Fall 2013 Happiness Class Class Notes 1

Return to Happiness

September 3, 2013

First Class Topics

• Course, Material, and Goals
• Course Methods and web sites

• Course website
• Course wiki
• Einstruction site.

• A typical prep cycle for the course: read, engage, review, prep SQs.
• 6 hours / week !
• Grading Schemes
• Ereserves - pdf printing encouraged.

September 5, 2013

1. Classical Greek Models of Happiness

1. The Greek Philosophical Models in Plato and Aristotle

Plato

• Contrast the Symposium with the cult of Dionysius
• Reasoning our way to the Good (Happiness). Symposium as purification ritual. bad desire/good desire
• Object of desire is transcendent. (Reminder about Platonic metaphysics.)

Aristotle (note McMahon pp. 41ff and Aristotle reading)

• end, function, craft, techne. Hierarchy of arts.
• end vs. final end -- the universal good is the final end, not relative. sec. 6-7.
• happiness as activity of the soul in accordance with virture (def., but also consequence of reasoning from nature of human life)
• Section 13: nature of the soul. two irrational elements: veg/appetitive and one rational. Note separation/relationship.

2. The Greek Cultural Model

• Connection of the culture with tragedy, appreciate of fate, happiness as gift of gods.
• Dionysian culture
• Post-Socratic Schools -- Hellenism and Hellenistic culture

2. Some Comments on Philosophical Method.

• first example from first class day: listing phenomena, making distinctions, posing questions, looking for relationships.

3. Two Roads to Happiness and self-consciousness about Happiness as a global human achievement.

September 10

Haidt, Happiness Hypothesis, ch. 5

• Major theme -- happiness as internal or external pursuit.

• Buddha and Epictetus take a relatively "internal" path. Haidt suggests research shows this to be somewhat extreme -- there are things to strive for outside of yourself, happiness in the journey ("progress principle") "Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing."

• Haidt's list of happiness makers and unmakers(correlates and major causes)

• Adaptation (habituation), hedonic treadmill, set point theory,
• Bob and Mary comparison (87): relationship, meaningfulness. Bob's list more susceptible to adaptation.

• Happiness Formula

• H = Set point + Conditions + Voluntary action
• understanding lack of adaptation for cosmetic surgery. what's shallow vs. what matters.
• from 92f: Noise, Commuting, Lack of Control, Shame, Relationships,
• "It is vain to say that human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it." (Charlotte Bronte, 1847)

• Complicating factors

• Flow and Seligman's strengths test www.authentichappiness.org
• Comparisons and biases. Conspicuous consumption.
• Schwartz maximizers and satisficers.

Schimmack, "The Structure of SWB"

• Section 1: Structure of Cognitive Well-Being: Relationships among LS and DS and within Domains of DS

• Review basic diagram on p. 98.
• bottom up vs. top down -- see conclusion at
• problems of measurement -- "shared method variance"
• more sophisticated model -- domain importance
• Research Question: What could explain variance in LS besides DS?
• Positive illusions
• Money
• "direct evidence" of bottom up theory -- if people are thinking of important domains while assessing LS, then. ... 107

• Section 2: Structure of Affective Well-Being: What explains independence of PA and NA? Are they really independent?

Hypotheses:

• structural - imp. research by Diener, Smith, and Fujita (p. 109) verify independence, crit. Bradburn. "The more items assess pure valence and focus on pervasive moods rather than emotional episodes, the more negative is the correlation between PA and NA."
• causal - maybe neuroticism drives NA and extraversion drives PA? Note Conclusion.
• momentary - 114: "PA and NA can be independent over extended time periods, even if they are fully dependent at each moment. "It. For example, even if love and hate were mutuallyexclusive at one moment in time, some individuals could experience more loveand more hate over extended periods of time than others (Bradbum, 1969;Schimmack & Diener, 1997).

• Section 3: Relationship of Cognitive and Affective Well-Being

• high correlation, but also highly variable in studies
• explaining the correlation: people access information about PA/NA differently in making LS judgement.
• other researchers (117) rely on external factors to explain PA and then an indirect influence on LS.

Philosophical Method

• Schimmack article gives a sense of how social science hypotheses about well-being are advanced and evaluated within quantitative methods of psychology and sociology. We'll try to picture that model since, as philosophers, we will want to make proper use of its results.
• Terms to distinguish: Reality / Measurement / Hypotheses / Construct (Theory)