Suicide, Happiness and Meaning

The death of Robin Williams highlighted the prevalence of suicide in our society. In this posting I want to consider ways of reducing this prevalence. To start with I should make it clear that I do not consider all suicide to be problematic. I have argued that for some people suicide may be a rational option. For instance I have argued in past postings that suicide would be a rational option for some terminally ill patients, prisoners serving life sentences and people faced by alzheimers and dementia . Indeed in some cases it might even be the morally right thing for someone to do. I do not believe in capital punishment but suicide might be the right moral option for someone who has committed some terrible crime, for instance a father who murders his wife and children. Nonetheless the vast majority of suicides are harmful. Usually if someone commits suicide he harms those he leaves behind and deprives himself of a life he may well have enjoyed had he been able to overcome his immediate worries. Let us accept that most suicide is harmful in this posting I want to consider what can be done to alleviate this harm. In doing so, I do not want to consider specific treatments to prevent suicide such as counselling or drug treatments. Instead I want to consider the elements in someone’s life that decrease the possibility of his suicide. I want consider happiness and meaning.

I will deal with happiness first. It might be thought that being happy inoculates people from committing suicide. It might be thought that happy people just don’t commit suicide. Such a thought is too simplistic. Let us accept that someone doesn’t commit suicide whilst he is happy but no one is happy all the time. Is it true that happy people don’t commit suicide? I will argue it is not. I will nonetheless later argue that cultivating some forms of happiness do help prevent suicide. What do we mean by a happy person? According to Feldman happiness means hedonistic happiness and a happy person is one who experiences a greater degree of happiness than unhappiness over a long period (1). For the moment let us accept Feldman’s view is correct. Let us now consider someone who was never either really happy or unhappy during his childhood and adolescence. Let assume when he was twenty he meet a lover and was blissfully happy for a year. Let us say throughout that year he experienced 10 units of happiness. Unfortunately at the end of the year his lover left his for his best friend. Such a person is now thirty and for the last nine years he has constantly experienced -0.5 units of happiness. According to a hedonistic account of happiness such a person would be regarded as a happy person. Intuitively I believe he would be regarded as an unhappy person. It seems unlikely such a person would commit suicide during his happy period but it is conceivable that such a person might be prone to do so during his unhappy period. It is even conceivable that someone suffering from bipolar disease might be regarded as a happy person provided the happiness he obtains during his manic periods is greater than his unhappiness during his periods of depression. People suffering from bipolar disease suffer from an increased risk of committing suicide. In the light of the above it seems that simply increasing someone’s hedonistic happiness is unlikely to decrease the overall possibility of his committing suicide. It may of course decrease this possibility in the period when he is actually enjoying hedonistic happiness. The above conclusion seems supported by evidence that people who turn to drink in an attempt to increase their hedonistic happiness are also at increased risk of committing suicide.

In spite of the above I will now argue happy people are less likely to commit suicide. I would not class a person, who is regarded as a happy person using the hedonistic definition above, as a truly happy person. I would regard such a person as a person who is happy some of the time. I have previously argued if we regard someone as a happy person we have reason to expect him to be happy tomorrow, see feldman, haybron and happydispositions . We have no reason to expect that someone who is enjoying hedonistic happiness today will be happy tomorrow. It seems to me that an important element in a happy person is a disposition to be happy (2). It seems possible that because someone who has a disposition to be happy is likely to experience being happy for longer periods of time that he will be less prone to committing suicide overall. How then does someone cultivate a disposition to be happy? One certainly can’t just will a happy disposition. Some might argue we simply can’t change our inborn dispositions but I will now suggest there are ways in which we might attempt to increase our disposition to be happy.

Firstly I would suggest being an optimist might increase our disposition to be happy. By an optimist I mean a realistic optimist as suggested by Tiberius (3) and not some Panglossian optimist who may be less happy. A realistic optimist has an expectation of being happy unless there is evidence to the contrary; a disposition to be happy. I believe being a realistic optimist is particularly important with regard to persons. If we meet someone for the first time we should expect him to possess goodwill. We should also demonstrate we expect him to have goodwill. Experience may of course temper our expectations. It follows that adopting a stance of realistic optimism may make someone less prone to committing suicide. I believe everyone irrespective of whether they have suicidal thoughts or not such adopt a stance of realistic optimism. For some this stance may come naturally but for others its adoption may be long and difficult. Perhaps the best way to foster realistic optimism might be to raise optimistic children, see Martin Seligman's book .

