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
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.
- Daniel Nettle, 2005, Happiness; The Science Behind Your Smile,
- Harry Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition,
and Love. Cambridge University Press, page 103.
- Jonathan Haidt, 2006, The Happiness Hypothesis, Heinemann, page 86.
- Nettle, chapter 7.
