Fall 2014 Happiness Class Notes

Return to Happiness

SEP 2

Course Introduction

1.Introductions

2.Course websites: alfino.org and wiki

3.Grading Schemes

Advice about succeeding in and enjoying the course: the Prep Cycle

4.Clickers: Turning Point "responseware" -- get the app and register. save your device id.

Grading philosophy

5.Happiness Exercise

SEP 4

1. Classical Greek Models of Happiness

Key theme: Greek cultural break with accommodation to destiny. Recognition of possibility of control of circumstances determining happiness.

Implicit historical narrative: Classical Greek philosophy has a point of connection with Periclean Athens, but develops Athenian cultural values in a radically new way. This begins a distinctive kind of narrative about happiness in the West.

1. The Greek Cultural Model

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

2. The Greek Philosophical Models in Greek Philosophical culture: Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno.

A. Plato - Symposium gives us picture of Plato's view.

• Contrast the Symposium with the cult of Dionysius
• Reasoning our way to the Good (Happiness). Symposium as purification ritual (Summary including Alcibiades twist). bad desire/good desire
• Object of desire is transcendent. (Reminder about Platonic metaphysics.) "intellectual orgasm" (36)

• McMahon: "radical reappraisal of the sandards of the world" 37

B. 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.

C. Hellenic Schools: Epicureans and Stoics

• Main similarities and differences with Plato and Aristotle.

On the relationship between philosophical culture and the broader traditional culture.

Features of this cultural trajectory.

SEP 9

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book I

Aristotle on happiness (based on Book 1 of Nichomachean Ethics)

• analogy of political arts and individual function: happiness comes up in each case
• sec. 5: types of lives compared
• finality of happiness (sec. 7) connected with search for "function of man"
• Function of Man (connect with section 13)
• The need for external goods and training in the pursuit of happiness

Some criticisms

• Problem of external goods.
• Connection between end of man and finality of happiness.
• Nobility vs. Happiness
• The Moving Targets Problem

(not mentioned in class)

• Do we even have a "function"? Just one?
• Is there more than one kind of happiness? Why prefer H(L)?

Group work: evaluate the theory against its criticisms. How could Aristotle reply? Your own identifications and criticisms?

Note on philosophical method: Distinguishing "doing philosophy" from other kind of research.

• metatheoretical
• connecting practical questions to the most fundamental levels of explanation

SEP 11

Haidt, Happiness Hypothesis, Ch. 5

(gloss on "elephant" vs. "rider")

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

• About pleasure....

• diminishes on repeat...
• pre-goal attainment positive affect (Davidson)

• Buddha and Epictetus take a relatively "internal" path. Haidt suggests research shows this to be somewhat extreme direction to go -- there are things to strive for outside of yourself,

• Progress Principle: happiness in the journey -- "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, also relative sensitivity to change -- nb. bottom of p. 85), hedonic treadmill, set point theory,
• Bob and Mary comparison (87): relationship, meaningfulness. Bob's list more susceptible to adaptation. (Note some initial complications: Does marriage make people happy or do happy people marry? wealth effects (good topic for research paper).

• Note theoretical problem: 90's findings on happiness supported genetic connection (or set point phenomenon) but not so much an environmental one (we adapt).

• 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) (he implies, but incorrectly, that the inward path to happiness involves a choice of inaction.)
• Flow (experience sampling) and Seligman's "Pleasures" vs. "Gratifications"; Strengths test www.authentichappiness.org,

Working against your happiness

• False hypotheses about material goods.
• Comparisons and biases. Conspicuous consumption is a zero sum game.
• Schwartz maximizers and satisficers.

• • Note concluding reflection: What are we to make of the Calcutta reports?

SEP 16

Method Lessons Today

• Quick review of model for thinking about science.
• Relationship between phenomenological and scientific inquiry.

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 107.

• 1. Sig effect of domain importance on DS-LS correlation. (LS more sig in imp. domains like family, AND DS-DS correlation stronger with imp. domains)
• 2. Effect of objective domain characteristics (domain importance)
• 3.

• problems of measurement -- "shared method variance"
• more sophisticated model -- domain importance
• Research Question: What could explain variance in LS besides DS?
• Positive illusions - self-evaluative bias. note method of study. strong correlation with LS. but weak support for top down.
• Money - income moderate predictor of DS in financial area, Financial satisfaction strong predictor of LS.
• "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.
• causal - maybe neuroticism drives NA and extraversion drives PA? Note Conclusion at p. 114.
• 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 mutually exclusive at one moment in time, some individuals could experience more love and 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, also cultural variation. Correlation stronger in West, dev. countries r=.57 than East r=.22).
• other researchers (117) rely on external factors to explain PA and then an indirect influence on LS.

SEP 18

Haidt, "The Divided Self"

• metaphors from Plato and Buddha. Training metaphor in both. Plato's horses: rational and irrational desire. H's: elephant and rider.
• Freud: ego, id, superego.
• discusses a number of preliminary distinctions:

• Mind vs. Body - gut brain. neurons all over. GI and immune system illnesses intersect with psychological conditions such as stress and depression.
• Left vs. Right -Micharel Gazzaniga, collected evidence on split brain patients (severing corpus collasum to reduce seizures), controlled experiments with patients report of l/r brain function. split brains in everyday life... Why does this matter if you don't have a split brain??? "confabulation" - implications for our picture of csness.
• New vs. Old -neo-cortex and frontal cortex recent - case of U VA schoolteacher in his forties who starts acting weird - massive tumor in frontal cortex. (Phineas Gage) -- moment of appreciation for the orbitofrontal cortex.
• Controlled vs. Automatic - priming example, 13.