I will now argue that if someone has a meaningful life he will be less prone to depression and less likely to commit suicide. Let us assume someone has meaning in his life. He must care about the things that have meaning for him. It is impossible to imagine something having meaning to someone if he doesn’t care about it at all. If someone cares about something he must be satisfied with what he cares about. According to Harry Frankfurt satisfaction entails “an absence of restlessness or resistance. A satisfied person may be willing to accept a change in his condition, but he has no active interest in bringing about a change” (4).  It seems to me if someone has meaning in his life that this means he is likely to have less active interest in bringing about a change in his life. It follows he is less likely to commit suicide. According to Daniel Nettles there are three elements to being happy. Firstly there are momentary emotions such as joy or pleasure. Secondly there are judgements about feelings such as satisfaction and lastly the quality of someone’s life over time (5). Let us assume Nettle’s is correct. It follows provided meaning is connected to satisfaction that someone with meaning in life is likely to have more happiness in his life than someone who does not. It seems probable the greater the happiness in someone’s life the less prone he will be to depression and suicide.

In previous posting I have talked about the unbearable lightness of simply being. That is existing without any aims or direction in someone’s life, a life devoid of meaning. Such a person might be cast as a wanton, he has no fixed boundaries and is amorphous with no fixed shape or identity (4). Of course have no fixed boundaries or identity doesn’t make someone commit, someone may drift along in life in an aimless way for years. However I would suggest such a person has less of a defence if suicidal thoughts arise, he has no reason to combat these thoughts. It follows if someone has some meaning in his life that this meaning should act as an antidote to suicidal thoughts.

Let us accept that having some meaning in someone’s life means he is less likely to commit suicide. How then do we encourage people to have meaningful lives? It seems to me meaning and love are connected. By love I don’t mean romantic love; I mean caring about something. Caring about doesn’t just mean liking. Someone can like an ice cream but this doesn’t mean he cares about it. Someone cares about something if he identifies himself with what he cares about and is hurt when what he cares about is damaged and is benefited when what he cares about flourishes (6). I would suggest that for a meaningful life someone must cultivate loving something. This something need not be a person; it might be a cause, a country or even a love of knowledge. Unfortunately someone just can’t decide to love; can’t just decide to have a meaningful life. However someone by cultivating friendships and paying attention to life might find love grows naturally even if this growth is somewhat slow.

To conclude I want to deal very briefly with friendship. I have suggested if we want to love and perhaps be loved we should cultivate friendship. Robin Dunbar believes we can have at most 150 friends, see Wiki Dunbar's number . However the friends I am concerned are not just people whom we know and know us, not just people we know on Facebook. Friends are people we love. We identify with such friends and are hurt when they are hurt and feel pleasure when they are benefited. Moreover because such friends are people we love we can’t simply choose these friends in the way we choose friends on Facebook, we come to have such friends by sharing aims and ideals. We have to pay attention to the friends we love and this limits the number of such friendships we can have. Cultivating friends we love is not easy but doing so may decrease our propensity to commit suicide which might not be true of cultivating a larger circle of friends.

1.      Fred Feldman, 2010, what is this thing called Happiness? Oxford, page 29

2.      Daniel Haybron, 2008, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Oxford, page 138.

3.      Valerie Tiberius, 2008, The Reflective life, Oxford, chapter 6.
4.      Harry Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge

5.      Daniel Nettle, 2005, Happiness; The Science Behind Your Smile, Oxford, page 8.

6.      Frankfurt, page 114.

Does our Concept of Happiness change as we Age?

It is generally accepted that happiness is important in our lives. However, in philosophy there is a great deal of disagreement about exactly what exactly is meant by happiness, about the concept of happiness. As we age different things make us happy as compared to when we were younger. However, there is an additional question does the way in which we are happy also change? In other words what it means to be happy changes with age; the concept of happiness applicable to us changes with age. Clearly different things please different people. I’m getting old and the things that make me happy differ from those that make my grandchildren happy. The question I wish to address does not concern such differences. The question I am concerned with in this posting is this; are people of all ages happy in the same way but with their happiness focussed on different things or is the way in which people of different ages are happy differ?

