Happiness Fall 2016 Class Notes

AUG 30

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SEP 1

Note on Method

• Today's readings come from a history of happiness and a contemporary philosophical reflection on "living well" -- one of our core methods in the course will involve this kind of interdisciplinary study.
• In your group exercise today, you will be working with methods such as: generating cases, ordering cases by principles, "pumping intuitions".
• Thought experiment are part of a contemporary philosophers' toolkit. Nozick's "Experience Machine" is a thought experiment.

Some notes on Teaching Methods and Advice

• grading schemes -- you may start editing your grading schemes, but it is early.
• transparency and anonymity -- Saint names, pseudonyms, dropboxes, peer review, sharing student work, grade distributions
• Note on finding audio.
• Note on finding old class notes.
• prep cycle -- check out "focus" notes on reading list, read, follow study questions from class, make notes in light of class, repeat.
• Note your responses to things in your notes so that you can go back and collect them for the paper.
• Mark or note your readings so that you can answer study questions for exams (only one required).

Some general notes on Classical Views and the problem of criteria for living well

• note how happiness emerges as a concern in Greek culture -- (and in other cultures -- will be looking at Buddhism later)
• Plato's (Socrates') view as exemplified in the Symposium -- finding happiness in the search for good accounts of things; knowledge.
• Structure of Symposium -- Love and Happiness as being drawn toward a transcendent and complete reality. (and later in Christianity)

• Specific term of Socrates' view -- eros --> desire --> lack vs. happiness --> fulfillment --> possession (self) -- problem of Alcibiades

• Aristotle's view -- telic, developmental, but also privileging the rational, similar problem as Plato. Not an account of happiness for the masses.
• Experience Machine. [1]

• Raises the question of criteria for living well --

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. We will find real happiness in the pursuit of transcendent knowledge.
• 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.
• As M notes, Aristotle's focus on the rational part of the soul leaves him with a similar problem as Plato -- a model of happines that few (not the Alcibiades in the world) will attain.

Cahn and Vitrano, "Living Well"

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

• Taylor and Frankfurt: P&L are equal. "living in accord with your desires"

• 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.

Small Group Work

• Starting with the contrast between Pat and Lee, consider some of the criteria you might advocate for saying that someone was living relatively well. Is this a judgement that you can easily make? Does Aristotle's view help? Then consider whether there is any sort of relationship (from none to necessary) between living well and being happy?

SEP 6

Methods

• conceptual analysis of subjective and objective in Vitrano
• Haybron's mention of method, p. 10.

Vitrano, The Subjectivity of Happiness

• "objectivist view" of happiness,

• connects happiness and the good life, living a good life.
• 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.

• subjectivist view:

• "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: stronger 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 false evaluations

• 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 thinks 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.

Haybron, Dan. Chapter 1: "A Remarkable Fact"

• compares happy Socrates from a culture we regard as impoverished to us. and
• compares Amish, Maasai, and Inughuit to us.
• Paradoxical for our intuitions -- they are happy but don't have things we regard as necessary to happiness.
• International data on happiness -- What does it mean?
• the Piraha (Pidana) - outliers

• maybe happiness is too variable to have a theory about. his approach, p. 9-10
• advocates theorizing happiness as a psychological state, separate from life satisfaction.

SEP 8

Method notes

• Today we're exploring (through 14 centuries!) the range of the cultural phenomenon of Happiness, adding information from Roman culture and Christian culture. It's hard to have a good theory without a sense of the variability and behavior of the phenomena. History discloses this in unique ways.

Gilbert, Chapter 1. Journey to Elsewhen

• the difference, to the problem of happiness, from our ability to imagine a future.

• Calls "Nexting" predicting immediate future for me; "predicting" both conscious and unconscious. surprise. measurable in the very young and primates. Notice the levels of "nexting" from simple to entirely imagined futures.

• nexting happens in the frontal lobe; Phinneas Gage; lobotomies; tradeoffs between planning (being able to think about the future) and anxiety. N.N. - cognitive awareness of time without ability to imagine the future.

• Prospection and Emotion: 12% of time we think about the future. ways that we enjoy anticipation of a future (18), even as substitute, American optimism and distorted sense of the future. imagining the future changes our predictions about the likelihood of our imaginings coming true. Cancer patients more optimistic about future than the healthy.

• Control. study at 21ff. lots of specific results on control read 22.

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.
• "Horatian" images of happiness: Carpe Diem, read p. 72, note M's hypothesis: idyllic imagery a response to urban decadence and disorder. also contains an element of fantasy of plenty, of a "cornucopia". note critical element in Horace: p. 74: finds that the wealth of Roman culture may have undermined happiness.

