THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
REFLECTION:
ARTICLE ON THE POSTIVE PSYCHOLOGY OF HAPPINESS
WITH RESPECT TO THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
By
Nathan D. March
Dr. R.F. Hassing
PHIL 309 Theories of Ethics
07 April 2003
Marilyn Elias’ December 9th, 2002 USA Today article, “What makes people happy Psychologists now know,” presents the findings of the positive psychology movement with respect to the scientific study of happiness. Happiness has a definable content, and Elias’ psychological account emphasizes genetics, virtue, emotion and engaging activities. Her account, unlike Aristotle’s more comprehensive and systematic treatment, seems to reduce happiness to the purely emotional effect of good feeling or life satisfaction resulting from an optimistic temperament.
The focus of the positive psychologists is the question of why some people are happy and others not. Elias points out that, “the happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don’t care about keeping up with the Joneses next door, loose themselves in daily activities and most important, forgive easily.” She cites the psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman as defining a “set point”, a genetic cheerful proclivity, which limits an individual’s satisfaction or displeasure. She rejects the idea that objective health measures relate to happiness noting the fact that healthy people are often unhappy while unhealthy people sometimes are content. Yet, she suggests, “good feelings aren’t ‘all in the head,’” and activities are an essential component of a happy life. Happy people engage themselves in absorbing activities that give them the opportunity to do things they do well and “forget themselves.”
In comparison, Aristotle’s investigation is teleological; he presupposes an end prior to choice. He affirms the essential goodness of nature (1099b20) and begins, not with the difference between happy and unhappy people, but with the common aim or goal of human life (1094a). He seeks the end of all human action, the ultimate final good, that which is chosen as an end in and of itself and not as a means to something else. This final end he defines as happiness. Happiness consists in the distinctly human function (1097a25-1097b25) of “activity of the soul in conformity with a rational principle” (1098a7). He acknowledges that, “there are some external goods the absence of which spoils supreme happiness, e.g., good birth, good children, and beauty,” and that “many actions can only be performed with the help of instruments, as it were: friends, wealth, and political power” (1099a31-1099b3).
However he denies any link between good fortune and happiness or virtue (1099b7). He admits that, “fortune brings many things to pass, some great and some small” (1100b25) but that “the happy man will have the attribute of permanence” (1100b19). For Aristotle, happiness is not a false optimism that “rationalizes the bad things” or hopes “in future events.” One does not disengage the mind by entering into the “flow” of absorbing activities. Virtue does not consist merely in writing about what one is grateful for, or having “more fun” with “less stuff.” For Aristotle, happiness, as the activity of the soul, involves choice determined by reason (1106b36). He recognizes that choice in human action “is no doubt difficult,” (1109b13) because the decision of a mean rests with our moral perception (1109b23).
Unlike Elias, Aristotle does not claim “people aren’t very good at predicting what makes them happy.” People seek what appears good to them (1113a21). But for many the good is only apparent; anything that strikes his or her fancy. The problem of the apparent good is one of deliberation, which is dependant on disposition or character. In his account people are responsible for their moral disposition since it is shaped by the moral choices they make over their lifetime (1114b23-24).