Two Big examples of phenomena that arise from these structures and features of the brain.

• Failures of self control 18: Mischel and Impulse control [1] 19: Wegner on ironic processes (don't think of a white bear). point: shows automatic and controlled processes at odds.
• Disgust 21: disgust - incest scenario -

• 22 q. statement about rider and elephant. "We make pronouncements, vows, and resolutions, and then are surprised by our own powerlessness to carry them out. We sometimes fall into the view that we are fighting with our unconscious, our id, or our animal self. But really we are the whole thing. We are the rider, and we are the elephant. Both have their strengths and special skills."

Small Group Exercise

Take each of the four distinctions Haidt makes and speculate about the implications of this feature of our brains for happiness. Then consider the overall picture of the evolved brain and ask yourselves, "If this is the brain we're working with, then we should/shouldn't expect Happiness to be like . . . ."

SEP 23

Method Points

• Importance of constructs in summaries of demographic research
• Causal fallacies to recall:

• Common Cause fallacy
• Post hoc ergo propter hoc
• Direction of causation
• False Cause - catch all including: imputing a cause when there isn't one and reductive causal thinking

Argyle, Causes and Correlates of Happiness

• Age
• Education
• Social Status
• Income
• Marriage
• Ethnicity
• Employment
• Leisure
• Religion
• Life Events

Synopsis by major factor:

• Age

• The older are slightly happier, notably in positive affect. Some evidence that women become less happy with age. In assessing causality, we might need to acknowledge a cohort effect (older people are those who survive, hence not nec. representative of a sampling of all age groups). Older people are less satisfied than others with their future prospects.
• Old people could have lower expectations, and hence their greater self-reported happiness might not be comparable to a younger person's self-reported happiness.
• Puzzle: objective conditions are worse for old people (health, depression and loneliness!), yet they are more satisfied. (Neural degeneration has got to be on the table as a hypothesis.)

• Education

• The educated are slightly happier. Effect weak in US. Data suggest the education effect is greater in poorer countries. Control for income and job status effects and there is still a slight effect from education. [From personal achievement?] But income and job status account for most of the education effect.

• Social Status

• About twice the effect of education or age, but half of the effect is from job status. Greater effect for stratified societies. [Comment on being a professor in Italy, for example.]

• Income

• Average correlation of .17 across studies. See chart on p. 356 -- curvilinear, with slight upward tail at highest incomes. (intriguing)
• Steep relation of income from poverty to material sufficiency.
• Diener found a stronger correlation when using multiple income measures (such and GNP, purcasing power indexes, etc.)
• Famous Myers and Diener 1996 study: "In the United States, average personal income has risen from $4,000 in 1970 to $16,000 in 1990 (in 1990 dollars), but there has been no change in average happiness or satisfaction." Some evidence that happiness is sensitive to economic downturns (Belgium), some evidence of variation in strength of effect across culture.
• Lottery winner studies may not be a good way to test income effects since you get lots of disruptions with winning the lottery.
• Cluster effect with income: Income comes with host of other goods: p. 358.
• Michalo's "goal achievement gap model" p. 358: "whereby happiness is said to be due to the gap between aspirations and achievements and this gap is due to comparisons with both "average folks" and one's own past life (see figure 18.3).

Other Resources:

• Kahneman and Deaton, "High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being"
• Graham, et. al, "The Easterlin Paradox and Other Paradoxes: Why both sides of the Debate May be Correct"

• Marriage

• Average effect from meta-analysis of .14. Stronger effects for young. Does more for women than men, though stronger effect on male health.
• Causal model: Married people have higher social well being indicators (mental and physical health). These indicators are independent factors for happiness. Marriage is a source of emotional and material support. Married people just take better care of themselves. Men might benefit from emotional support more since women provide that to male spouses more than males? (differently?)
• Effects of marriage has a life-stage dimension to them. (figure 18.4) Having children has a small effect.
• Reverse causation is a consideration, but hard to support since 90% of people get married.
• Good example in this section of distinguishing between correlational data and causal discussion.

• Ethnicity

• Widely confirmed studies show that average happiness for US African Americans is lower than for US whites.
• Mostly accounted for by income, education, and job status.
• Interestingly, African American children enjoy higher self-esteem than white kids.

• Employment

• Studies of unemployed and retired help isolate effects.
• Unemployed sig less happy: "The unemployed in nearly all countries are much less happy than those at work. Inglehart (1990) found that 61 percent of the unemployed were satisfied, compared with 78 percent of manual workers."
• Causal model: income and self-esteem account for most of effect.

• Leisure

• Relatively strong correlation: .2 in meta-studies.
• Leisure effects observed in lots of contexts (social relations from work, adolescent leisure habits, even a short walk. Sport and exercise include both social effects and release of endorphins.
• Flow is a factor. Comparisons of high engagement and high apathy (tv) leisure activities.
• TV watching as a leisure activity. Soap opera watchers!
• Volunteer and charity work were found to generate high levels of joy, exceeded only by dancing!

• Religion

• The strength of religion on happiness is positive, sensitive to church attendance, strength of commitment, related to meaningfulness and sense of purpose (an independent variable). Overall modest effect, but stronger for those more involved in their church. note demographic factors.
• Reverse causation: Are happier people more likely to be religious?
• Causal model: Religion works through social support, increasing esteem and meaningfulness.
• Kirpatrick 1992 study: self-reported relationship with God has similar effects as other relationships.