• Early Christian Model of Happiness: 76-77: "worship of sorrow", major symbol about execution, but...blessed, beatitude, makarios (Greek). -- radical inversion of classical and Roman thought. To be happy is to walk in the way of the Lord.

• Judaic culture of happiness/blessedness term: Asher -- note how terms and concepts from Hellenic/Judaic/Roman cultures are being mixed. Happiness model as a path or program of formation. (cf. East/West) Beatitudes from Matthew, p. 82. change in role of suffering Judaic to Christian...

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

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

• Augustine, 96: personal history, symbol of Christian critique of pagan conception, yet also assimilation of Hellenic culture. "To be happy is to be suffused with truth, to 'have God within the soul," to "enjoy God". Note the big development here: positive happiness as a state of Christian joy. Also, Augustine makes the argument that the classical model fails to deliver this sort of happiness. City of God: explaining sacking of Rome, but also a model. Also, an articulation of the doctrine of original sin. need for grace in salvation. Pelagian controversy. Note summary at 105.

• John the Scot (Eriugena) 847 ad, problem: how do we return to God from our exile? new articulation of free will (note importance to later history of happiness). rediscovers Pseudo-Dionysius, falsely thought to be contemporary of Paul (who mentions a Dionysius): Erugena's Dionysius was really a 6th century Syrian influenced by neoplatonism. mystical traditions both pagan (Plotinus) and christian (desert fathers)113. Great example of the fusion of classical and Christian thought. Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Christian. Mystical bliss as a higher form of happiness.

• Aquinas distinction between perfect and imperfect happiness. Idea of order of creation, ladder of being. (Ladders everywhere. Also a version in Plato's divided line.) Humans on top among mortal creatures. (need to appreciate how "hot" Aristotle was in 13th century Paris, among university students! some concerns for the church: condemnation of theses including the idea of happiness here.) Fusion with Aristotlean conception of nature, to an extent. note p. 126. connects Aristotle's ideal of contemplation to Christian spirituality.

SEP 13

Method Notes

Today's reading is an overview of research which might help us build a "construct" for happiness. Brief mention of a structure for understanding how constructs (theories) develop through observation and experiment.

A core philosophical method, especially these days, is to try to synthesize the results of diverse research programs to represent a construct for something that, in the case of happiness for example, is too complex to know precisely.

Haidt, "Chapter 5: The Pursuit of Happiness"

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

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

• About the structure of pleasure....

• diminishes on repeat...evolutionary gloss
• pre-goal attainment positive affect vs. post-goal attainment positive affect (Davidson)
• Progress Principle: happiness in the journey -- "Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing."

• The Adaptation Principle

• we return to baselines for + and - experiences
• we are sensitive to changes more than absolutes.

• Problem: If the adaptation principle and heritability of happiness are both true, does it matter much what we do?

• Attempt to "outrun" adaptation is "hedonic treadmill"

• 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. (Kind of lumping alot together, but we'll be looking at this more.)

• 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 (heritability of happiness).
• 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).

• Small group discussion with Report: In 20 minutes, develop a set of critical responses (or a single response) in 200-300 words to the following question: Why are so many people in the culture focused on raising their kids to be like Bob when it looks like Mary has more of the components of happiness in her life? Don't be reluctant to challenge perceived presuppositions of the question. You might want to agree on a strategy such as 5 minutes individual study, 10 minutes to produce the paragraph (5 minutes to get a draft, 5 to improve).

• Happiness Formula

• H = Set point + Conditions + Voluntary action
• Is the lack of adaptation for cosmetic surgery disturbing or comforting? 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,

• Ways of 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?

Rethinking Haidt's Happiness Formula

• Haidt's formula: *H = Set point + Conditions + Voluntary action
• Set point might be better thought of as "initial affect profile"
• Relationship between Conditions and Voluntary action unclear. Actions change some conditions and habitual or dispositional responses might also create good conditions, yet not be wholly conscious and hence not wholly voluntary(?)
• Conditions (ranging from fated to chosen) and Responses to Conditions
• Meta -- actions and practices that we engage to develop and strengthen an orientation to life that will promote happiness and well being. These include practices that improve cognitive and emotive responses. (Haidt's "internal strategies". Also some of the capacities developed by the happiness practica.

SEP 15

Haybron, Chapter 2: What is Happiness?

• takes us into a rich phenomenal account of emotional state happiness

• endorsement
• engagement
• attunement

• Is Haybron making a recommendation or describing objective, transcultural features of emotional happiness?

