Abstract
Assuming the characterization of happiness suggested here, is such happiness identical with what is good for individuals? While I do not think that there is anyone who would deny that happiness is a good, many have proposed that there are goods which are sometimes at least as valuable, and which may even be better for a person than happiness, so that if loss of one of these were to increase happiness, it would be better to lose happiness than to lose that good. In discussing these objections I will argue — not that these other goods could not be considered ultimate — but rather that our common beliefs about them can be accounted for in terms of their effects upon happiness as I have defined it. To this end I will suggest the following, (a) While many of these goods are extremely important to a good life — even necessary to the best sort of life —, there are some situations in which they may not be good for one, whereas happiness, suitably characterized, is always good for one. (b) While many of these goods are pursued for their own sakes, they are also pursued for their contribution to one’s happiness, whereas the converse is rarely the case. (C) While it is almost always reasonable to pursue any of these goods independently of their contribution to individual happiness, that they contribute to one’s happiness overall is always a sufficient reason to pursue them (with the sole restriction that they not create greater unhappiness for another, or be in some other sense immoral). I will not try to show that we are always motivated by happiness, or that our only good reason for pursuing something is that it will make us happy.
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Notes
James Q. Wilson in The Moral Sense (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 194–196, points out that freedom has not been particularly valued in most societies throughout history. For many there has not even been a word which could be translated as ‘freedom.’
See, for example, Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 13.
See for example, Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), esp. Chapter 3.
See Jon Elster’s ‘Sour Grapes — Utilitarianism and the Genesis of Wants,’ in Utilitarianism and Beyond, Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 219–238. Elster, incidentally, recognizes that ‘autonomy’ is a difficult word to define; it is much easier to say where it has been violated (p. 228).
In some non-Western cultures it is definitely considered better not to tell a patient that he has terminal cancer. See, for example Akira Kurosawa’s film Ikiru, in which the hero is told by another patient in the waiting room what the doctor will tell him if he has cancer, which amount to meaningless reassurances. And of course, these things are just what is said to him, for he does indeed have stomach cancer.
See The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), esp. Chapters 9 and 10.
Charles Taylor, in ‘The Diversity of Goods,’ in Utilitarianism and Beyond, Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 129–144, and
David Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989), 231–235.
Strutting and Fretting: Standards for Self Esteem (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1991), 45 – 52 &. passim.
That having ideals (like autonomy, commitments, and activity, for example) is necessary for a truly good life does not entail that having ideals is itself a final (individual) good. Given what people are like, they are far more likely to have satisfaction and fewer regrets if they do have ideals than if they do not. A life without any ideals would hardly be satisfying for any but the most unintelligent, bovine individuals. On the other hand, whether having a particular ideal is good for one — either good to have, good to pursue, or good to attain — depends upon other factors.
In The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), esp. Chapters 2 and 3. See also Wiggins, ‘Truth, Invention, and thé Meaning of Life,’ in Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 87–137.
The degree of contentment may not be directly related to what the person thinks about the commitment itself, but upon the multiple, far-reaching effects of having had that commitment. If his life proceeds in a constructive, satisfying way partly as a result of the failed commitment, it may have been good for him, regardless of whether he was aware of the causal relation.
Amartya Sen, ‘Rights and Capabilities,’ in Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mache, Ted Honderich, ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 130–148.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that in my nursing career I have been acquainted with a fair number of people with such mental handicaps as retardation, brain damage, autism, psychosis, and senility. For the most part these people have not shown signs of being happy; in fact, they are often upset by trivial matters that most normal people would ignore. On the other hand, they do not appear to be enjoying much, even when they are doing what they presumably prefer to do. For example, they are undoubtedly not as bored as the rest of us might be watching television all day, but neither do they seem caught up in what they are watching the way a normal person might be — e.g., by laughing, crying, or showing interest or excitement. In short, people who for one reason or another are mentally incapable of appreciating some of the goods discussed above, do not as a whole appear to be happy either, or seem to care greatly about their surroundings unless something occurs to anger or frighten them.
See, ‘Death,’ in Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1–10. Harman has also made this objection [in Gilbert Harman & Judith Jarvis Thomson, Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), Chapter 9].
See also James Griffin, Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 16–17, on the fact that all that we might desire has little import for our well-being. Those endeavors in which we have invested much of ourselves are those whose outcome determines our happiness and the goodness of our lives. Not that we should avoid striving for ends that we cannot accomplish. The effort itself may be both good and enjoyable, and some may prefer a life of hopeless striving to one with smaller, more accessible goals. But if a person is constantly frustrated and made miserable by the frustration, we would scarcely consider his life as good as it would have been had he had less ambitious projects. In the case of a Christian striving to be perfect, he might — if certain of his beliefs are true — be better off making the effort than to give up the attempt, thereby dooming his soul to eternal misery.