• Life events and activities (especially on affect)

• "' A study in five Eu European countries found that the main causes of joy were said to be relationships with friends, the basic pleasures of food, drink, and sex, and success experiences (Scherer etal. 1986)."..."Frequency of sexual intercourse also correlates with happiness, as does satisfaction with sex life, being in love, and frequency of interaction with spouse, but having liberal sexual attitudes has a negative relationship." "...alcohol, in modest doses, has the greatest effects on positive mood."

SEP 25

Diener and Suh, National Differences in SWB

With this article, income is once again highlighted as a factor, but now in the context of cross nation comparisons. The major issue here is, "How does culture and national grouping interact with perceptions and judgements of happiness? (Note problem of relation of national borders to tribe, ethnicity, and region.)

Methodological Difficulties:

1. Wealth is clustered with other factors that predict H, such as right, equality, fulfillment of needs, and individualism.
2. Transnational similarities (p. 435, in all nations most people are happy) might reflect some tendency to for judgements to be group-relative.
3. General validity concerns about self reports are offset by research using multiple measures.
4. Example of Russian / US student comparison, 437
5. Are nations meaningful units of analysis? Looking at subgroups suggests yes.

After accounting for measurement and methodological issues, there are real and substantive differences in well-being across nations. While wealthier nations are generally happier, there are complexities to the causal model. National income correlates with non-economic goods such as rights, equality, fulfillment of basic needs, and individualism. These factors have effects on both SWB and income that have not been isolated.

Individualism correlates with higher reported SWB, but also higher suicide rates. Collectivists may be working with a different model of happiness or just a different attitude about its importance. (Carol Graham, Happiness Around the World, is the main succeesor research that I'm aware of. 1999 vs. 2009).

Different models for explaining cultural differences are presented:

1. innate needs approach, Veenhoven, explains lack of growth in SWB in rich countries.
2. theory of goal striving, SWB relative to goal pursuits, which are different between rich and poor nations.
3. models of emotional socialization, different cultures/nations social young to affect in different ways.
4. genetic explanations.

Typical Image for the Easterlin Paradox

Typical Image for Myers Diener / Easterlin Paradox --from Layard, Happiness

SEP 30

| Some Dates

"The Stoic Worldview"

Theology & Ontology -

• pantheism -- theos - (pneuma) - matter.
• ontology - All is corporeal, yet pneuma distinguishes life and force from dead matter.

Determinism and Choice - Ench #1

Pneuma, Psyche, and Hegimonikon: Importance of Hegemonikon

Model of Growth and Development toward Sagehood & Wisdom - Soul-training

Hellenistic Stoicism: Epictetus

Key Idea: To realize our rational nature (and the joy that only rational being can know), we need to adjust our thinking about our lives to what we know about reality.

Some passages that define the practical philosophy which follows from the metaphysics and this principle:

• Notice the "re-orientation" which is recommended in #1 and #2.
• "Some things are in our control and others are not."
• "Confine your aversion" and understand the limits of things. (Sounds like an “aversion” retraining program based on knowledge claims.)
• Infamous #3. Read with #7, #8, and #14, in case we’re being too subtle.
• Something like mindfulness, #4
• Limits of pride. Catching the mind exaggerating.:*Desire: #15,
• Comportment in later points of the enchiridion. (Unabashedly hierarchal -- recall "mix of elements")

Small Group Prompt

1. Revisit the most difficult parts of stoic moral psychology: #3. Attachment.

2. What does the stoic have to tell us about happiness? (Look at hypostheses.)

3. +/- from the Enchiridion

Hypotheses on Stoic Happiness

1. A Happiness you deserve ---

2. Happiness is a further goal from virtue.

3. Virtue is a means to happiness. (in common with Epicurus) (#12 and #13 - If you want to improve...)

4. Stoic joy is real happiness.

5. Stoicism is a council of wisdom, not happiness.

OCT 2

Hellenistic Hedonism: Epicurus -- Letter to Menoeceus and Principal Doctrine

• Key Idea: Pleasure is the Good. (Notice how that sets up the need for an original (relative to classical Greek philosophy) analysis of desire and pleasure.)

• accepts reality of gods in spite of atomistic metaphysics
• recall tetrapharmakos:

• 1. Don't fear gods.

• 2. Death is nothing. - note his arguments here and the similar in method to stoicism - need to live the awareness.

• 3. What is good is easy to get.

• 4. What is evil is easy to endure.

• Why not worry about the Gods? (fill in from Prinicipal Doctrines)
• Why not worry about death?
• Classification of desire: p. 2 - natural/groundless, necessary/not necessary. tranquility, reduction in NA primary goals.
• Plain fare (Letter); PD 8ff: analysis of pleasure -- What is Epicurus psychology of desire? What psychology of desire would be compatible with Epicurus?
• PD 5: Relation of virtue to pleasure
• PD 18: close to adaptation.
• PD 25: something akin to mindfulness.
• PD 27-8: priority of friendship.

Small group exercise on Hedonism

• What does mean to "maximize" a pleasure? Are there natural limits to pleasures? Is desire subject to the hedonic treadmill (cf PD18)?
• Evaluate hedonism as an overall goal for happiness.

Article on Epicurus' concept of pleasure Epicurus_on_Pleasure_and_the_Complete_Life

OCT 9

Note on Method

Irivne's work gives a good example of mixing two techniques: critiquing and "saving" a theory. When you "save" a theory from a criticism, you try to figure out, among other things, what the theory is really committed to and which parts of the theory are optional or could be revised.

William Irvine, Chapter 4, "Negative Visualization"

• from p. 82: "To practice negative visualization is to contemplate the impermanence of the world around you."

