Study Questions for Happiness Summer 2007

May 21

Define and distinquish "state happiness" and "life happiness".

This is my answer for this question - Alfino

"State Happiness" can be described as someone's current happiness level on a scale from 1 to 8.

"Life Happiness" can be described as someone's overall happiness level on a scale from 1 to 8 throughout their lifetime. - Broc

When taking a look at “state happiness” from the discussion in class we looked at it on a scale ranging from zero to eight. It refers to the amount of happiness you are feeling at a particular moment in time rather than looking at happiness throughout a longer period of time which is referred to as “life happiness”. “Life happiness deals with long term accomplishments, or amount of or lack of happiness you feel based on your entire experience throughout your life.- Ellen C.

Many philosophers have different theories and ideas in how to achieve happiness. Since this is the case, we basically try to derive our own theory in our subjective meaning of achieving our own happiness in our lives. There are two main theories in which much debate has been held, many of these theories are based on either “state happiness” or “life happiness.” State happiness is when one can base their state of being (or happiness) from their current conditions. These states can be a wide arrangement of times from an exact moment, a day, a week, a month, or even a year. This theory is basically basing ones level of happiness on their “states” of being throughout their life. Most of the time people exert energy and time to achieve these states because they are constantly doing whatever they can in order to be happy in the moment. One question I thought of when looking at this idea is that since one is trying to be happy all of the time or does whatever will make them happy in their state of being, wouldn’t these people be in a sense a selfish only looking out for their own interest? I also thought; Aren’t these people missing out on the meaning of life in that they are not experiencing the things that come along in life that are normal such as going through trials, grieving, etc. I feel that these parts of the normal human life are essential in finding true happiness. In the scheme of things we are all ultimately trying to achieve happiness but sometimes those moments of hardship are beautiful because it shows all the different emotions people go through. “Life happiness” on the other hand, is when one is basing their happiness on a long term basis, not focusing on the now so much, but instead looking over their life so far in saying ‘hey, I have had it pretty good’ or ‘hey, I have had it pretty bad.’ I feel this theory is much more worthy of basing ones happiness on because here one is looking at a bigger picture, allowing for a look outside the box of ‘right now,’ this is much more rich in thinking and allows for a better perspective on the true meaning of your feelings, opinions, happiness, etc. A little example of this in my own life (and in others I presume) is when I say in the moment that I hate something just because something bad happened at the time where it involved that thing, but really when I take a step back and look at my other experiences with that I realize that I really don’t hate this thing. For example, if someone were to trip on the sidewalk, one might say in the moment “I hate sidewalks” but once they remove themselves from the situation at take a look at their life situation with sidewalks they may say “I don’t really hate sidewalks, they have made my life easier many a times before.” This example may be a silly way to look at the whole meaning of happiness in ones life but I feel that taking something simple like this explains how the idea of “life happiness” may be a better tool to use in measuring ones happiness than “state happiness.” -Jessica Joyce

State happiness is the amount of happiness or misery that is felt in a particular moment or condition. We can rank how we are feeling at any time on a scale, or we can give a word to describe how we are feeling at that particular moment. Life happiness is the amount of happiness or misery that we feel after judging our entire life?s experience. Long term accomplishments and life changing events typically alter our life happiness, whereas trivial factors that come into our life affect our state happiness. - Jack H.

What are some of the puzzles about the relationship between state and life happiness?

Some people theorize that Life Happiness is the same as the sum, or average, of all of the State Happiness' in someone's life, but contemporary thought dictates that this is not necessarily the case; someone could have a high average of State Happiness throughout their life but have a lower Life Happiness and vice versa. - Broc

One possible way of looking at a person’s “state happiness” would be to total up every moment that happiness has been felt and then divide by the number of moments to get the “life happiness”. To me this is not a true accounting of a person’s “life happiness” because one might have a couple of horrible things take place in their life and still have a “life happiness” that exceeds that of a person who has had a large number of “state happiness” events take place. Another way of looking at “life happiness” is to look at a person’s life and judge whether it had a high “life happiness” or a low one, but the judgment is passed after the person’s death. - Ellen C.

There are many puzzles that philosophers have tried to answer about the relationship of state happiness and life happiness. The idea of whether or not the sum of all our state happiness is our life happiness, has been a highly discussable topic. I would have to say that our life happiness is not a sum of all our state happiness, because there are many experiences that stand out and alter our lives, and many experiences that are forgotten about the next day. Some people may have had many bad experiences in their life and worked through them to achieve great life happiness, whereas others may have had many joyful experiences and lived a crummy life. - Jack H.

