What is happiness? Academically, the concept of happiness has confused me for several years now. So over the past few months I have been familiarizing myself with the “happiness literature” to attempt to find out what scientists know about what makes us happy, and why.
We often conflate states of being with emotion. Happiness, I would argue, is an emotion, whereas contentment is a state of being. I feel happy if I get some unexpected good news, but I am content if my affairs are in order, and I have a good network of people who care about me, etc. One can be happy at a particular moment, but generally depressed. Or a contented person can feel sadness, such as when a relative or friend dies. Trying to measure one's "happiness" is conceptually incorrect, in my opinion. What we should measure is the contentment one feels with one's life. "Money can't buy happiness" is axiomatic to most people, but I disagree; money has bought me happiness many times, as in I enjoy my house, car, TV etc. But, money can't buy contentment; that can only come from a sense of inner peace.
Very thoughtful response. I think you may be describing what Daniel Kahneman was describing (experiencing and reflective happiness), where contentment would be your reflective self analyzing if your "affairs are in order" and your happiness being more immediate experiential things. If I am correct in that assertion than comparatively our happiness (or contentment) seems to be reversed.
I think Kahneman and I are probably talking about something similar, but I am hesitant to refer to both as happiness. I think it leads to misunderstanding, since the two are related but conceptually distinct. As an aside, have you read Bertrand Russell's The Conquest of Happiness? Its a pretty fascinating rumination on the subject from one of the best philosophers of the 20th c. Its enlightening, too, because we tend to talk about collective lack of happiness as a modern societal phenomenon, and when he wrote the essay in the 30s, that's also how people talked about it, illustrating just how miserable people have been since the dawn of time.
HA! That made me laugh. Yes, I hate when people romanticize the past and believe that we have somehow become less happy, and that we would be better off retreating into the forest. I have not read as much Bertrand Russell as I should have by this point. That is definitely a big gap in my library that must be remedied soon. I'll check out The Conquest of Happiness, since I've been interested in the topic for a while now.
Conquest of Happiness is a good place to get acquainted with Russell, because its a pretty light read, but characteristic of his style, nonetheless. You can read it in a couple evenings, unlike some of his mathematical and philosophical writings that require a lot deeper attention.
It is interesting that the wealth-happiness correlation is flat after a certain income level for the experiencing self but not for the remembering self. What came to my mind is the negativity bias since it predicts the opposite result. I am not sure but according to the negativity bias one would expect that the experience of not feeling happy would be emphasised by the remembering self. At first these two seem to contradict but it could also mean that "not feeling happy" is not necessarily same with "feeling unhappy".
I think freedom falls under possibility, and that possibility is the real answer to this question. If you are capable to do the things you want. For example, if you want to travel, it's possible for you if you have the funds to do so, you have the infrastructure to do so (e.g. airports, means to get to the airport), you live in a country where you are able to travel freely (this is where freedom comes in). As you reach higher places in your life, you have a higher ability to do whatever it is you like, and are generally more happy. Someone who has a minimum wage job at a record store without the ability to take vacation time is not going to be happy if they want to travel, but their coworker who desires to drive down the coast on the weekends and make suggestions on music to customers very well may be in the situation most conducive to his happiness. of course, most people's aspirations and desires require more resources to achieve, and that's why money generally does improve happiness to a certain degree, but stops doing so once they've achieved the necessary level for themselves.
Do we really have choice? http://exploringthemind.com/the-mind/brain-scans-can-reveal-... I would argue that every choice you make has already be taken before you think it by your subconsciousness which has been programmed to respond to the environment. Just like you react to heat and cold pain and hunger all choices you make are a response to the environment.
I have a lot of issues with that study and that article, but I can put them aside. I did not argue that we are happy, or that we are free -- that's a separate debate. I do think, however, that freedom (in a grand sense) is the path to happiness (in the abstract).
Happiness is probably a chemical state a balance triggered by things like the perception of freedom and choice. IE having food shelter positive social experiences and psychological well being. I think happiness isn't so much a goal as a side effect or something like the opposite of a stressed state.