• Reasons for contemplating bad things.

• Adaptation: wants to reverse it. "creating a desire in us for the things we already have" 67-68. Two fathers thought experiment.

• Contemplation of our own death.

• Sources of evidence: children, people who survive disasters (catastrophe-induced transformation), grace, unluckiness to stimulate sense of being lucky.

• Objections: p. 81: Doesn't this heighten loss? response: the two fathers again (81)

William Irvine, Chapter 5, "The Trichotomy of Control"

• Some things up us, somethings aren't.

• Internal strategy: changing ourselves. Desire not to be frustrated by future desires.
• Irvine's critique of dichotomy: ambiguity -- total or partial control.
• Critique of stoic claim that we have complete control of desires, and aversions. Tennis match example (88). Casino example: Epictetus wrong to include desire as something completely internal.
• Claims: We do have complete control over goals, opinion, and character.
• 94: response to "Stoicism is a 'withdrawl from life' philosophy" and that a Stoic would avoid attachment (96)
• Should you want to win the tennis match, as a Stoic? internal/externally expressed goals. 96-97.

• Problem of Stoic cosmopolitanism: Why would a stoic set goals that would threaten his/her tranquility?

OCT 14

Darrin McMahon, Chapter 2, Perpetual Felicity

• Note time period being covered: 0-500 ad Roman - Christian culture

• Roman culture of happiness: propsperity, fertility, power, luck. Also images of simplicity.
• Carpe Diem, read p. 72, note M's hypothesis: idyllic imagery a response to urban decadence and disorder.

• Judaic culture of happiness/blessedness term: Asher -- note how terms and concepts from Hellenic/Judaic/Roman cultures are being mixed.

• Early Christian Model of Happiness -- radical inversion of classical and Roman thought. To be happy is to walk in the way of the Lord.

• Story of Perpetua and Felicitas (150ad). Martyrdom and Happiness.

• Transitions in Christian thought on happiness after Early Christianity: Augustine, Pseudo-Dyonisius, Aquinas

• Augustine: personal history, symbol of Christian critique of pagan conception, yet also assimilation of Hellenic culture. "To be happy is to be suffused jwith truth, to 'have God within the soul," to "enjoy God". Pelagian controversy. Note summary at 105.

• John the Scot (Eriugena) 847 ad, rediscovers Pseudo-Dionysius, thought to be contemporary of Paul (who mentions a Dionysius): mystical tradition. Great example of the fusion of classical and Christian thought. Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Christian. Mystical bliss as a higher form of happiness. (Digress).

• Aquinas distinction between perfect and imperfect happiness. Idea of order of creation. Humans on top among mortal creatures. Fusion with Aristotlean conception of nature, to an extent. note p. 126. connects Aristotle's ideal of contemplation to Christian spirituality.

OCT 16

Go back to Diener and Suh. Connection between studying intercultural dimensions of H and history of the dominant culture of the West.

-psychology sees evolutionary thread in our evolved psychology -anthropology sees the cultural thread -- defining culture

McMahon, Chapter 3: From Heaven to Earth (Renaissance & Reformation)

• Contemptus Mundi: 13th-15th century: characteristics.

• Contrast with Renaissance Humanism:

• Pico: 1463. Oration on Dignity of Man. key ideas: protean character of man. 146: still traditional model (in line with Aquinas' dist.)
• Renaissance Neo-platonism 151: vertical path to happiness.
• Bronzino's Allegory of Happiness -- connection to earthly happiness evident.
• Lorenzo Valla's On Pleasure -- connecting epicureanism to a Christian life. Note biographical detail.

• Emerging Images and Ideas: 15th-16th centuries

• Felicitas
• Smiles -- also, Mona Lisa, early 1500's
• Melancholy as disease

• Reformation

• Martin Luther and happiness: letter, effect of grace (note throw back to Pelagians!) and at 172, summary
• Calvin
• Locke, late 17th century. tabula rasa, nb. 180. reassertion of happiness as driver of desire. Note enlightenment model of reasonableness of christianity here. Roughly: Reason discovers our happiness and God, as its author, wants this for us.

OCT 21

Some General Points on Yoga

• samadhi - the goal of the spiritual practice of yoga; ecstasy, union; a mystical experience of enlightenment

• Yoga, defined in various ways, also in relation to Vedanta narrative. dualism and monism in yogic thought.

• 3 periods pre-classical (or Vedanta), classical (Patanjali 2nd cent. CE), and post-classical (ex. Shankara, 8th cent). Important that Patanjali's period represents a dualist approach. Purusa / Prakrati. Spirit / Nature, roughly.

• Teacher/disciple model.

• Yogic is infused in multiple traditions: Hindu, Buddhist, and its own. Meditative figures on coins from 3,000 bc. Rig Veda has image of a yogi who, by achieving physical control through asanas (poses) and physical austerities (fasting, meditation, etc.) achieves access to a "deeper realm" of insights about reality.

• Yoga in Bhagvad Gita (Miller 10): Arjuna, warrior, locked in battle with his own kin. Important conversation with Krishna. (Pre-classical) Like Homeric, Yoga has a history in warrior culture and warrior ethos (duty).

Miller, Yoga: Discipline of Freedom, Introduction

• This is an introduction to her edition / translation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.

• "The aim of yoga is to eliminate the control that material nature exerts over the human spirit, to rediscover through introspective practice what the poet T. S. Eliot called the "still point of the turning world." " This is a state of perfect equilibrium and absolute spiritual calm, an interior refuge in the chaos of worldly existence. In the view of Patanjali, yogic practice can break habitual ways of thinking and acting that bind one to the corruptions of everyday life."