• Problem of "false happiness" -- discrepancies such as Robert's (also Happy Frank) -- adaptive unconscious might be part of the explanation -- interesting that we can go wrong in this way. mood propensity or dispositional happiness.

• Can you also be happy and not know it?

• The Haybron discussion also gets at the idea of superficial vs. deep happiness. Ricard, or the sage, presumably have it.

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? (Point about guitar experience (52) -- moving targets problem.)

• 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 someone is having a different experience because of their limited background.
• maybe a rich background of experience (exotic experience, diverse or challenging experience, luxurious experience, experience of rarefied environments "ruins" mundane experience. In which case, 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.)

SEP 20

Philosophical Methods at Work

• In our group discussion work, you will be asked to speculate and draw inferences from Haidt's discussion of the the nature of the brain.
• With Gilbert, we are asking about the deeper implications of psychological research related to self-knowledge and capacities for self-awareness.
• The last part of the Gilbert chapter involves a "meta-theoretical" discussion. Philosophical investigations often raise meta-theoretical problems (more so than STEM researchers, I think. Well maybe not M).

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. point: reason-based metaphors for consciousness don't explain our funny behavior with respect to our well-being. We seem more conflicted than a reason based model would suggest. Akrasia [3]
• 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. Rationality embodied in part in our capacity to suppress urges and integrate desires in a social world. esp. orbitofrontal cortex (p. 12). Our rationality may be less of a stand-alone faculty than something that is socially enacted. (again, embodied cognition is trending here, but also explains connection with frontal cortex.)
• Controlled vs. Automatic - priming research, 13. Larger background theory that rider evolved to serve the elephant. Important paper by Hugo Mercier & Dan Sperber, "Why do Humans Reason?" [4]

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

• Self-Control: Studied, famous in relation to failures of self control 18: Mischel and Impulse control [5] Poe and the "imp of the perverse"; 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. final 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."

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 claim being made here is about variation in people's aptitude for emotional self-description. This seems related to "emotional intelligence." (Discussion: Do people vary in this way? What, if any, intervention might alter one's capacity for emotional self-decription?)

• Objectivity issue summarized: 64.
• Addressing Measurement Issues

• physical correlates, multiple measures, avoid priming,
• Law of Large Numbers -- resolves some issues of subjectivity.
• "problem of subjective experience" -- relation between knowledge of patterns and individual. point, bottom of p. 69. "law of larger numbers" to the rescue.

SEP 22

Short Writing Assignment

• discuss rubric.
• turn in assignment on courses.alfino.org Q&R dropbox. NO names on or in file, but student id is ok.

Arglyle, "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. (Consider Cantril's study that found older people more satisfied with past and current lives (less with future).)
• 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.) Actually, declining aspirations, "environmental mastery", and autonomy increases might help explain this. Also, old people participate in their religion more. A boost.

• Education

• The educated are slightly happier (on PA, not reduced NA). 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 (could be seeing combined effect of both), but half of the effect is from job status. Greater effect for stratified societies. [Comment on being a professor in Italy, for example.]
• Note 356: social class predicts a big bundle of goods that also have measureable happiness effects: housing, relationships, and leisure. Also, diff classes DO different things.

• 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.)
• Bradburn pay raise studies in '69. Inglehart studies in 90's: people who say their $ situation improved also report high satisfaction.
• 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.
• Comparison groups and relative changes may be stronger than absolute income levels. (Note "pay fairness" increases income satisfaction. Gonzaga note.) Women's pay (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.
• Construct for marriage: strong social and emotional support, material help, companionship.

• Might be interesting to look at research comparing marriage to other types of social support systems.

• 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."
• Strong effects when unemployment is low; different ways of looking at employment effects (363).
• 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. Predicted low SWB, but has some positive effects. 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: single, old, sick benefit most from religious participation. US effect stronger.
• 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."

• Competencies -- Some other factors or attributes that might be causal. For young women, attractiveness. Height in men. health (with causation in both directions).

• Note policy point: This article is from early days in the policy discussion. But the basic point has been the same: Why do we put so much emphasis on increasing GDP is happiness is affected by so many other things?

Bishop, Michael. Intro and Chapter 1, "The Network Theory of Happiness"

• Introduction

• Theoretical problems in happiness studies from both philosophy and psychology.

• Inclusive approach -- methodological assumption that there is a convergence of constructs.

• Philosophers' problem: interminable discussion of whether the best theory of happiness is hedonism, Aristotelianism, or Informed Desire Theory. Somewhat arogant dismissal, by some philosophers, of empirical evidence.

• Positive Psychologists' problem: Model of happiness seems ungrounded and maybe culturally specific. Big cheery, optimistic American smiles.....

