Two Philosophical Problems in the Study of Happiness

In this paper two philosophical issues are discussed that hold special interest for empirical researchers studying happiness. The first issue concerns the question of how the psychological notion(s) of happiness invoked in empirical research relates to those traditionally employed by philosophers. The second concerns the question of how we ought to conceive of happiness, understood as a purely psychological phenomenon. With respect to the first, I argue that 'happiness', as used in the philosophical literature, has three importantly different senses that are often confused. Empirical research on happiness concerns only one of these senses, and serious misunderstandings about the significance of empirical results can arise from such confusion. I then argue that the second question is indeed philosophical and that, in order to understand the nature of (what I call) psychological happiness, we need first to determine what a theory of happiness is supposed to do: what are our theoretical and practical interests in the notion of happiness? I sketch an example of how such an inquiry might proceed, and argue that this approach can shed more light on the nature and significance of happiness (and related mental states) than traditional philosophical methods.     

On Being Happy or Unhappy1

The psychological condition of being happy is best understood as a matter of a person's emotional condition. I elucidate the notion of an emotional condition by introducing two distinctions concerning affect, and argue that this “emotional state” view is probably superior on intuitive and substantive grounds to theories that identify happiness with pleasure or life satisfaction. Life satisfaction views, for example, appear to have deflationary consequences for happiness’ value. This would make happiness an unpromising candidate for the central element in a theory of well‐being, as it is in L. W. Sumner's work. Yet on an emotional state conception, happiness may prove to be a key constituent of well‐being. the emotional state view also makes happiness less vulnerable to common doubts about the importance of happiness, and indicates that mood states are more important for well‐being than is generally recognized.

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Happiness, Income, and Beyond

This commentary to Carol Graham’s paper deals with the nature of the relationship between income and happiness. Carol Graham focuses her contribution on what I call the positive-coefficient hypothesis in economic theory; which states that, on average, well-being rises with income. The hypothesis was first questioned by Richard Easterlin’s pioneering work and it has captured a lot of attention from happiness researchers during the last decade. My contribution deals with a related hypothesis, which I call the close-relationship hypothesis in economic theory. The hypothesis states that a person’s income is a good predictor of his or her well-being. I show that this hypothesis is rejected by happiness research, and I discuss the implications of this rejection.     

What do we Want from a Theory of Happiness?

I defend a methodology for theorizing about happiness. I reject three methods: conceptual analysis; scientific naturalism; and the “pure normative adequacy” approach, where the best conception of happiness is the one that best fills a role in moral theory. The concept of happiness is a folk notion employed by laypersons who have various practical interests in the matter, and theories of happiness should respect this fact. I identify four such interests in broad terms and then argue for a set of desiderata that theories of happiness ought to satisfy. The theory of happiness falls within the province of ethics. It should, however, be viewed as autonomous and not merely secondary to moral theory.     

Paradoxes of happiness

To get happiness forget about it; then, with any luck, happiness will come as a by-product in pursuing meaningful activities and relationships. This adage is known as the paradox of happiness, but actually it contains a number of different paradoxes concerning aims, success, freedom, and attitudes. These paradoxes enhance our understanding of the complexity of happiness and its interaction with other values in good lives, that is, lives which are happy as well as morally decent, meaningful, and fulfilling. Yet, each paradox conveys a one-sided truth that needs to be balanced with others. Happiness, understood as subjective well-being, involves positively evaluating our lives and living with a sense of well-being. As such, it should not be confused with either pleasure or normative conceptions of “true” happiness.     

Happiness,Dispositions and the Self

I argue that happiness is an exclusively categorical mental state. Daniel Haybron’s inclusion of dispositions into his emotional state theory rests of a confusion of constituents of happiness in the narrow psychological sense with objects of prudential concern, to which obviously belong “mood propensities” and other dispositional states. I further argue that while it is probably correct to require of a constituent of happiness that it must in some sense be “deep” and belong to, or directly impact on, a persons’ self, the importance of depth may be overrated by the emotional state theory, which also ignores the possibility that mental states other than moods and emotions can be deep in the relevant sense.     

Happiness and Pleasure1

This paper argues against hedonistic theories of happiness. First, hedonism is too inclusive: many pleasures cannot plausibly be construed as constitutive of happiness. Second, any credible theory must count either attitudes of life satisfaction, affective states such as mood, or both as constituents of happiness; yet neither sort of state reduces to pleasure. Hedonism errs in its attempt to reduce happiness, which is at least partly dispositional, to purely episodic experiential states. the dispositionality of happiness also undermines weakened nonreductive forms of hedonism, as some happiness‐constitutive states are not pleasures in any sense. Moreover, these states can apparently fail to exhibit the usual hedonic properties; sadness, for instance, can sometimes be pleasant. Finally, the nonhedonistic accounts are adequate if not superior on grounds of practical and theoretical utility, quite apart from their superior conformity to the folk notion of happiness. “And does his philosophy make you happy?” “I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure.” Oscar Wilde, the Picture of Dorian Gray (p. 209)     