• From Samkhya dualism: everything is a mix of prakrati and purusa.

• The Three Gunas (13): Lucidity (sattva), Passion (rajas), and inertia (tamas).

• The psychology of Patanjali's yoga: follow Miller's discussion of thought proces (17) (citta), "tyranny of uncontrollable thought," reducing thought "traces" or "seeds". goal to make thought "invulnerable" to the chaos of mental and physical stimuli. (discussion: And this is a good thing because....?)

• In Patanjali:

• First, there's a process of "unenlightenment" -- Purusa becomes bound to prakrati. Enlightenment is about undoing the this entanglement. (Note again connection with Buddhism, which comes much later.). q. p. 19: Ignorance...

Donna Farhi, "Cleaning up Our Act: The Four Brahmavihara

• Five Kleshas in Patanjali:

• 1. Avidha: Ignorance of our eternal nature
• 2. Asmita: Seeing oneself as separate and divided from the rest ofthe world
• 3. Raga: Attraction and attachment to impermanent things
• 4. Dvesha: Aversion to the unpleasant
• 5. Abhinivesha: Clinging to life because we fail to perceive the seamless continuity of consciousness, which cannot be broken by death (Yoga-Sutra 13)

• Ashtanga Yoga -- eight fold program (from wikipedia):

Sanskrit	English
Yama	moral codes
Niyama	self-purification and study
Asana	posture
Pranayama	breath control
Pratyahara	sense control
Dharana	intention
Dhyana	meditation
Samadhi	contemplation

• The Brahmavihara are four attittudes Patanjali recommends developing:

• 1. Friendliness toward the joyful
• 2. Compassion for those who are sufferuig
• 3. Celebrating the good in others
• 4. Remaining impartial to the faults and imperfections of others(Yoga-Sutra 1.33)

• Note Fahri's more "social" focus.
• Follow, in some detail, her discussion of each Brahmavihara. Importance of cultivating empathy

Additional Quote on Goal of Yoga

from T. S. Rumani, " Samkhya-Yoga," Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

Introduction to Meditation Practicum

We'll save 10 minutes at the end of class for those interested in hearing about the meditation practicum.

OCT 23

Optional Mid-term Exam

OCT 28

Introduction to Buddhism (from wikipedia)

• The Four Noble Truths

1 There is suffering.

2 There is the origination of suffering: suffering comes into existence in dependence on causes.

3 There is the cessation of suffering: all future suffering can be prevented by becoming aware of our ignorance and undoing the effects of it.

4 There is a path to the cessation of suffering.

8 fold path. (see above and in Feuerstein.)

Division	Eightfold Path factors	Acquired factors
Wisdom (Sanskrit: prajñā, Pāli: paññā)	1. Right view	9. Superior right knowledge
	2. Right intention	10. Superior right liberation
Ethical conduct (Sanskrit: śīla, Pāli: sīla)	3. Right speech
	4. Right action
	5. Right livelihood
Concentration (Sanskrit and Pāli: samādhi)	6. Right effort
	7. Right mindfulness
	8. Right concentration

- from wikipedia.

Introduction to Buddhism (Siderits, Chapter 2, "Early Buddhism: Basic Teachings")

• Background on Buddha

• note heterodoxy, intro/dev karmic theory (and theory of liberation from rebirth), moral teaching ind. of focus on ritual and deities.
• consensus on "moksa" as goal of enlightenment. Buddha's teaching one of many.
• Siderits presents sramanas as critical and questioning of heterodoxy.

Two background concepts (not directly in this text)

• Distinction between conventional and ultimate reality -- as relates to the doctrine of "no-self"
• Nature of "moral causation" -- fundamental to thinking about karma

• The Four Noble Truths

1 There is suffering.

1. Normal pain. Decay, disease, death. (Flip to Pali Canon, p. 51)

2. Suffering from ignorance of impermanence. Including ignorance of no-self. Suffering from getting what you want or don't want.

3. Suffering from conditions. "Existential Suffering" Rebirth itself is a form of suffering. (So belief in rebirth doesn't solve the problem of suffering in one life. 21: Rebirth entails re-death.)

2 There is the origination of suffering: suffering comes into existence in dependence on causes.

Theory of Dependent Origination: Note the chain of causal connection ("Engine of Reincarnation") advanced on p. 22 of Siderits: ignorance ultimately causes suffering, but the intermediate steps are important. Let's give a psychological reading of this metaphysical chain of causation. (compare to Pali Canon, p. 52)

3 There is the cessation of suffering: all future suffering can be prevented by becoming aware of our ignorance and undoing the effects of it. "It is the utter cessation and extinction of that craving, its renunciation, its forsaking, release from it, and non-attachment to it." (from Pali Canon reading)

4 There is a path to the cessation of suffering.

8 fold path. importance of meditation (p. 24) -- negative states of mind have causal consequences. philosophy needed to work with the ideas and moments of self-reflectiveness that meditation generates. (25)

• Cessation of suffering: meditation, (non)self-discovery.

• Need to assess this recommended "training program" more in light of Discourse on Mindfulness and the Eight Fold path (See wiki page Noble Eight Fold Path)

• Note discussion of meditation, p. 25. Basic theory for mindfulness meditation exercise.

• Liberation

• rejection of presentism (claim that key to insight to get used to impermanence) and annihilationism as models for liberation.
• paradox of liberation: how can you desire liberation if liberation requires relinguishment of desire. Possible solution: to desire the end of suffering.

