Friendship, Love and Happiness

Positive psychologists such as Haidt and Seligman stress the importance of association and friendship in making us happy. Lonely people are often unhappy. It might appear to follow that one way an unhappy lonely person can improve his happiness is by making friends. In this posting I will argue this is not easy. I will argue the nature of friendship means if someone attempts to make friends solely in order to improve his happiness that his attempt will fail. I will however suggest that association can increase our happiness and may lead to friendship.

I will argue first that the nature of friendship means someone cannot simply choose to become friends with someone else. Let us assume that our lonely unhappy person chooses to become friends with someone else simply in order to boost his happiness. Let us further assume he attempts to share his potential friend’s interests and that she shows no inclination to respond. The resulting relationship is not one of friendship. Our unhappy person might be described as an admirer, a hanger on or perhaps even as a fan but certainly not as a friend. Intuitively it makes sense to talk of unrequited love but it makes no sense at all to talk about unrequited friendship, see Helm . Friendship is of necessity a two way relationship. Someone may attempt to become friends with someone else but he cannot choose to become friends with another in order to make himself happier.

Let us now assume that when our unhappy person chooses to become friends with someone else simply in order to boost his happiness that his potential friend reciprocates. The relationship has now become a two way one. However I will once again argue the nature of friendship means that his attempt will still fail. This relationship can be characterised as one in which the unhappy person is simply attempting to use the other as a means to achieve his own ends. According to Kantian ethics this attempt is morally wrong. However I am not interested in morality here. I am interested in whether such an attempt could actually lead to friendship? According to Aristotle the answer to this question would appear to be yes as he includes friends of utility in his classification of types of friends. However I would suggest that intuitively friends must ‘care about’ each other. It is clear that our unhappy person does not ‘care about’ his potential friend, he cares about being happy. It follows if we accept our intuitions then our unhappy person’s attempt to make friends must fail.

At this point let us assume that the unhappy person further modifies his behaviour and attempts to ‘care about’ his potential friend in order to improve his prospects of achieving friendship and hence boost his happiness. Surely at this point our unhappy person has done enough to become friends and hence boost his happiness. Once again I will argue he has not. I will argue that the nature of caring means this attempt will also fail. Frankfurt argues if someone cares about something then he identifies himself with what he cares about in the sense that he makes himself vulnerable to losses and susceptible to benefits depending upon whether what he cares about is diminished or enhanced (1). Caring about so defined is a form of love. At this point someone may object that loving and ‘caring about’ something are not equivalent and suggest that whilst I may love my wife that I only ‘care about’ eating ice cream. It is important to have a clear understanding of what it means to ‘care about’. I would suggest I simply like ice cream and point out there is a difference between liking and ‘caring about’. There is also a difference between ‘caring for’ and ‘caring about’. A good nurse must ‘care for’ her patients but she need not ‘care about’ her patients. Indeed it might be argued a good nurse or doctor should not ‘care about’ her patients too much. In a clinical setting a nurse or doctor must remain detached or else she might suffer emotional burnout. However if a nurse is also a mother she should ‘care about’ her children. A good mother should identify with her children and if they are harmed she should feel harmed. Caring about in this way is a form of love. However love is not simply a matter of choice. We cannot simply choose to love someone. It follows we cannot simply choose to ‘care about’ someone. It further follows our unhappy person cannot simply modify his behaviour in order to ‘care about’ his potential friend and so improve his prospects of achieving friendship and hence boost his happiness. This conclusion seems to concur with our intuitions that someone cannot force or simply will friendship.

Even if we cannot simply will or force friendship it nonetheless plays an important part in making us happy. What can someone do if he cannot simply will friendship? He should place himself in circumstances that cultivate friendship. In order to do so he must be active and join in association with others. So doing should increase his happiness irrespective of whether it helps him make friends or strengthen any existing friendships because activity alone seems increase happiness. Activity is a form of engagement and engagement helps increase happiness, see Haybron (2) and see also my previous posting. Secondly even if he cannot simply will friendship then perhaps he can attempt to form limited friendships and this limited form might in the right circumstances lead to full friendship. However if this proposal is to be meaningful it must make sense to talk of limited friendship, see Helm’s idea of ordinary friendship (3). If I play golf once a week with someone and we share an interest in playing golf are we limited friends? I would suggest we are perhaps very limited friends. It is important to note the difference between this limited friendship and the attempted friendship of the unhappy person above. The unhappy person attempts to ‘care about’ someone only in order to improve his prospects of achieving friendship and hence boosting his happiness. By playing golf with my golf partner we share an interest in golf. If it rains and we cannot play golf both his interests and mine are frustrated. We ‘care about’ the same thing however modest this caring may be. The same does not apply to the unhappy person who attempts to make a friend simply boost his happiness. He simply ‘cares about’ being happy. Limited friends are persons who ‘care about’ the same things such as playing golf or doing philosophy. Limited friends have common interests. True friends are persons who ‘care about’ each other in addition to ‘caring about’ each other’s interests. If ‘caring about’ and loving are equivalent then true friends are persons who love each other. True friends have a common interest in each of them flourishing. If limited friends and true friends are as suggested above then it seems feasible that limited friendship may in time become true friendship. It might also help explain what Aristotle meant by the friendship of utility and why it is of value.

Throughout this posting I have assumed that friendship helps make someone happy. I have argued that love or ‘caring about’ is an important element of friendship. I have also argued above limited friends or friends of utility may be of value because they lead to true friendship. What is it about friendship that makes someone happy? I would suggest it is because he loves or ‘cares about’ his friend. I would further suggest that loving something makes someone happy. This last suggestion would explain why people keep pets. Accepting these suggestions might mean friendship is important not because it makes someone happy directly but rather because it gives him something, or in this case someone, to love. Loving something is what really makes us happy not friendship. If we accept the above then two things follow. Firstly limited friendship or friendships of utility assume greater importance because they give us an opportunity to love. Secondly accepting the above tells us something about our concept of happiness. Or the relative importance of the various components of happiness. Daniel Nettle suggests that there are three levels to happiness. First there are momentary emotions such as joy or pleasure next there are judgments about feelings such as satisfaction and lastly the quality of someone’s life over time (4). Let us assume what is important for happiness is loving rather than friendship and that loving is connected to satisfaction. Someone can’t love something that dissatisfies him. It appears to follow that satisfaction is more important than momentary emotions such as joy or pleasure and even the quality of life in making someone happy.

1. Frankfurt, 1988, The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge University Press, page 83.
2. Daniel Haybron, 2008, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Oxford, page 114.
3. Bennett Helm, 2010, Love, Friendship & the Self, Oxford, page 282.
4. Daniel Nettle, 2005, Happiness; The Science Behind Your Smile, Oxford, page 8.

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.