Hybrid Speech Acts: A Theory of Normative Thought and Language That ‘Has It Both Ways’

In this essay, I propose a novel hybrid metanormative theory. According to this theory, speakers making normative claims express both cognitive and motivational attitudes in virtue of the constitutive norms of the particular speech acts they perform. This view has four principal virtues: (1) it is consistent with traditional semantic theories, (2) it supports a form of motivational judgment internalism that does justice to externalist intuitions, (3) it illuminates the connection between normative language and normative thought, and (4) it explains how speakers can express different conative states when speaking in different normative domains. In the first section, I discuss the theories of Stephen Finlay and David Copp. I show that they each come very close to having it both ways but ultimately fail. Understanding the shortcomings of these views is instrumental to a clear presentation of my own Hybrid Speech Act theory in section two. In the final section, I demonstrate how my view achieves its four advantages.     

Norms and Negation: A Problem for Gibbard's Logic

All expressivist theories, including Gibbard's norm-expressivism, require a solution to the 'Frege–Geach problem', or 'embedding problem'. This is the problem of accounting for the fact that normative predicates can enter into indefinitely many complex contexts without changing their meanings. I argue that Gibbard's well known solution fails. The chief difficulty is with negated contexts, specifically the distinction between refusing to accept a normative judgement and accepting its negation. Gibbard overlooks this distinction, and, more generally, overlooks the fact that norm-expressivists cannot explain what is meant by ruling out the content of a normative state, as opposed to ruling out its possession. I show this to have fundamental repercussions, and I cast serious doubt on the viability of expressivist theories of this type.     

Valuing Happiness is Not a Good Way of Pursuing Happiness,but Prioritizing Positivity is: A Replication Study

Numerous studies confirm the merits of positive psychology. However, an emerging literature brings nuances, with one particular question concerning the impact of pursuing happiness: is this always positive? Some data suggest that an excessive level of valuing happiness may partly diminish the happiness felt, but that prioritizing positivity may increase subjective well-being. The aim of the present study was to replicate these findings. Participants (N = 683, 75% female) completed the prioritizing positivity scale (PPS) and the valuing happiness scale (VHS), as well as four well-being scales: the subjective happiness scale (SHS), the satisfaction with life scale (SWLS), the psychological well-being scales (PWB) and the center for epidemiological studies – depression (CES-D). Regression analyses showed that prioritizing positivity was positively associated with subjective happiness, life satisfaction and psychological well-being, but that it was negatively linked to depression. Opposite results partly emerged for valuing happiness. This cross-sectional study confirms that the way people pursue happiness, by prioritizing positivity or valuing it, may promote or partly hinder well-being.     

Reasons and psychological causes

The causal theory of reasons holds that acting for a reason entails that the agents action was caused by his or her beliefs and desires. While Donald Davidson (1963) and others effectively silenced the first objections to the theory, a new round has emerged. The most important recent attack is presented by Jonathan Dancy in Practical Reality (2000) and subsequent work. This paper will defend the causal theory against Dancy and others, including Schueler (1995), Stoutland (1999, 2001), and Ginet (2002).Dancy observes that our reasons are neither psychological states nor causes, and that our reasons can be both motivating and normative. I argue that these observations are fully compatible with the causal theory. According to the reductive version I develop for both cognitive and optative reasons, what it is for an action to be done for a reason is for certain beliefs and desires to cause the action in a particular way. Our reasons for action are the objects of some of those beliefs and desires. The causal process has two stages. This theory explains not only Dancys observations, but also many other facts about reasons that alternative theories leave unexplained. I argue against Schueler and others that the non-appetitive desires entailed by acting for reasons are no less distinct and independent causal factors than the beliefs entailed. I go on to rebut arguments that the relation between psychological states and actions cannot be causal because it is non-empirical, rational, normative, or non-deterministic, and that explanations in terms of psychological causes are incompatible with explanations in terms of reasons.I make no claim here about the precise adequacy of the theoretical definitions I present. My goal is to show that a systematic theory along these lines is the most promising and fruitful approach to understanding an important aspect of human nature.     

Momentary Happiness: The Role of Psychological Need Satisfaction

Psychological well-being correlates positively with psychological need satisfaction—primarily the needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The current study explores momentary happiness (defined as experienced enjoyment minus experienced stress over the course of an hour) as a function of momentary psychological need satisfaction. Results demonstrate that hour-by-hour ratings of psychological need satisfaction were correlated with momentary happiness, with individual differences in life satisfaction moderating this relationship. Ratings of autonomy and relatedness correlated positively with momentary happiness, while competence was negatively correlated with momentary happiness. Thus, engagement in competence-promoting behaviors may come at an affective cost, at least in the moment. When autonomy and relatedness needs were met, individuals with high levels of life satisfaction experienced greater increases in happiness than individuals with low levels of life satisfaction. This finding supports a sensitization model of well-being. Results are discussed with respect to their implications for self-determination theory (SDT).     