• Problem following the consequences of "non-self": Buddhist maxim: "Act always as if the future of hte Universe depended on what you did, while laughing at yourself for thinking that whatever you do makes any difference."

Pali Canon, Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness

• "Mindfulness is also the seventh factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. By developing mindfulness, a person first observes the various aspects of one's being,then learns to control the mind and its reactions to external and internal stimuli."

• Lots of material in here. Four foundations of mindfulness, five aggregates of attachement, six bases of sense, seven factors of enlightenment, four noble truths (51),

• Some Points:

• Mindfulness not disconnection from environment, but intense connection.
• Note use of lists and repetition. inventories.
• Note "joy and happiness born of detachment" 57

Second Introduction to self-guided mindfulness meditation

• Read wiki page: [Meditation Exercises]

• Goal is to experience a psychological "meditation effect," often in 3rd week. Characteristics. Psychological process.

• Time, Place, Seating and Environment

• Initial challenges

• Maintaining comfortable alertness
• Working with mental content: problem of thought suppression.
• Techniques for dissipating mental content: visualizations, returning to breath, optical effects

• 2nd to 4th week goals. Noticing changes in mental state (if any) pre post meditation. Noticing differences between different meditation experiences. Noticing changes in interaction with others, mood, or affect within hours of meditation.

OCT 30

Matthieu Ricard, Chs. 6&7: Alchemy of Suffering and Veils of the Ego

Chapter Six: Alchemy of Suffering (Modern version of 4 noble truths)

• Shortest history of the kingdom: "They Suffer"

• Pervasive suffering -- from growth and development
• Suffering of Change -- from illusion of permanence.
• Multiplicity of Suffering -- suffering from awareness of the many ways things can go wrong.
• Hidden Suffering -- anxiousness about hidden dangers

• Sources of Suffering -- self-centeredness, our unhappiness is caused, 4 Noble Truths.
• Problem: How can you have a philosophy that tells you that you shouldn't "lose it" in calamity?

• Methods for responding to suffering -- meditation, use of mental imagery.

• Some themes of a modern Buddhist explication of the 4 Noble Truths:

• Causal attitude toward suffering. 65, 67; use of neurology to understand pain and related phen. 73
• Positive aspects of suffering 71
• Mental imagery in ancient and modern Buddhist practice; use of meditation in pain management.
• Use in stimulating positive and prosocial emotions: compassion, empathy. (anecdotal story)

Chapter Seven: Veils of the Ego (modern version of "no self" doctrine)

• Ego as a fear reaction to the world. (Is it? Is this a good interpretive model?) consider evidence from everyday life: Children, social situations with peers. Needs to maintain the self in equilibrium with social reality, not just physical reality.
• Observing the ego at work: example of physical and moral pain, 84. example of the vase, the asymmetry of our response is a clue.
• Problem: How can I live without an ego? R's response: true self-confidence is egoless.

• Cites Paul Ekman's studies of emotionally exceptional people. egoless and joyful
• Gives brief account of the illusion of self. What is the best way think about our experience of "self" from a scientific and Buddhist point of view?
• Attitude toward ultimate reality of things. 93

NOV 4

Fred Bryant, Savoring, Chapter 1, Concepts of Savoring: An Introduction

• Savoring: capacity to attend to, appreciate and enhance positive experiences. (Note newness of research.)
• Relating to coping research (note his list on 2. we could add stoic techniques.).
• Defining at p. 3. appreciating enjoyment of any experience (note the reflexive construction here and relation to mindfulness)
• Distinguishing savoring from pleasure -- reflective dimension to savoring. Includes anticipation. "Appreciative awareness." Not so much in sexual orgasm itself, but pre/post.
• Cultural dimension to savoring -- how and how much savoring is culturally sanctioned. Italians vs. scots
• Need to suppress "social and esteem needs" for savoring.
• Savoring distinguished from other processes. In relation to:

• Mindfulness -- savoring narrower, 8 & 15 (read).
• Meditation, p 16
• Flow

Robert Emmons, Gratitude, Subjective Well-Being, and the Brain

• importance of exchange of gifts, symbolic and material. Note at 471, anthropological explanation. (Consider complexity of gift giving.)
• Broad range of gratitude: from specific feeling about a particular event or circumstance to a general attitude toward life. Life as a gift.
• Definitions: "positive recognition of pleasant feeling from received benefit. "undeserved merit" From Fitzgerald (470): appreciation, goodwill, disposition that follows from appreciation and goodwill.
• Gratitude can be a "virtue" if understood as a cultivated disposition to recognize undeserved merit.
• Gratitude response is stronger if the beneficiary intends the benefit.

• Gratitude as Affective Trait

• grateful people experience more positive emotion. 473 (direction of causation? If you're happy and you don't know it...)
• other correlates.

• Evolutionary Perspective

• "as a cognitive—emotional supplement serving to sustain reciprocal obligations. -Simmel (471) "Thus, during exchange of benefits, gratitude prompts one person (a beneficiary) to be bound to another (a benefactor) during "exchange of benefits, thereby reminding beneficiaries of their reciprocity obligations."
• "Trivers viewed gratitude as an evolutionary adaptation that regulates people's responses to altruistic acts. Gratitude for altruistic acts is a reward for adherence to the universal norm of reciprocity and is a mediating mechanism that links the receipt of a favor to the giving of a return favor."