Let us firstly examine this question from a psychological perspective of happiness. According to Martin Seligman happiness consists in someone having positive emotions, being engaged with life or having flow, having meaning, achieving something and having friends (1). It is possible to question whether meaning, achieving something and having friends are an essential part of the concept of happiness or are simply one of the things which make us happy. I have suggested that meaning, love and happiness are all inescapably intertwined, see meaning, love and happiness . Clearly both my grandson and I experience positive emotions and each of us has our own friends. My grandson who is seven, goes to school and I believe he achieves things there which satisfy him. For me writing this blog is some sort of small achievement. Whilst writing it I am engaged and sometimes achieve some pleasure. I believe my grandson obtains a sense of achievement, even if this is only when he is playing minecraft. Let it be accepted that both of us find some sort of achievement in our lives either by playing the game well or in my case by writing about happiness. It follows provided we accept Seligman’s definition of happiness that my grandson and I are both happy in much the same way even if we are happy about different things. However, my grandson has a baby brother who is clearly happy at times. His baby brother has positive emotions but has no sense of meaning or achievement and has no friends because he is still a baby. Does it follow that he is happy in a different way to his elder brother and me? Using Seligman’s definition of happiness suggests the answer is yes. I however would suggest as of now he is happy in an incomplete way. I would further suggest that as he matures he will develop and become happy in a more complete way.

 

I now want to examine whether the concept of happiness applicable to people changes as they age from two different philosophical perspectives. Firstly Fred Feldman regards happiness as attitudinal hedonistic happiness (2). Basically attitudinal hedonistic happiness consists not only of sensory pleasures but also consists in our being pleased or displeased about some states of affair. Basically this means someone could be happy when eating a good meal but she could also be happy because she believes it is cooked by someone she loves. If we accept Feldman’s position then it seems all people young and old are happy in the same way even if they are happy with different things. Feldman’s position also accounts for the different ways my grandsons experience happiness. The younger clearly has sensory pleasures but as yet he takes no pleasure from states of affairs.

The second perspective from which I wish to examine the question of aging and happiness is from that of Daniel Haybron. According to Haybron,

“To be happy then, 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)

According to Haybron someone’s emotional condition is not just characterised by her emotions but also by her moods and dispositions. He regards being happy as a state of psychic affirmation. I believe his definition has some features in common with Seligman. Both definitions include engagement and endorsement might be seen to involve meaning. However, Seligman seems to be concerned with all affective states whilst Haybron makes a difference between central and peripheral affective states. He hints at a link between happiness and the self that does not apply in peripheral cases (4).  Intuitively Haybron seems to be justified in making a distinction between central and peripheral affective states for it seems probable that a mother would obtain more happiness from watching her child playing on a swing than from the ice cream she is enjoying whilst doing so. Being a mother is a central affective state whilst enjoying an ice cream is peripheral one. 

Let us accept that Haybron is correct and that someone’s happiness is linked to her sense of self. It might then be suggested that because we are all different, each self is different, that different concepts of happiness ought to be applied to different people. In particular, it might be suggested that because there are differences between the young and old that different concepts of happiness are applicable to the young and old. It follows that my initial suggestion that the concept of happiness changes as we age might be justified. In order to examine the plausibility of this suggestion we must understand examine how the self is linked to happiness. Firstly, let us assume that the self is linked to happiness simply because the self determines what makes someone happy. However, if this assumption is accepted then there is no real concept of happiness. If people can be happy in radically different ways, rather than each person simply determining the things that make her happy, then there would be no real meaningful concept of happiness. It follows the concept of happiness applicable to us does not change as we age because we simply don’t have such a concept. Secondly let us assume that the self is linked to happiness because the things that make us happy help define the self. If the self is linked to our happiness by the things that make us happy then as we age once again there is no reason why the concept applicable to us should change. The things that make us happy might change as we age but the way we are happy does not. Once again it appears my initial worry that the way in which we are happy might change with age is unjustified.