Leisure and Subjective Well-Being: A Model of Psychological Mechanisms as Mediating Factors

Leisure is a key life domain and a core ingredient for overall well-being. Yet, within positive psychology, its definition and the psychological pathways by which it evokes happiness are elusive (Diener and Biswas-Diener 2008). In this paper, we seek to address these issues by delineating leisure and presenting a conceptual framework linking leisure to subjective well-being (SWB). Leisure is defined as a multidimensional construct, encompassing both structural and subjective aspects. Respectively, it is the amount of activity/time spent outside of obligated work time and/or perceived engagement in leisure as subjectively defined. To explain the effects of leisure on SWB, a quantitative summary of theories from 363 research articles linking leisure and SWB was conducted. Based on our findings, we propose five core psychological mechanisms that leisure potentially triggers to promote leisure SWB: detachment-recovery, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation (DRAMMA). These psychological mechanisms promote leisure SWB which leads to enhanced global SWB through a bottom-up theory of SWB. We discuss how future research can use this conceptual model for understanding the interplay between leisure and SWB.     

Balanced states of mind in psychopathology and psychological well-being

The balanced states of mind (BSOM) model proposes that coping with stress and psychological well-being is a function of the BSOM ratio of positive thoughts to the sum of positive and negative thoughts. Based on different BSOM ratios, different BSOM categories are constructed to quantitatively differentiate levels of coping with stress and psychological well-being. The cognitive content-specificity hypothesis states that there are unique themes of semantic content in self-reported automatic thoughts particular to depression or anxiety. This study investigated the BSOM model and its cognitive content-specificity for depression, anxiety, anger, stress, life satisfaction, and happiness, based on negative and positive automatic thoughts. Three hundred and ninety-eight college students from Singapore participated in this study. First, BSOM ratio and positive automatic thoughts were positively correlated with life satisfaction and happiness, and negatively correlated with stress, anxiety, depression, and anger. In contrast, negative automatic thoughts were positively correlated with stress, anxiety, depression, and anger, and negatively correlated with life satisfaction and happiness. Second, levels of psychopathology and psychological well-being were statistically differentiable among the BSOM categories for depression, happiness, perceived stress, and life satisfaction; and less statistically differentiable among the BSOM categories for anxiety and anger, as expected based on the BSOM model and cognitive content-specificity hypothesis. Third, the results were more supportive of the BSOM model for depression, followed by happiness, perceived stress, life satisfaction, anxiety, and anger in terms of percentage of variance accounted for by BSOM categories, as expected based on the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis. Taken together, the results suggested that the more moderately positive thoughts one has (balanced by negative thoughts), the better mental health outcomes one has. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

Clearing space for extreme psychologism about reasons

Are reasons for action facts or psychological states? There are two answers in the literature on the ontology of reasons. According to the Standard Story, normative reasons are facts, while motivating reasons are psychological states. According to the factualist, both normative and motivating reasons are facts. In this paper I argue that neither of these views is satisfactory. The Standard Story errs in thinking that the two kinds of reasons are different ontological entities. The factualist gets this right, but incurs some distasteful ontological commitments by thinking of motivating reasons as facts. We should, thus, give a proper hearing to the only serious logically possible alternative to the two existing views: both motivating and normative reasons are psychological states.     

ALTRUISM AND THE GOLDEN RULE

This essay addresses recent claims about the compatibility of the sociobiological theory of reciprocal altruism with standard Western formulations of the Golden Rule. Derek Parfit claims that the theory of reciprocal altruism teaches us to be “reciprocal altruists,” who benefit only those people from whom we can reasonably expect benefits in the future. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, teaches us to benefit anyone regardless of their intention or ability to return the favor, or as Parfit puts it, the Golden Rule teaches us to be “suckers.” I argue that this distinction is founded on a misconception of the nature of the theory of reciprocal altruism, which is sociobiological as opposed to moral, and that this distinction accordingly confuses is with ought. Sociobiological theories may explain underlying psychological motivations in individuals (and perhaps even in populations), but these theories do not prescribe any sort of moral behavior. Furthermore, the theory of reciprocal altruism does not imply mental states of which agents are aware. The unconscious motivations assumed by this theory are in fact compatible with certain formulations of the Golden Rule; I will accordingly argue for the view that certain words with moral content related to the Golden Rule—such as “altruism” and “selfishness”—exist only insofar as they are social tools, which can further the self‐interests of an individual in any group.     

Reasons why in normative explanation

Normative explanations, which specify why things have the normative features they do, are ubiquitous in normative theory and ordinary thought. But there is much less work on normative explanation than on scientific or metaphysical explanation. Skow [2016. Reasons Why. Oxford: Oxford University Press] argues that a complete answer to the question why some fact Q occurs consists in all of the reasons why Q occurs. This paper explores this theory as a case study of a general theory that promises to offer us a grip on normative explanation which is independent of particular normative theories. I first argue that the theory doesn't give an adequate account of certain enablers of reasons which are important in normative explanation. I then formulate and reject three responses on behalf of the theory. But I suggest that since theories of this general sort have the right kind of resources to illuminate how normative explanation might be similar to and different from explanations in other domains, they nonetheless merit further exploration by normative theorists.