only to a minor extent.” (3)
Kauppinen
offers a slightly different account of happiness which he calls ‘the affective
condition account of happiness’. His account is a multidimensional
account comprised of predominantly positive affect, mood, emotion, and hedonic
quality together with an absence of negative affect, see Meaning and
Happiness . Both of these accounts of happiness seem to allow some room for
meaning. Let us assume that Haybron is correct in believing that being happy
includes someone endorsing his positive emotional condition. Let us also accept
that it is impossible to endorse anything without some sense of meaning. If
nothing matters, nothing has meaning, then we have no basis on which to endorse
it. It follows if we accept accounts of happiness such as those of Haybron and
Kauppinen that the separation thesis is false.
Prior to
examining the correlation between subjective meaning and non-hedonic accounts
of happiness I want to examine further what is meant by subjective meaning. I
defined someone’s life to have subjective meaning above as a life the liver of
that life finds meaningful or judges it to be meaningful. I now want to
differentiate between someone finding and judging a life as meaningful. Consider
a glutton who claims that eating as much as he can gives his life meaning. I
would not consider such a person as leading a subjectively meaningful life. A
subjectively meaningful life is not one that someone judges or even thinks is
meaningful. In the rest of this posting a subjectively meaningful life is one that
someone finds or experiences as meaningful. To find something
meaningful, is to find something as important, and if something is important it
must be loved. In order for someone to have a subjectively meaningful life he
must love something.
At this
point I must make it clear what I mean by love. I do not simply mean romantic
love, romantic love is type of love but does not define all types of love. In
my postings I often make use of Harry Frankfurt’s concept of love as caring
about and identifying with someone or something. This concept means someone who
loves is vulnerable to losses if his beloved is harmed and benefits if his
beloved flourishes. The lover is satisfied with his beloved and has no desire
to change his beloved. He may of course be dissatisfied with his beloved’s
condition. If his beloved is unhappy he will share this unhappiness. If his
beloved is an institution in decline then this decline will distress him. According
to Frankfurt the fact someone is in love, in
this meaning of love, shapes his motivational structure and guides his conduct
(4). It might be argued such a concept of love is too simplistic. Bennett Helm
argues someone doesn’t love every thing he cares about (5). Does someone really
love ice cream or is this just mere rhetoric? Helm argues we love the things we
feel pride and shame about. Helm would agree with Frankfurt
that we identify with the things we love. However according to Helm
identification does not simply require a passive satisfaction but a more active
feeling of pride and shame. Perhaps as I have argued elsewhere there are
different forms of love, see the structure of love . Or perhaps there aren’t different
forms of identification, only different degrees of identification. I would
suggest even if there are different forms of love that underlying all forms
must be basic form of ‘caring about’ in the way Frankfurt
uses the term.
I have
argued above that if we accept a concept of happiness such as those of Haybron
and Kauppinen that the separation thesis is false. I will now suggest that if
we accept Haybron’s concept which includes endorsement that we must also accept
that it
is a necessary condition for happiness that we love in some basic way.
It is important to be clear what I am not suggesting here. I am not suggesting
that basic loving is a sufficient condition for happiness. According to
Haybron’s account of happiness for someone to be happy means his emotional
condition is broadly positive, this means even if loving increases his positive
emotional state this increase might be outweighed by other factors. Nor am I
suggesting that being loved is necessary for happiness. I do however believe
being loved usually increases someone’s happiness. However this is not true in
all cases, for instance someone might be loved by another who is not his
partner and this love may cause him unhappiness. I am simply suggesting that
basic loving is a necessary prerequisite for someone to be actually happy. Once
again it is important to note what I am not suggesting. I am not suggesting a
disposition for basic loving is sufficient for happiness. A hostage held by
terrorists may have a disposition to love, but be far from happy. I am simply suggesting
that actual basic loving is necessary for happiness. A disposition for basic
loving of course forms part of a disposition to be happy.
If it is
accepted that the ability to love is a necessary element of happiness it might
be thought that enhancing this element will increase our happiness. I have argued
in ‘meaning and happiness’ that this is not so. It is not so because someone
cannot simply decide to love someone or something. Love is not a matter of
choice. Perhaps the best we can do is to situate ourselves in circumstances in
which love might grow naturally.
- Roy Baumeister, Kathleen
Vohs, Jennifer Aaker & Emily Garbinsky, 2013, Some key
differences between a happy life and a meaningful life, The Journal of
Positive Psychology, 2013, volume 8(6)
- Christine Korsgaard, 2009,
Self-Constitution, Oxford University Press, section 1.1.1.
- Daniel Haybron, 2008, The Pursuit of Unhappiness,
- Bennett Helm, 2010, Love, Friendship & the Self,