However, it might be objected that it is ridiculous to assume all the things that make someone happy help define her self. My objector might proceed to point out the fact a mother enjoys an ice cream while watching her child play on a swing surely doesn’t help define her self. Haybron would surely agree with the above. In reply I would suggest if a mother usually enjoys an ice cream whilst watching her child that this does indeed help define her self even if only to a very minor degree. Haybron suggests it is only central affective states that are linked to the self. Haybron further suggests what distinguishes central affective states from peripheral ones is that someone has a disposition to act on the former and no disposition to act on the latter (5). I would suggest that a central affective state means someone must have a disposition to experience that state. However, having a disposition to experience a certain affective state alone does not mean it is a central affective state. I would argue what also matters is the strength of any disposition. For instance, our mother may well have a disposition to enjoy ice cream causing her to buy ice cream as well as a disposition to care for her child. Perhaps her disposition to enjoy ice cream even defines her as a person to some minor degree as suggested above. However, if her child falls from the swing she rushes to help her child rather than finish her ice cream. Her disposition to care for her child is far stronger than her disposition to enjoy ice cream. Her disposition to care for her child defines her far greater degree as a particular person than her disposition to enjoy ice cream. It seems to me the all the affective states someone has a disposition to experience help to define her as a person but their importance in defining her depends on the strength of the disposition. If the above is accepted then once again my initial worry that, even if the things that make us happy change as we age the way in which we are happy also changes as we age, remains unjustified.

At this point my I will suggest even if our concept of happiness does not change as we age that nonetheless the relative weights of the elements within that concept do change. For instance, if we accept Feldman’s concept of attitudinal happiness it seems possible that the pleasure we obtain from our attitudes may increase whilst our sensory pleasures decrease as we age. For instance, an older mother might take pleasure when considering her children who have grown up, left home and are now prospering by themselves. Such an attitude is unavailable to a younger mother. I believe such an attitude might be regarded as satisfaction with that part of her life. Feldman holds that being satisfied is not part of happiness. In the rest of this posting I will be primarily concerned with Haybron’s concept of happiness. Let us recall that that someone is happy if her emotional condition is broadly positive and that this involves her in general being attuned to, engaged with and endorsing her emotional condition. Haybron believes that attunement is more important than engagement and that engagement is more important than endorsement with regard to our happiness. I suggest this priority might change as we age.

In the rest of this posting I want to examine whether such a change in priorities can occur. Haybron believes engagement involves exuberance or vitality and sometimes involves flow (6). I would suggest as someone ages her exuberance or vitality decreases which means her engagement also decreases as she ages. Next I will deal with endorsement. Haybron believes endorsement involves feelings of joy or sadness (7). To me endorsement involves satisfaction. Moreover, it might be argued satisfaction does not need to involve any emotion. Some might argue that satisfaction simply entails an absence of restlessness in someone to change whatever satisfies her, see Frankfurt (8). However, if we accept Haybron’s position that endorsement requires feelings of joy and sadness and that these feelings decrease as someone ages then the importance of endorsement might decrease also. Haybron deals with attunement at some length (9). To him attunement involves a certain tranquillity and lack of anxiety. Attunement also involves a settled confidence and lack of stress making for a more confident person. It seems to me attunement has two distinct meanings according to Haybron because tranquillity does not of necessity increase confidence. I will only deal with the first meaning here. Attunement involves a certain tranquillity and lack of anxiety. I see no reason as to why someone should become less tranquil or less anxious as she ages simply because she is aging. It appears to follow there is no reason why the priorities between someone’s attunement and endorsement should change as she ages but perhaps endorsement may become more important to her than engagement.

Haybron considers tranquillity as a form of settledness (10). If he is correct then because tranquillity is part of attunement, attunement might be seen partly as a form of settledness. I would suggest a sense of settledness is a sense of acceptance. I now want to differentiate between our ideas of acceptance and satisfaction. I have suggested above that an older mother, who takes pleasure, when considering her children who have grown up and left home and are now prospering, is experiencing satisfaction. Let us now consider another mother who smothered her continually crying child whilst suffering from severe post natal depression. For years this mother has suffered from feelings of guilt. However recently she has become more settled and simply accepts what has happened together with the fact she was not to blame. If satisfaction simply means an absence to change anything to do with what satisfies someone then acceptance, or settledness, is the same as satisfaction. It follows the mother who smothered her child could look back with satisfaction to what happened. I don’t believe this is possible. I believe that there is a difference between being satisfied with and simply accepting some past event. The above example seems to show that being satisfied must involve some positive affective state. I have used the term positive affective state here rather than positive emotion as I believe someone can be in a satisfied mood.

One consequence of accepting that being satisfied must involve some positive affective states means satisfaction shares some features with endorsement as defined by Haybron. Haybron believes endorsement involves joy and sadness. However, I see no reason why satisfaction need involve joy, Joy seems to be too strong an emotion to be a necessary element of satisfaction. Moreover, sadness seems to be connected to someone’s concept of her self and she can be dissatisfied with things that are unconnected to her concept of self. It follows sadness is also not a necessary element of satisfaction. I also see no reason why endorsement need involve joy and sadness. Endorsing something can just mean being satisfied with it. It seems clear to me that as people age acceptance and satisfaction with their past assume greater importance in their emotional condition. It follows if endorsement is defined by being satisfied with something and endorsement is part of someone’s emotional condition then the priorities attunment, engagement and endorsement play in being happy might change as we age.

