Happiness Fall 2015 Class Notes

Return to Happiness

SEP 3

McMahon, "Chapter 1: The Highest Good"

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 standards 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.

Cahn and Vitrano, "Living Well"

• considers how various philosophers would evaluate the contrast between the fictional cases of Pat and Lee

• Living well: tied to distinctions between

• "successful lives" vs. "wasted lives"
• lives pursuing "intrinsically valuable" goals
• lives that are "works of art"
• fame and achievement vs. mission and meaning vs. satisfaction with one's own activities

• concern about the possibility of ideology or cultural bias.

• Wolf's list: computer games and crossword puzzles not on the list, but why not, asks Haidt?
• why disparage making money, swimming, driving cool cars?
• why do philosopher's think they can put philosophy at the top of the list?

• Example of Phil Saltman

• Cahn and Vitrano's answer: p. 21.

SEP 8

Vitrano, The Subjectivity of Happiness

• starts with statement of the "objectivist view" of happiness, especially from Aristotle: happiness is objectively related to moral and prudential goodness, "living well" and "doing well"
• objectivists limit happiness to those who can develop their capacities and talents.

• subjectivists: "satisfaction criterion" (note: an objectivist can still require that one also be satisfied with one's life)

• modified objectivism:

• Warner: satisfaction, but also of "important desires" that are thought "worthwhile". Simpson adds that the desires must actually be worthwhile.
• Annas: strong still. We can assess our desires and goals objectively.
• Kekes: we can assess whether someone's satisfaction is warranted.
• Nozick: can't call someone happy if their emotions are unjustified and based on fase evoluations

• Counterarguments to the objectivists:

• Case of Jane, who is happy in part because of her marriage, which she considers a success, but wrong about that because her husband is having an affair.

• might want to say that Jane would be "better off" knowing the truth, but then happiness and being "better off" are at odds, which is a problem for an objectivist who things happiness is the "best" state.

• second, to the extent that happiness is an emotion, we will have to credit the experience of the emotion as a form of fulfillment of the state.

• Other considerations supporting a subjectivist view:

• satisfaction criterion compatible with improvement. Someone can be happy and satisfied and yet they might still be happy if they made better moral and prudential decisions.
• therefore, subjectivism and appraisal are not incompatible.

• subjectivists explain behavior better.

• people actually behaves as though happiness were one among many goals.

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: Section 7: connected with search for "function of man"
• Function of Man, Section 7: (connect with section 13): this is an important section.

• read carefully, the paragraph beginning "Presumably, ..." for Aristotle's idea of the "life of the rational element", part of understanding virtue as the sorts of "excellences" that comes from our rational being. Need a complete life.

• The need for external goods (end of section 8) and training in the pursuit of happiness

Group work: Evaluate Aristotle's theory? To what extent is happiness tied to our nature and what can we say about our nature?

Some criticisms

• Problem of external goods.
• Connection between end of man and finality of happiness.
• Nobility vs. Happiness
• The Moving Targets Problem
• Do we even have a "function"? Just one?
• Is there more than one kind of happiness? Why prefer H(L)?

SEP 10

Haidt, "Chapter 5: The Pursuit of Happiness"

(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 15

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" (see wiki on "common 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 17

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 -Michael 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."