James Forrester has suggested that it might be part of a person’s individual good to perform the duties of his place in life. There is no question that it is a good thing for people to do their duties, but in what sense is it good for the particular individual to do his duty? It might well be good for him, as well as making him happier overall. Certainly it is good for him when he gets satisfaction from doing well something which he cares about. The enterprise — family, business, community — matters to him, and he wants to do his part well; in such a case he is happier overall if he does what is required of him, even though there may be onerous components of his duty. Suppose on the other hand he doesn’t care and gets no satisfaction from doing his duty. It might still be good for him to do it if he will be rewarded in some way or punished if he neglects it — either in this life or the next. Otherwise, I can’t see that to forge ahead, grudgingly doing what is unpleasant now and promises nothing he wants in the future, could be good for him at all, however much it benefits others. We might consider also what a person’s ‘place in life’ might be. If it is whatever he has chosen or fallen into, when a different life would have brought him greater satisfaction, then it would have been better for him to have had that different life. If his ‘place in life’ is what is best suited to him, then of course fulfilling it would be best for him.
See Michael Stocker, Plural and Conflicting Values (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 323.
See Brandt’s criticism of hedonism A Theory of the Right and the Good (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 132–138.
In Plural and Conflicting Values, Chapter 6. See also pp. 248–272.
See Value in Ethic s and Economics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), especially Chapters 3 and 6.
See Stocker, Plural and Conflicting Values, Chapter 8, sect. 4.
See also Peter Railton’s ‘Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13 (1984): 134–171 which makes this point well.
It need not be a sufficient reason, however. We desire things other than happiness, and frequently do not deliberate as to what will bring us happiness, but go for what seems most immediately attractive. And even when we have decided what is best for us — will bring us most happiness — we may not have an effective desire for it sufficient to overcome particular passions. (See also Wiggins in ‘Weakness of Will, Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation and Desire,’ in Needs, Values, Truth, 239–267, as well as my ‘Valuing and Akrasia,’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 37 (2000):209–225).
What is reasonable/unreasonable is not identical with what is rational/irrational, although these terms are often used interchangeably. I prefer to go with Sibley’s distinction [see ‘The Rational vs. the Reasonable,’ Philosophical Review, 62 (1953): 554–560] which uses ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ to refer to actions which promote, or frustrate, the objectives of the agent, without regard to the value of those objectives, and uses ‘reasonable’ and ‘unreasonable’ to refer to actions which promote, or frustrate, objectives that have value — i.e., bring individual or moral good.
Persons, Animals, and Fetuses (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), 36–40.
It should also be noted that what we ought to do is a subclass of what it is reasonable to do. We ought to do what is required for fulfilling an acceptable end, but it is not the case that we ought to do all that we might do to promote such an end. This fact, for example, allows us to distinguish between what we morally ought to do and what it would be morally good to do. It is, for example, not true that you ought or are obligated to sell all that you have and give to the poor, even though that might be your morally best course of action. This distinction allows us to account for agent-relative prerogatives and to show that using these prerogatives is, while morally acceptable, not necessarily the best thing one could do. See also Persons, Animals, and Fetuses, 51–57 and Chapter 8 below.
Plural and Conflicting Values, Chapter 6.
James Forrester has suggested that the feelings accompanying different kinds of meals, or other pleasures, are so different that they may not all be equivalent to happiness — or that we may have different kinds of happiness, such as the difference between Plato and pushpin. Granted. Yet that there are different kinds of happiness does not show that there is no common feature of happiness in virtue of which we call it happiness, rather than some other state. Plato and pushpin can contribute differently to the happiness of different individuals and to the same person at different times. A person of little intellectual capacity or interest in philosophy will not get pleasure from Plato, so reading him would not add to the happiness of his life, whereas pushpin might. For such a person, pushpin would be better for him than attempting to read a work of philosophy which he would be entirely unable to understand. Even for a philosopher a steady diet of Plato (or anyone else) would eventually lose charm, and a game of pushpin might be one way of taking a welcome break. Yet the philosopher would have a source of happiness that would add much to his lifetime satisfaction, and which is not open to a person who had no interest or ability in philosophy. Not only would there be the immediate pleasure of reading and thinking about Plato, but this activity can enrich his life in many other ways besides — by, for example, giving him new directions in his own work, enlivening his lectures, and bringing him into contact with colleagues in the same field. In short, reading Plato is a potential source of many more satisfactions, and time spent contented, than is a game of pushpin.
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Forrester, M.G. (2002). Objections to Good as Happiness. In: Moral Beliefs and Moral Theory. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9994-8_4
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