Someone might object that if the pleasure of satisfaction is a weak positive emotion unlike joy then it is unlikely to come to play a more prominent part in our emotional condition as we age unless older people don’t feel strong positive emotions. My objector might proceed to point out the joy felt in orgasm, for at least some older people can feel orgasmic, far outweighs the pleasure associated with satisfaction. In reply I would argue what matters with regard to satisfaction is not only the degree of pleasure experienced but also the fact that satisfaction involves a disposition to experience that pleasure again and again. Martin Seligman believes achievement is an important element of the concept of happiness, see above. Let us assume that achieving something involves satisfaction. It follows if being satisfied is part of happiness then it possible to explain why achievement is one of the things that make us happy.

In conclusion it seems that my initial worry that our concept of happiness should change as we age is unfounded. However, the relative importance of the various elements in the concept of happiness seem to change as we age.

1. Martin Seligman, 2011, Flourish, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, Chapter 1.
2. Fred Feldman, 2010, What is this thing called Happiness? Oxford, chapter 6.
3. Daniel Haybron, 2008, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Oxford, page 147.
4. Haybron, page 130.
5. Haybron, page 130.
6. Haybron, page 114.
7. Haybron, page 113.
8. Harry Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press. Page 103.
9. Haybron, pages 116 to 120.
10. Haybron, page 116

Happiness and Satisfaction

In my previous posting I considered happiness in the light of Feldman and Haybron’s concepts. Both concepts differ, but both accept that someone’s affective states play an essential part of any meaningful concept of happiness. Intuitively the affective states concerned seem to those of joy or pleasure. In this posting I accept if someone is happy then he must have some feeling of joy or pleasure. Both Feldman and Haybron agree that one cannot simply equate happiness with satisfaction. Once again I accept their position. Nonetheless satisfaction is an important element in someone’s life. In this posting I want to examine the relative importance of happiness and satisfaction in life.

Before proceeding with my examination I want to show that being satisfied in life is not the same as being happy even though the two terms are often used interchangeably. For instance Mill seems to have used the terms interchangeably. In Utilitarianism Mill argued actions are right if they promote happiness and wrong if they promote unhappiness he then proceeded to argue “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied”. Psychologists also sometimes equate satisfaction with happiness. Daniel Nettle for instance suggests that there are three levels to happiness. First there are momentary emotions such as joy or pleasure. Secondly there are judgements about feelings such as satisfaction and lastly the quality of someone’s life over time. Nettle for the most part seems to equate happiness with satisfaction (1). However it seems to me someone could be completely satisfied with some decision or state of affairs but still not be considered to be happy. Let us consider someone suffering from a painful terminal illness. Such a person might well consider going to the Dignitas Clinic in Zurich to end his life. It seems to me such a person could be satisfied with his decision. However it also seems to me it would be wrong to describe such a person as happy. It follows being satisfied with some event, decision or even state of affairs does not equate to being happy. My terminally ill patient is unlikely to feel any joy or pleasure emanating from his decision.

In the rest of this posting I will assume that being happy must involve the emotions of joy or pleasure. Happiness that includes these elements, regardless of how this inclusion is done, is important to our lives. Satisfaction is also important to our lives. I have argued above that happiness and satisfaction are not identical. I now want to examine the relative importance of being satisfied with our lives and being happy. I will conclude that at the least a little happiness and an ability to be satisfied are essential to our identity as persons. I will also conclude that we ought to give greater priority in our lives to seeking satisfaction rather than seeking happiness.

Is satisfaction more important in our lives than happiness? The first possible reason as to why satisfaction might matter more than happiness is that it might be argued that someone cannot be happy if he isn’t satisfied. Accepting the above would mean being satisfied is a necessary condition for being happy even if it is not a sufficient one. What exactly does it mean for someone to be satisfied? According to Frankfurt a satisfied person simply has an absence of restlessness or resistance to change. He may be willing to accept a change in his condition, but he has no active interest in bringing about a change (2). It follows if someone is not satisfied he is restless or resists his current state of affairs. It might then be argued this restlessness or resistance means he cannot be happy and as a result satisfaction is a necessary condition for happiness. Such an argument would be mistaken. I have accepted that being happy must involve the emotions of joy or pleasure. However being happy is compatible with someone feeling pain or sorrow. To be happy someone’s joys or pleasures must simply outweigh his pains and sorrows. It is therefore conceivable that someone, who may be restless and resist his current state of affairs, is nonetheless happy provided his joys or pleasures outweigh this restlessness and resistance.