• Chapter 1

• Basic claims of the theory.

• Happiness about being in a complex mutually supporting and reinforcing causal network. Virtuous rather than vicious cycles.

SEP 27

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. Measurement Issues

• Wealth is clustered with other factors that predict H, such as rights, equality, fulfillment of needs, and individualism.
• Transnational similarities (p. 435, in all nations most people are happy) might reflect some tendency to for judgements to be group-relative.
• General validity concerns about self reports are offset by research using multiple measures.
• Example of Russian / US student comparison, 437, west/east berliners -- memory bias effects?

• 2. Are nations meaningful units of analysis? Nationality predicts SWB in general and in sub groups (gender/age).

• 3. Scale structure invariance -- non-technical version: what if the terms used in happiness surveys have different "weights" or relationships with each other and with happiness? Some evidence of scale invariance. (Note that a validated construct, such as LS/PA+NA, might be the basis for showing scale invariance.

• 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 (list at 439). These factors have effects on both SWB and income that have not been isolated. (at 441: real ambiguity about causal paths in this analysis: is it wealth or the correlates of wealth that are causal for happiness.

• Some details: .69 correlate between purchasing power and LS-SWB, lower, but sig. correlations with affect.

• 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 successor research that I'm aware of. 1999 vs. 2009). Individualism is linked with wealth, so hard to separate effects. Note specific differences in valuation between individualist vs. collectivist culture. (442)

• Some non-correlates: homogeneity, population density.

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.

? ?

Bishop, Michael. Chapter 2 The Inclusive Approach to SWB

• methodological point. (Really, this whole chapter is an argument about methodology.)
• inclusive approach: assumes well-being is real and being described by multiple perspectives, including ordinary intuition. SWB is a real object of intuition. We should be modest about accuracy of self-accounts (like talk about water). Science matters.
• Traditional approaches -- "over optimism" -- too much faith in primacy of intuitions or philosophical accounts. Descriptive Adequacy condition too strong. When we assent to the claims on p. 22-23, we are on solid ground, but we're talkiing about the "nature" of Happiness, not giving an explanatory construct.

• Philosophy first -- discussion of nature of H must precede empirical study.
• Note 27: one source of evidence against the Traditional approach is inter-cultural and transnational study of H. Also, philosophers disagree about the so-called bona fide intuitions. So the game is up. The inclusive approach wins.

SEP 29

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.

• Just because it's easier for us to imagine that a certain kind of future will bring happiness, and what we imagine might even be in line with objective research, it doesn't follow that other futures won't.

• 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.

Haybron, Chapter 3, "Life Satisfaction"

• Should we say that Bickham was both satisfied with his life and happy? Problem: "You can judge your life satisfying no matter how you feel." You can judge yourself satisfied with a life that is not going well.
• Was Wittgenstein's "wonderful" life plausibly happy or satisfying?
• LS defined at p. 35: "To be satisfied with your life is to regard it as going well enough by your standards."
• Problems with LS judgements:

• they are global judgements of complex sets of events over time.
• it sounds like a simple judgement of the relationship between expectation and outcome (like ordering a steak), but it isn't, really, now is it?
• determining "well enough" is pretty subjective (variable).
• most people seem to be able to assert satisfaction with their lives indendently of whether they were "choiceworthy"

• Criticisms

Small Group Exercise

• Consider the examples of Fischer, Eastman, Bickham, and Wittgenstein, along with Gilbert's point about idealism. Then try to answer this question: What is the relationship between life satisfaction and happiness?

OCT 4

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 Freedom - Ench #1

Pneuma, Psyche, and Hegimonikon: Importance of Hegemonikon

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

Late Stoicism: Epictetus

Key Idea: To realize our rational nature (and the freedom, joy and, really, connection to the divine, 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. "confine your aversions"
• "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. "confine your attractions"
• Something like mindfulness, #4
• Limits of pride. Catching the mind exaggerating.
• Desire: #15,
• Comportment and advice in later points of the enchiridion.

• alignment: 8
• awareness of change: 11
• observing asymmetries: 26
• importance of commitment
• note specific advice in 33, 34, 35. "measure" in 39, read 41. 43

Small Group Prompt

• Revisit the most difficult parts of stoic moral psychology. For example, consider Stoic teaching on attachment to loved ones. What is the best way to make a criticism of Stoic teaching in this area. How might a stoic defend him/herself? Is there a plausible or insightful psychology behind Stoicism?

