In Squaring Off, Zócalo invites authors into the public square to answer five questions about the essence of their books. For this round, we pose questions to Chapman philosopher Mike W. Martin, author of Happiness and the Good Life (Oxford University Press).
We think of happiness as a state of being-but, according to Martin, it’s a set of actions and behaviors, and we’d be better off thinking of it as a way of life. Martin explores how happiness intersects with other valued aspects of the philosophical “Good Life,” from morality to virtue to politics-and how institutions like the government can apply new research on happiness to improve our everyday lives.
1) You define happiness as finding enjoyment and meaning in life, “regardless of whether the enjoyments and sense of meaning are rooted in justified values.” But you also assert that we need objective moral values-decency and natural altruistic desires-to promote happiness. Is there a conflict here?
Today most people define happiness subjectively-entirely in terms of the mental states (emotions, attitudes, desires) of happy persons. I do so as well. Happiness is loving our lives, valuing them through ample enjoyments and a robust sense of meaning. As such, happiness is not defined in terms of morality, and moral values are not logically necessary for happiness-in sharp contrast with Plato and Aristotle’s value-laden definitions of happiness as virtuous living. So how is happiness related to morality and to fully good (desirable) lives? Putting aside the philosophical for a moment, on the empirical front, psychologists confirm that moral virtues tend to promote happiness for most people, most of the time. Conversely, happiness often contributes to moral decency and generosity.
2) You suggest that studies of happiness should be taken into consideration when we’re developing government policies. Can they also help us solve our current economic crisis?
The global economic crisis will continue to unfold and gradually resolve macro-economic forces that cannot be altered by happiness studies. Of course, one of those forces is consumer confidence reports, which express happiness toward the future. Also, positive psychologists are exploring ways to break the political gridlock that hampers political responses to the crisis. See Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. But when it comes to individuals and the economic crisis, positive psychology has much to offer. Psychologists have shown that people’s preoccupation with material goods is not a recipe for happiness and tends to generate the consumer debt that contributed to the macro-economic crisis. We do better to attend to personal relationships, community involvement, balancing work and leisure, simplifying our lives-and saving more. Of course, if everyone bought fewer material goods, that would deepen the macro-economic crisis!
3) Is happiness something people can achieve-or is it more of an ideal?
Contrary to pessimistic pronouncements of Arthur Schopenhauer, we are mostly a happy species-and have evolved to be such. Psychologists have discovered that Americans self-rate themselves, on average, as roughly 7.5 on a happiness scale of one (miserable) to 10 (fully happy). Even people living in countries with great poverty, such as India, self-score their happiness levels as above six. Can we become happier? Of course, but usually only within a narrow range. UC Riverside psychologist Sonja Lyubomirksy, in The How of Happiness, reports studies suggesting that about 50 percent of our happiness level is shaped by our genes (as is our overall personality), about 10 percent by our current circumstances, and a whopping 40 percent by our attitudes and activities, over which we have significant control.
4) You argue that making the pursuit of happiness one’s primary goal is a form of “ethical egotism.” Is the pursuit of personal happiness morally irresponsible?
Happiness is a vital aspect of good lives, but only one aspect. Our overall aim should be to pursue good lives: lives that are morally decent and desirable, meaningful (in terms of many types of values in addition to morality), healthy (mentally and physically), authentic, fulfilling-and happy. In doing so, we should not so much “balance” our happiness against other values as make our happiness fully integrated with the other dimensions of good lives. Luckily, there is much truth in the paradox of happiness. Happiness is best sought indirectly, by pursuing other things that we regard as having inherent worth. Ample enjoyments and meaning will come along the way. These things include love, friendship, meaningful work, and myriad activities that put us into states of “flow.” Flow comes from engaging and immediately gratifying activities in which we are focused outward rather than on ourselves and our happiness.
5) So is the American ideology of the “pursuit of happiness” misleading?
Happiness can of course be pursued, although most effectively by pursuing other goods. Happiness should be pursued because it is an important moral value, assuming it is not based directly on evil (for instance, with a “happy Hitler”). Nevertheless, happiness is only one important value, and it should be pursued in unity with pursuing a good life. Pursuing happiness by itself, in isolation from other values, would be like pursuing honesty in disregard of compassion and justice. Americans rightly celebrate the pursuit of happiness in a democratic spirit of freedom and moral pluralism. Yet we are constantly at risk of darkening the horizon of justified values. Perennially, in pursuing happiness, we need renewed and creative ways to integrate civic virtues with individualism, intrinsic goods (such as love, beauty, truth) with money, and respect for the environment with economic prosperity.
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*Photo courtesy of dcarrero.