The second possible reason as to why satisfaction might matter more than happiness in our lives is that satisfaction is more central to us as persons than happiness is. Frankfurt argues caring about oneself is essential to being a person and that there couldn’t be a person of no importance to himself (3). If we accept Frankfurt then it follows that anyone who cares about himself must seek to satisfy some of his desires. Anyone who doesn’t care about anything has no basis to make any decisions. Anyone who has no basis to make any decisions can hardly be regarded as a person at all. It follows satisfaction, or at the very least attempted satisfaction, is central to our lives as persons. Someone might accept the above but suggest satisfaction is a positive emotion. He might then suggest positive emotions must involve joy, or at the very least some pleasure, and so satisfaction involves happiness. Satisfaction is a sufficient condition for happiness. He might then conclude if satisfaction is central to us as persons then so is happiness. If the above is accepted then we must also accept that my terminally ill patient who decides to go to Dignitas in order to commit assisted suicide is not only satisfied with his decision but also happy with this decision. It seems to me that in this situation the patient’s satisfaction is not a positive emotion but a response he finds appropriate. Appropriate to him as the person he sees himself to be. Satisfaction if it is viewed as an appropriate response can be seen as a matter of fit or congruence rather than a positive emotion. Accepting the above means it does not follow that happiness must be central to our lives just because satisfaction is.

Nevertheless happiness may be central to our lives for reasons which have nothing to do with satisfaction. Let us accept that happiness is an important element of our lives. But is happiness central to our lives? Someone might argue even if happiness is an important element of our lives that it is not as central to our lives as satisfaction is because happiness does not endure in the way satisfaction does. If Frankfurt is correct in believing that satisfaction entails an absence of restlessness or resistance to a state of affairs then as long as this state of affairs endures then satisfaction endures. The same is not true for happiness. If some situation increases our happiness then as time progresses we adapt to this new situation and our happiness returns to its former level (4). It would appear then that happiness does not endure as satisfaction does. Perhaps the reason for this that evolution developed joy and pleasure to drive us towards certain goals. Once these goals are attained the need for joy or pleasure ceases, see (5). It might appear because happiness does not endure in our lives the way satisfaction does it is less central to our lives than satisfaction is.

I have reservations about accepting the above; just because happiness doesn’t endure doesn’t mean it isn’t central to our lives. Can there be a person who isn’t happy and who never has been happy about anything. Of course there can be a person who is deeply unhappy because he has a great deal more to be unhappy about than happy about. Of course it makes sense to talk about an unhappy person. But can we really imagine a person who is not and never has been happy about anything at all? Even my terminally ill patient may have been happy in the past and perhaps his memories still give him some happiness even if he is unhappy now. Someone might suggest it is possible for a person to act purely for moral reasons and that such a person need never be happy about anything. Personally I am doubtful whether such a person can exist but I am even more doubtful that if a person acted purely on moral grounds that he would never take even the slightest pleasure in his actions. I’m not sure how to answer the question as whether there could ever be a person who isn’t happy and who never has been happy about anything. My inclination is to say there cannot be such a person. If my inclination is correct then it follows that being happy, at least to some small degree, is essential to being a person. Having some happiness and caring are both central to our identity as a person.

However I would suggest that even if some minimal level happiness and an ability to care both play an essential part in making us the persons we are it does not follow that we should give the same weight to increasing our happiness as to satisfying our desires. It is possible to achieve modest improvements in our happiness, see Seligman . Moreover it seems to me that provided we have realistic expectations that it is easier to increase our overall satisfaction in life by paying more attention to the things we care about rather than increase our happiness. It follows we should give greater weight to increasing our satisfaction rather than increasing our happiness provided of course that we cannot do both.

1. Daniel Nettle, 2005, Happiness; The Science Behind Your Smile, Oxford, page 8.
2. Harry Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press, page 103.
3. Frankfurt, page 90.
4. Jonathan Haidt, 2006, The Happiness Hypothesis, Heinemann, page 86.
5. Nettle, chapter 7.

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.