The term happiness is used in the context of mental or emotional states, including positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. It is also used in the context of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, eudaimonia, flourishing and well-being.Since the 1960s, happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including gerontology, social psychology and positive psychology, clinical and medical research and happiness economics.
Definitions
‘Happiness’ is the subject of debate on usage and meaning, and on possible differences in understanding by culture.The word is mostly used in relation to two factors:
the current experience of the feeling of an emotion (affect) such as pleasure or joy, or of a more general sense of ’emotional condition as a whole’. For instance Daniel Kahneman has defined happiness as “what I experience here and now”. This usage is prevalent in dictionary definitions of happiness.
appraisal of life satisfaction, such as of quality of life. For instance Ruut Veenhoven has defined happiness as “overall appreciation of one’s life as-a-whole.” Kahneman has said that this is more important to people than current experience.Some usages can include both of these factors. Subjective well-being (swb) includes measures of current experience (emotions, moods, and feelings) and of life satisfaction. For instance Sonja Lyubomirsky has described happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.” Eudaimonia, is a Greek term variously translated as happiness, welfare, flourishing, and blessedness. Xavier Landes has proposed that happiness include measures of subjective wellbeing, mood and eudaimonia.These differing uses can give different results. For instance the correlation of income levels has been shown to be substantial with life satisfaction measures, but to be far weaker, at least above a certain threshold, with current experience measures. Whereas Nordic countries often score highest on swb surveys, South American countries score higher on affect-based surveys of current positive life experiencing.The implied meaning of the word may vary depending on context, qualifying happiness as a polyseme and a fuzzy concept.
A further issue is when measurement is made; appraisal of a level of happiness at the time of the experience may be different from appraisal via memory at a later date.Some users accept these issues, but continue to use the word because of its convening power.
Philosophy
Relation to morality
Philosophy of happiness is often discussed in conjunction with ethics. Traditional European societies, inherited from the Greeks and from Christianity, often linked happiness with morality, which was concerned with the performance in a certain kind of role in a certain kind of social life. However, with the rise of individualism, begotten partly by Protestantism and capitalism, the links between duty in a society and happiness were gradually broken. The consequence was a redefinition of the moral terms. Happiness is no longer defined in relation to social life, but in terms of individual psychology. Happiness, however, remains a difficult term for moral philosophy. Throughout the history of moral philosophy, there has been an oscillation between attempts to define morality in terms of consequences leading to happiness and attempts to define morality in terms that have nothing to do with happiness at all.
Aristotle
Aristotle described eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) as the goal of human thought and action. Eudaimonia is often translated to mean happiness, but some scholars contend that “human flourishing” may be a more accurate translation. Aristotle’s use of the term in Nicomachiean Ethics extends beyond the general sense of happiness.In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for their own sake, unlike riches, honour, health or friendship. He observed that men sought riches, or honour, or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy. For Aristotle the term eudaimonia, which is translated as ‘happiness’ or ‘flourishing’ is an activity rather than an emotion or a state. Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word consists of the word “eu” (“good” or “well-being”) and “daimōn” (“spirit” or “minor deity”, used by extension to mean one’s lot or fortune). Thus understood, the happy life is the good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way. Specifically, Aristotle argued that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity. He arrived at this claim with the “Function Argument”. Basically, if it is right, every living thing has a function, that which it uniquely does. For Aristotle human function is to reason, since it is that alone which humans uniquely do. And performing one’s function well, or excellently, is good. According to Aristotle, the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life. Aristotle argued a second best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity was the life of moral virtue. The key question Aristotle seeks to answer is “What is the ultimate purpose of human existence?” a lot of people are seeking pleasure, health, and a good reputation. It is true that those have a value, but none of them can occupy the place of the greatest good for which humanity aims. It may seem like all goods are a means to obtain happiness, but Aristotle said that happiness is always an end in itself.
CHUKA KEN MINISTRY 