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 6

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

• Key Idea: Pleasure is the Good ("Alpha and Omega of a happy life." - Letter)

• Accepts reality of gods, but thinks it's human error to think that the gods bestow blessings and punishments. They're not thinking about you.
• natural desires vs. groundless desires, of the natural, some necessary some only natural. Of the necessary, some for happiness, curing disease, surviving. Direct yourself toward satisfying the natural necessary desires.

• "For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid to rest" (The desire for pleasure is also a kind of pain.)

• "They have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it."

• "Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet." "When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean . . . "

• 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.

• 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

• Consider Epicurus' theory of desire and pleasure as a solution to a "hedonic optimization" problem. Epicurus thinks pleasure optimizes at the cessation of pain and desire, but we have raised other optimization principles. Consider these and the general prospects for a sophisticated hedonism to contribute to your theory of happiness.

Article on Epicurus' concept of pleasure Epicurus_on_Pleasure_and_the_Complete_Life

OCT 11

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: prevention, diminish effect, reverse adaptation.

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

• Contemplation of our own death 70: stimulus to robust hedonism or thoughtful appreciation?

• Sources of evidence for possibility of "?Stoic Joy": children (whose experience is too new to have adapted deeply), people who survive disasters (catastrophe-induced transformation). Negative visualization doesn't have the drawbacks of catastrophe induced transformation.

• 77: connects neg. vis. to giving thanks: example of saying grace. (Note that Fortune and God play similar roles here.)

• 79: "the asymmetry" (found in stoic, epicurean, and buddhist thought) -- use the asymmetry in your response to your own vs. others' loss as a way of altering your response to your own loss.

• Objections: recall that neg. vis. is not a persistent meditation. 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, some things aren't.

• Internal strategy: changing ourselves. Desire not to be frustrated by future desires. [Problem: Stoicism seems to counsel a withdrawl or low goal setting.]
• Irvine's critique of dichotomy: ambiguity -- total or partial control. [Note on philosophical method.]
• 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? Small group question: Does the trichotomy of control and internal goal setting solve the problem?

OCT 13

Some General Points on Yoga

• samadhi - the goal of the spiritual practice of yoga; ecstasy, union; a mystical experience of enlightenment. mention connection to wisdom.

• 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.

• Yoga 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 Bhagavad 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). (mention Antigone)

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."

• basic analysis found in the "paradoxical nature of memory and thought itself" -- Our minds get us into trouble.
• solitude and turning away from the world are only stages and strategies. not a renunciation philosophy.
• Yoga is, fundamentally, an individual spiritual program. q. p 4 (ties in with meaning of "yoga" - spiritual yoke; discipline, but also integration of forces, like a yoke.

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

• The Three Gunas (13): Lucidity (sattva), Passion (rajas), and inertia (tamas). Part of the problem of existence is that the faculties of understanding are material. Interesting difference from Western association of Reason with the Divine and Transcendent.

• The psychology of Patanjali's yoga: follow Miller's discussion of thought process (17) (citta), "tyranny of uncontrollable thought," reducing thought "traces" or "seeds". goal to make thought "invulnerable" to the chaos of mental and physical stimuli. to do that, we need to attend to how the mind produces desire, anger and delusion.

• 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). q. p. 19: Ignorance...

• 1st Small group discussion activity:

• Look for and share experiences you have had that might be examples of the kind of untanglement and amplification of thought and emotion that Patanjali was thinking about when he suggested we pursue "seedless" thought. In what circumstances do you find that thought "feeds on itself" or becomes persistent. How does social psychology and phenomena such as gossip or drama create such situations?

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 of ??the 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)

• Note that the first two have to do with identity and the last three with desire. Maybe there's a connection between how I'm thinking about myself (as a self) and my ability to manage desire?

• 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 attitudes Patanjali recommends developing:

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

• Notes on Brahmivihara:

• Note Fahri's more "social" focus. The first three Brahmavihara take us outside of ourselves.
• Compassion might involve the obvious, but also note leaving people "invisible" - reaching out. also "loving-kindness" meditation.
• 3: cultivating a habit of spontaneous appreciate, noticing (and working on) any jealousy effects.
• 4: note the "costs" of having an enemy. overcoming the need to fix situations.

Additional Quote on Goal of Yoga

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

• 2nd small group discussion question

• Does making yourself calm and lucid in the way that yogics advocate entail being less active in your life? What sorts of activity

Introduction to Yoga Practicum

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

OCT 18

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
Wisdom (Sanskrit: prajñā, Pāli: paññā)	1. Right view
	2. Right intention
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 and attachments. "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. The thought of rebirth is a reminder of the impermanence we wish to escape.) Includes questioning since of purpose in face of indifferent universe (or lack of evidence thereof).