May 22

How do the various literatures of economics, psychology, and philosophy contribute to the contemporary interest in happiness?

Philosophy Part: When looking at the philosophical literature in regards to Buddhism we learned that we are living in a state of suffering and misery trying to find contentment and happiness within our day to day life. This opposes the outlook on happiness that we see in Christianity because we are trying to reach happiness while we are still living instead of in the afterlife. When looking at Daoism we see that we have fortune and misfortune within our lives and we must realize there is a balance and relationship between the two states. Once we experience fortune we experience misfortune through a cyclical process. Confucianism is the fact that we have an understanding of our role within a social hierachy. It acknowledges our abilities allows us to succeed in certain areas but also fail in others. Some find this idea difficult to take in because it creates limitations for our aspirations. - Ellen C.

The various literatures of economics, psychology, and philosophy contribute to the contemporary interest in happiness. In the economics reading we learned that money does not always buy us happiness. There is no such thing as linear happiness, especially with money, because we always return to a normal state of happiness. We learned that after a certain income, everybody is equally happy and money is no longer a staple part of our feelings, but really an illusion of something that will make us happier. In the psychology reading positive psychology meant that we need to enhance our psychological well being starting from a normal state up. If we cut out depression and misery we can focus on the real idea of a happy state. Cognitive psychology is the idea that human beings have a cognitive bias, meaning that we think against what a rational being would do. We remember feeling the way we predicted we would feel, not the way we felt at that time. We have a biased view of the past. This means that we think that we know what will make us happy, but our prediction of the future is very unreliable. An event that appears to be terrible at first, could change our lives for the better. An event that we are really regretting to attend, could turn out alright, but we will always remember the stress that built up before that moment, because of our cognitive bias. In the philosophical readings about Buddhism, we learned that life is suffering and we must liberate ourselves from this suffering and attempt to reach of state of nirvana while we are still living. Christianity on the other hand, is the view that we are suffering while we are living, but we can not reach a state of happiness until we reach the afterlife. Life is just preparation for afterlife. Daoism is the idea that there is a balance between fortune and misfortune. This describes these states through the cycle of fu and huo. Since these two feelings are balanced, we are never in a perpetual state. When something appears to be bad, we do not really know the outcome of the situation. There is no way of knowing, because things will balance out, according to this theory. This theory mirrors the way reality works, in an ebb and flow of pleasure and pain. The philosophy of Confucianism is the understanding that we have a role in a social hierarchy. We must understand our place before we try to reach our aspirations. We have to understand that our abilities will only get us so far, and that we will eventually reach our limitations. If we recognize our limitations, then we are no longer setting ourselves up for disappointment. I do not particularly like the concept of Confucianism, because I like to believe that I can always make myself better, but I understand the poit that Confucious is trying to make. - Jack H.

How does money and happiness correlate in 20th century US society? Why does the relationship between money and happiness pose a challenge to standard economic theory?

When looking at the relationship between money and happiness during the 20th century in society in the United States we see that as money within a family or person’s life increases happiness increases, but once it hits a certain point within the increase money stops causing happiness within that person’s life and happiness ends up leveling out. After that point when happiness levels out, it seems that within society it does not matter how much more money that person or family has, the money does not make happiness within their life increase. The money that once made them happy or content does not have the same effect within their lives and they have to find another source of happiness within their life before their levels of happiness will increase again. Based on economists’ views, happiness and money should continue along the scale increasing at the same rate from start to finish, but instead they “decouple” or separate and everyone retains the same happiness. - Ellen C.

Throughout my economic classes thus far, it has been assumed as fact that people (consumers), achieve more happiness with the more they have, showing a linear relationship. Throughout our class discussion it has been shown otherwise in that once someone reaches a certain level of economic growth or income, their happiness level moderates and does not keep a linear relationship with the amount of money they have and their state of happiness, thus disproving the underlying economic theory in which most economists base their work off of. I have mixed feelings about this idea. I feel that money cannot buy you ultimate happiness but it certainly helps. I would have to agree with the findings of people not being happier with the more money they have past a certain point. I feel this way because so many bad things come along with having lots of wealth. Some things that could quite possibly result in unhappiness for someone could be the issue of power. Money in this world means power and people always are wanting power. It also may spur jealousy making others resent you, or one may live a life full of mistrust or true/deep meaning of relationships. These are only a few ways in which money cannot buy you happiness past a certain level. -Jessica Joyce