• Benefits:

• 1. strengthen social relationships
• 2. counters NA and depression (research on positive memory bias)
• 3. promotes resiliency (study of responses to disaster)

• Gratitude and the Brain

• Cognitive-affective neuroscience construct (What's happening to your brain when you experience gratitude?)
• General hypothesis: we have structures for both perceiving gratitude in others and expressing it.
• Specific hypothesis: Limbic prefontal networks involved: "; (1) the fusiform face-processing areas near the temporal—occipital junctions, (2) the amygdala and Limbic emotional processing systems that support emotional states, and (3) interactions between these two subcortical centers with the prefrontal regions that control executive and evaluative processes." 483. Like other prosocial emotions.

Specific hypothesis tested with studies of gratitude and mood induction in Parkinson's Disease patients. (Read at 483)

• Psychological attitudes at odds with gratitude: "' A number of personal burdens and external obstacles block grateful thoughts. A number of attitudes are incompatible with a grateful outlook on Hfe, including perceptions of victimhood, an in ability to admit one's shortcomings, a sense of entitlement, and an inability to admit that one is not self-sufficient. InIn a culture that celebrates self-aggrandizement and perceptions of deservingness, gratitude can be crowded out.

• Broad range of gratitude: from specific feeling about a particular event or circumstance to a general attitude toward life. Life as a gift.
• Definitions: pleasant feeling from received benefit. "undeserved merit" From Fitzgerald (470): appreciation, goodwill, disposition that follows from appreciation and goodwill.
• Gratitude can be a "virtue" if understood as a cultivated disposition to recognize undeserved merit.
• Gratitude response is stronger if the beneficiary intends the benefit.

• Gratitude and SWB

• Strong claim for long term effects of gratitude as a trait: p. 476 -- participants show SWB boost 6 months later.

• Psychological attitudes at odds with gratitude: "' A number of personal burdens and external obstacles block grateful thoughts. A number of attitudes are incompatible with a grateful outlook on life, including perceptions of victimhood, an in ability to admit one's shortcomings, a sense of entitlement, and an inability to admit that one is not self-sufficient. In a culture that celebrates self-aggrandizement and perceptions of deservingness, gratitude can be crowded out.

NOV 6

Bryant, Chapter 8: Enhancing Savoring

• Theoretical Issues:

• How much can savoring do given set point theory?
• Similar efforts: savoring a common feature
• Savoring in a construct relationship with Coping

• Factors Enhancing both Coping and Savoring:

• Social Support (sharing feelings with others),
• Writing about life experiences,
• Downward hedonic contrast (neg. vis.),
• Humor,
• Spirituality & Religion,
• Awareness of Fleetingness of Experience.

• Essential Pre-conditions for Savoring

• Freedom from Social and Esteem Concerns: explicated largely in terms of mindfulness...
• Present Focus: goes back to what might seem odd about mindfulness as preparatory to savoring.
• Attentional Focus

• Exercises

• Vacation in Daily Life
• Life Review -- "chaining"
• Camera Exercise

Additional Issues:

• The connection between savoring and gratitude (handout from Chapter 5 on ereserves)
• Savoring and Connoisseurship: Does Savoring require (or is it enhanced by) connoisseurship? How does that square with Epicurean simplicity?

Watkins, Chapter 9: Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being

• CS Lewis on praise: completes enjoyment.
• Focus on emotional benefits of expressing gratitude.
• Distinguishes gratitude as a practice vs. trait. Traits are relatively fixed aspects of personality.
• Wants to see if disposition to gratitude predicts SWB. GRAT --> SWLS. Also interested in contribution of G to affective H or "state happiness".
• Findings:

• Grateful people have positive memory bias.
• Grateful people have postivie intrusive memory bias

• Researching the direction of causation -- p. 172ff: if it's possible to manipulate gratitude conditions and see a quasi-functional relationship on mood. Seems to have been weakly confirmed. Still possible to have bidirectional causation. Are happy people grateful or grateful people happier? (Note that practically it might not matter. E.g. if G and SWB are in a feedback loop)
• Series of studies on emotional benefits, gratefulness as a cause p. 174ff -- "Participants in the grateful condition felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the future than students in both of the other comparison conditions." 174. Second study tested specific technique of downward comparison and compared it to control and "hassles" condition.

• How does gratitude contribute to happiness?

• 1: emotional boost from "gift" character of gratitude experiences.
• 2: counteracting hedonic habituation
• 3: focusing attention away from upward comparisons toward downward comparisons. might help with delayed gratification.
• 4: coping -- evidence from p. 178ff, less PTSD in grateful people.
• 5: increasing accessibility and recollection of pleasant life events -- note, this follows from memory bias studies (p. 179)
• 6: increasing actual number or positive events -- esp. through social network. social benefits.
• 7: decrease depressed mood

• Feedback loop in gratitude effects.

Gilbert, Chapter 1. Journey to Elsewhen

• the difference, to the problem of happiness, from our ability to imagine a future.
• Nexting; partially culturally acquired (pause to consider general cultural features of this training); frontal lobe; Phinneas Gage; lobotomies; N.N.
• Prospection and Emotion: ways that we enjoy anticipation of a future (18), even as substitute, American optimism and distorted sense of the future.
• Control. study at 21ff.

NOV 11

Gilbert, Chapter 2: The View from in Here

• Twins: Lroi and Reba. How to assess their preference?
• Objectivity Issues: emotional, moral, judgement happiness.

• How can the twins be happy? What is the role of "objective conditions"?
• Subjectivity of Yellow, 32. Nozick's experience machine, 35. Happy Frank, p. 37. (Perhaps goal of this analysis is to see that normal understanding of happiness includes life happiness, virtues, and perfective activities.)
• 40: How similar are two people's experience of happiness? How would you know?