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)

• Rough sequence: ignorance of the reality of self, volitions, consciousness, sentience, sense organs, sensory stimulation, feeling, desire, appropriation, becoming, birth (rebirth), aging and death.

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 - enlightenment is marked by the cessation of new karma.

• 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 relinquishment of desire. Possible solution: to desire the end of suffering.

• Psychologically, liberation might understood today as positive identity change -- The desire to be liberated might less a desire to get something for your current self as to become another self, one that acts effectively in the world without ego attachment.

• Problem following the consequences of "non-self": Buddhist maxim: "Act always as if the future of the 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." Mindfulness presumes a moral orientation on the world.

• Basic goals of meditation: cultivation of awareness and "control" of sense and feeling. (Control: quieting, not being at the mercy of psychological processes and processes of desire.) How does meditation do that? notes 44-

• Four foundations of mindfulness, five aggregates of attachment, six bases of sense, seven factors of enlightenment, four noble truths (51),

• Some Points:

• Mindfulness not disconnection from environment, but intense connection, especially if one can control the mental processes that interrupt one's full experience.
• Note use of lists and repetition. inventories.
• Note "joy and happiness born of detachment" 57

Introduction to self-guided mindfulness meditation

• Read wiki page: Meditation Exercises

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

• Initial challenges

• Time, Place, Seating and Environment
• Maintaining comfortable alertness
• Working with mental content: problem of thought suppression. "Try not to think of a white bear."
• Techniques for dissipating mental content: visualizations, returning to breath, optical effects. Generally focus on techniques that avoid thought suppression, but disengage gently from the thought or memory.

• Weekly goals.

• Early weeks: Overcoming obstacles to meditation --> Experiencing some "meditation effect"
• Later weeks: 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.
• Students have sometimes timed meditations to particular events (stressful or fun) to try to notice effects.

OCT 20

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

• Note connection to Gilbert: because we can "next" (imagine futures and alternate presents, design) we are open to these kinds of suffering. Quite a bargain.

• Sources of Suffering -- self-centeredness, our unhappiness is caused, 4 Noble Truths.

• A Buddhist tetra pharmakos: Rcognize suffering, Eliminate its source, End it, By Practicing the Path.
• Buddhist story of woman distraught over loss, sent by Buddha to gather dirt from all houses without loss.
• Note 67: parallel story as in stoicism.
• brings in a dash of attachment theory 69-71.

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

• Some themes of a modern (scientifically oriented) Buddhist explication of the 4 Noble Truths:

• Causal attitude toward suffering at the psychological more than metaphysical level. 65, 67; use of neurology to understand pain and related phen. 73
• Positive aspects of suffering 71 -- suffering can be productive for spiritual dev.
• Mental imagery in ancient and modern Buddhist practice; use of meditation in management of tendencies of ego. (Note to meditators. Use visualization to re-center and avoid the dynamics of conscious thought suppression.)
• Use in stimulating positive and prosocial emotions: compassion, empathy. (anecdotal story)

• Note the emphasis on conscious use of methods that get at pre-conscious expression of emotion. The emotions are the "scene" for progress, not just a matter of rational control of emotions. more of a training model.

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

• Ego as a fear reaction to the world. reread 80. (Is it? Is this too strong? or wrong? note subclaim 83, note dispositions) 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. This is the "fundamental attribution error" [6]
• Problem: How can I live without an ego? R's response: true self-confidence is ego-less.

• Cites Paul Ekman's studies of emotionally exceptional people. ego-less and joyful

• psychopaths, on the other hand, have huge egos.

• The Deceptive Ego: 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? Between a past and future that don't exist? 90: self a name we give to a continuum. A concept that refers to a dynamic process.
• Attitude toward ultimate reality of things. 93

Small Group Discussion

• To what extent do you share Ricard's analysis of the effects of egocentricity on happiness? What does it mean to be "egoless"? Would this be bad advice to someone starting a career, for example?

• Review Ricard's critique of the self. To what extent do we reify the self? Does this place a role in unhappiness and suffering?

OCT 25

Random Food Discovery and Food News

• This is from 2015 and while very much related to happiness, rather tangential in connection with today's readings.

• Along the way, Spence has found that a strawberry-flavored mousse tastes ten per cent sweeter when served from a white container rather than a black one; that coffee tastes nearly twice as intense but only two-thirds as sweet when it is drunk from a white mug rather than a clear glass one; that adding two and a half ounces to the weight of a plastic yogurt container makes the yogurt seem about twenty-five per cent more filling, and that bittersweet toffee tastes ten per cent more bitter if it is eaten while you’re listening to low-pitched music. This year alone, Spence has submitted papers showing that a cookie seems harder and crunchier when served from a surface that has been sandpapered to a rough finish, and that Colombian and British shoppers are twice as willing to choose a juice whose label features a concave, smile-like line rather than a convex, frown-like one. (From an article in this week's Food Issue of NYer.)

• Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat

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. From satisfying "civic courtesy" to Life as a gift.
• Definitions: "positive recognition of benefits received". "undeserved merit" Note that it is dependent upon the recognition of the benefit. 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." Gratitude enacts/promotes reciprocal altruism. "places us" in social hierarchy defined by benefactor/beneficiary.

• Correlates of gratitude: greater LS, hope, less depression, anxiety, envy, prosociality, empathy, forgivingness, less focused on material goods, more spiritual and religious.

• Core Emmons and McCullough gratitude research. Three studies: Gratitude Journals with pre/post testing. gratitutde, hassles, and events conditions, 1. 1xwk 10 weeks, 2. daily 3wks, 3. in adults with neumuscular disease. results: higher LS, optimism, lower health complaints, more excercise. results held up 6 months later. anecdote.

• Some evidence in kids.

• Benefits:

• 1. strengthen social relationships
• 2. counters NA and depression (increases positive memory bias -- a form of positive illusion!)
• 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 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." 485 (Note again, a potential connection to the discussion of egoism.)

• 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.

Bryant, Chapter 8: Enhancing Savoring

• Theoretical Issues:

• How much can savoring do given set point theory? (Lykken 2000 - "trying to be happier...") "range"
• Similar efforts: Fordyce's happiness intervention study: savoring a common feature
• Savoring in a construct relationship with Coping

• Factors Enhancing both Coping and Savoring:

• Social Support (sharing feelings with others) -- note imp. of having people with whom to share good news. being such a person, as well. building elements of happy community.
• Writing about life experiences, (gratitude journals would be a positive example, or log)
• Downward hedonic contrast (neg. visualization, but also foregrounding and isolating the positive experience. Recovering a sense that the ordinary is a treat.) (odd effect of volunteering working in absolutely poor countries) ---
• Humor, - Can you cultivate a sense of humor about things? Can you make yourself laugh? (Laughter clubs)
• Spirituality & Religion --
• Awareness of Fleetingness of Experience -- note connection with buddhism. Could heightening our awareness of the fleetingness of life enhance our savoring of it?

• Essential Pre-conditions for Savoring

• Freedom from Social and Esteem Concerns: explicated largely in terms of mindfulness... (more advice here, 206) (cynical caveat: Unless that's what you're savoring!)?
• Present Focus: goes back to what might seem odd about mindfulness as preparatory to savoring.
• non-judgmental orietnation
• openness to seeing something new or as if for the first time.
• Attentional Focus: avoid multi-tasking, imagine it's the last time (it usually is -- consider the perfect day. Consider today as having a kind of perfection. Can one extend the judgement to a cloudy day? ), attention to uniqueness of experience aids savoring.

• Exercises

• Vacation in Daily Life -- (in food studies, "slow culture" (from the slow food movement).
• Life Review -- "chaining"
• Camera Exercise

Additional Issues:

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

OCT 27

Bishop, Michael. The Good Life. Chapter 3, "Positive Causal Networks and the Network Theory of Well-Being," p. 35-58

• Network theory of well-being: well-being is a function of the strength of PCN and PCN fragments.

• Cites important 2005 article by Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener on study of positive feedback look between happiness nd success. Terms for this: upward spiral, postive feedback loop, virtuous circle (vs. vicious),

• Bishop broadens this insight to include: "thought-action repertoires" and positive affect generally.

• broaden and build hypothesis: p. 37
• interesting counter thought to the idea that positive emotions are evolutionarily dangerous. Bishop suggests they might be adaptive.

• It seems that Bishop is posing a pretty novel kind of theory of well-being. Instead of describing and "end state" of what happiness is or must be, as most of our philosophers and theorists have done, he wants us to think about the "repertoires and resources" that build robust personal networks sustaining both happiness and success.

• Example: The way states of order in your life deteriorate under the pressure of midterms....

• Quick group discussion: Does the concept of PCNs make intuitive sense as a way of accounting for happiness? Can you give further examples?

• More technical account:

• PCNs include feelings, emotions, attitudes, behaviors, traits, and accomplishments.
• "homeostatic clusters" p. 40
• positive states are those with hedonic tone ("surplus pleasure") and a kind of "value fit" (personal or cutural). Could include flow.
• Networks have "causal drivers" - sensitivity to certain variables. (Similar to what other theorists call your personal strengths. ex. p. 43). These are somewhat subjective.

• Strengthening your PCN

• change intensity of states
• change in size/complexity of your network

• roustness curves tells you about maximums for specific resources. kind of like golden mean.

• The Nun Study

NOV 1

Philosophical Method: Multiples frames for studying happiness

• This is a good moment to notice how many distinct frames of reference we have going now for thinking about happiness: ::*philosophical traditions, comparative philosophy

• religion, comparative religion
• historical development of cultural ideas of happiness, with drivers such as wealth and the growth of knowledge
• cross cultural comparison of meaning and levels of happiness, and of course
• individual psychological constructs (Hs / Hl; PA/NA)

• Important to see how these frames of reference each have critical theoretical questions, but also practical questions associated with them. (give examples)

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

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

• Contrast with Renaissance Humanism:

• studia humanitis -- 141
• Pico: 1463. Oration on Dignity of Man. key ideas: protean character of man. read quote on 144. 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 -- represents after life as pleasurable; connecting epicureanism to a Christian life. Note biographical detail. Valla also unmasks claims about Dionysius the Areopagite from Acts, with it, undermining authority of mystical otherworldly current of thought.

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

• Felicitas
• Smiles -- also, Mona Lisa, early 1500's
• Melancholy as disease: expressed in theory of humours;
• Thomas More and the concept of "utopia" - new idea. "eu" from "eudaimonia" (flourishing, happiness for Aristotle); in his good Christians devote themselves also to enjoyment of this world.

• Reformation

• Martin Luther and happiness: 1534 letter, ok to be happy, salvation by faith,
• Calvin
• English Civil War -- opens up wide range of alternative views p. 175-176.
• Locke, late 17th century. tabula rasa, nb. 180. Mind is impressed upon by experience and nature. Has its own imperatives. Note what is left out: original sin. 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. Letter on Toleration very important for construction of modern model of self. Note context of religious wars. [European Wars of Religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion]
• Locke also important to history of happiness for political thought, which supports democratic republicanism over monarchy -- note trending models of happiness toward control of one's life at personal and political levels. Note connection at p. 182. "pursuit of happiness"
• Hobbes: we are governed by desire continuously, so happiness must be the continual satisfaction of aims and desires. disparages tranquility or katastematic pleasures.
• nice summary at par bot 185 - 186

Discussion of the period

1. Does knowing this history help inform our conception of the modern "european" pursuit of happiness?

2. Does knowing this history is any way undermine our sense of the naturalness of the modern pursuit of happiness?

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? story of Joe.
• Focus on how we spend our time and the state of mind/affect we experience from diff. activities in daily life: production, maintenance, leisure. q. p. 8
• Note cultural and historical differences in the way we spend time and think about the value of productive time. C's ideas here are once again in fashion with "slow culture" writing. add in note about "attentional economy" seems suspicious of TV.
• 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. Two big points: Happiness is positive emotion that might be driven by behavior. And, view of "psychic entropy."
• 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. Intentions and goals inform and order our psychic energy. Most prefer intrinsic motivation, next extrinsic, finally least productive of positive affect is no goal state. Interesting point about self-esteem being independent of accomplishment -- possibly a problem of goal setting. Notice throughout, p. 22 for example, robust endorsement of human potential. Assumption: We could be alot happier (if we follow the implications of this theory).
• Note distinction between Eastern philosophical suspicion of origin of goals and "superficial reading" that suggests it counsels renunciation of goals. (recall discussion of enlightenment and fourth brahmavirhara.)
• three contents of consciousness: emotions, intentions, and thoughts. their integration allows for flow.
• FLOW, p. 29ff. (What a quiet mind is getting ready for.)

• effortless action, being in the zone, altered time consciousness.
• clear set of goals, focusing attention.
• often at limits of skill and challenge level.
• absorption in task, dynamic feedback.
• "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." [Theoretical note: choice of "rather than happiness". Also could be "causes LS" or savoring model.] Think about place of flow in hierarchy of daily goals. Intensity of flow varies widely from extreme to mundane activity. Note related states.
• Data on frequency of flow experiences, p. 33.

• Small Group prompt: Report experiences of flow. What are the limits to what can count as a flow experience? 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. review. Where are opportunities for +affect at work, in maint. activities, and leisure.
• Note comments on solitude, 41-42. hypothesis: interaction makes us happy because it structures psychic energy by external demands.
• 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 and by critical assessment of one's assumptions about how different activities are supposed to make one feel.

NOV 22

• Thanksgiving Week: Optional Meeting Time