• problem: we don't compare experiences, we compare memories of experiences.
• Describer's study on memory of color swatch, 41. What do we access when we make happiness judgements?
• How reliable is our judgement from one minute to the next?
• Interviewer substitution studies Daniel Simon's Lab: [2]. Other perceptual aspects, 43-44.
• Conclusion: 44-45: read. Not so much about how bad we are at noticing change, but how, if we aren't paying attention, memory kicks in.

• Happiness scales
• Language squishing and Experience stretching: Addresses the question: Does the range of my experience of happiness lead me to talk differently about an identical experience (of the cake) as someone else, or does it cause me to experience things differently?

• Language squishing hyp: We "squeeze" our happiness scale (language) to fit the range of our objective exp.

• R&L feel exactly like you do (about a birthday cake, for example) but talk about it differently.
• consistent with the idea that the same feeling or state could receive a higher assessment by someone with limited experience.

• Experience stretching hyp: We take the range of our objective experience and stretch it to fit our scale.

• R&L talk about experiences the same as you do but feel something different.
• consistent with the idea that we might be "ruined" by 4 star hotels, but that absence of peak experiences is not a problem.

• Drawing a conclusion: Our relationship to our judgements about happiness is changed by our experience of happiness and vice versa, creating a kind of ambiguity in intersubjective assessments of happiness. (Small group prompt: Finding examples of this claim in our experience, critically evaluating the claim itself.)

Gilbert, Chapter 3: Outside Looking In

• How well do we know what we're feeling?

• Determining that something is scary comes before understanding it. (That's scary.) Recall's Haidt's Divided Self: automatic processes.
• Capilano Bridge Study -- fear and arousal. reading without awareness.
• Blindsight - visual experience and awareness of that experience are generated by distinct parts of the brain. 62.
• Alexithymia - mismatch of experience and awareness of experience or lack of introspective awareness, leading to impoverished vocab of phen. experience. You could be happy and not know it. (That's scary, too.) But another being made here is about variation in people's aptitude for emotional self-description. (Possible Small Group prompt.)

• Objectivity issue summarized: 64.
• Addressing Measurement Issues

• physical correlates, multiple measures, avoid priming,
• Law of Large Numbers -- resolves some issues of objectivity.
• "problem of subjective experience" -- relation between knowledge of patterns and individual. point, bottom of p. 69.

Gilbert, Chapter 4: In the Blind Spot of the Mind's Eye

• Comparions of Adolph Fisher & George Eastman. Point: Need to 2nd guess how we impose seemingly objective criteria on others' lives.
• Brain reweaves experience: study with cars and stop signs/yield signs. Information acquired after the event alters memory of the event.
• Two highly confirmed results: Memory fills in. We don't typically notice it happening.
• Model of Mind (84) Prior to 19th century:

"philosophers had thought of the senses as conduits that allowed information about the properties of objects in the world to travel from the object and into the mind. The mind was like a movie screen in which the object was rebroadcast. The operation broke down on occasion, hence people occasionally saw things as they were not. But when the senses were working properly, they showed what was there. This theory of realism was described in 1690 by the philosopher John Locke: brains "believe" they don't "make believe" .

• Model of Mind brought in with Kant at beginning of 1800's:

Kant's idealism: "Kant's new theory of idealism claimed that our perceptions are not the result of a physiological process by which our eyes somehow transmit an image of the world into our brains but rather, they are the result of a psychological process that combines what our eyes see with what we already think, feel, know, want, and believe, and then uses this combination of sensory information and preexisting knowledge to construct our perception of reality. "

• Still, we act like realists: truck moving study-- we are first realists, but we learn to adopt an idealist perspective in social communication.
• We fill in details: imagine a plate of spaghetti. Very important for thinking about how we fill in the future.
• point for happiness theories: p. 89.

NOV 13

Csiksentmihalyi, Finding Flow, Chapters 1-3

Structures of Everyday Life

• Note how C establishes his humanistic psych presuppositions and commitments in the first few pages. human capacities, potential, development. What's possible?
• Focus on how we spend our time and the state of mind/affect we experience from diff. activities in daily life: production, maintenance, leisure.
• Experience Sampling Method -- p. 14ff

The Content of Experience

• Theoretical position, p. 21: In story of woman with two jobs: looking for patterns of human commitment to a life. Wants to ask less for self-reports of happiness and more about the moods and affect that might be functionally related to happiness. Happiness is positive emotion. (Note how a humanist might get away with saying this.)
• Discussion of emotions, goals, and thoughts in terms of the organization of "psychic entropy", 22 roughly, the cognitive / emotive state of order in my mind at a particular moment or during an activity. read 24-25.
• FLOW, p. 29ff. (What a quiet mind is getting ready for.)

"It is the full involvement of flow, rather than happiness, that makes for excellence in life. When we are in flow, we are not happy, because to experience happiness we must focus on our inner states, and that would take away attention from the task at hand."

• Questioning theoretical implications of flow for happiness. What is the relationship to happiness?

• Small Group prompt: Report experiences of flow. What are the obstacles? What is its relationship to happiness in your view? Does a happy life have to have flow?

How We Feel When Doing Different Things

• Table 2: Quality of Experience in Everyday Activities
• Schizophrenic patient and ESM
• Implicit hypothesis: People have different strategies and degrees of awareness of how to manage their affect (a form of self-care). Happiness might be improved by developing these capacities for self-care.

Small Group Topics

• Consider Csiksentmihalyi's research strategy, the relationship between flow and happiness, and the "implicit hyposthesis" above during your group discussion today.