What is Happiness

By
Dr. Salman Sarwat

Ref: An Introduction to Political Philosophy by Hubert Lerch

What is Happiness
• Happiness has been discussed
• As the presence of positives (affluence, love, harmony, equilibrium, etc.) or
• As the absence of negatives (hunger, suffering, poverty, loneliness, etc.).
• Collective Happiness
• The phantom of collective happiness has haunted us almost from the
beginning of the modern nation state.
• It contributes to the growth of the state and welfare has long ago replaced
security as the central function of the state.
• Equiproportionality or "Aristotelian equality"
• Absolute equality can be treated as a special case of equiproportionality,
sheer opportunism to decide what shall be deemed the just distribution.

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Adam Ferguson: (1723 – 1816)
• Scottish philosopher, historian of Scottish Enlightenment.
• An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Sections IX, X. Of National Felicity
• Happiness is not a state of repose, nor does it depend “on the materials which are placed in
our hands, but more on the degree in which our minds are properly employed.
• For Ferguson the question of happiness is a political question:
• Ancient Greek, or the Roman: the individual was nothing, and the public everything.
• Modern: individual is everything, and the public nothing.
• The point that really matters is where individual happiness cumulates in national
felicity (collective happiness). The formula should be: the happier the individuals,
the happier the collective.
• We could also ask with Ferguson: what makes a state great and powerful? Division of labor,
commerce, open-mindedness, activity describe a prosperous society and “the foundations of
power”.
• Ferguson fails to realize that “the rival-ship of separate communities, and the agitations of a
free people” are not opposite to “peace and unanimity” but preconditions for them.

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Does Happiness closely related to Ethics
• Happiness arises from a life of virtue and that virtues are acquired by
behaving in a ethical manner
• Types of Ethical studies:
• Descriptive Ethics
• It is about what motivates pro-social behavior (Positive Science)
• Normative Ethics
• It is about how we ought to act
• Types of Normative ethics:
• Virtue Ethics
• Deontology
• Consequentialism (or Teleological Ethics)

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Types of Normative ethics
• Virtue Ethics:
• A virtue is a moral characteristic that a person needs to live well.
• Aristotelian Ethics: There are four cardinal virtues form the lynchpin of Aristotle's complex
and profound ethical system: prudence, justice, temperance, and courage.
• Character Evaluation Vs Act Evaluation
• Deontology: (Deon means duty)
• Intrinsic Morality, action itself is good or bad based on a clear set of rules
• Kantian Ethics: A set of universal moral principles that apply to all human beings, regardless
of context or situation, regardless of their personal goals - Categorical Imperative).
• Threshold deontology: which argues we should always obey the rules unless in an
emergency situation
• Consequentialism (or Teleological Ethics):
• An action is good if its outcome is good
• Utilitarianism: Utility – a measure of pleasure – determines right or wrong

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Virtue Ethics
• Aristotle: Politics, Book VII, Part XIII
• Happiness is the realization and perfect exercise of virtue
• Doesn't Aristotle's definition shift the focus away from happiness to something different?
• This becomes obvious when he says “the city is best governed which has the greatest
opportunity of obtaining happiness”.
• But in Book VII he also says that “different men seek after happiness in different
ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life
and forms of government”.
• Since virtue, goodness, and happiness are essentially interchangeable, the question now is
what makes men good and virtuous. Aristotle identifies three:
• Nature
• Habit
• Rational principle
• Happiness results from the three principles being “in harmony with one another”.

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Utilitarianism
• John Gay (1699–1745):
• God wants the happiness of mankind, so it should be criterion of virtue
• Jeremy Bentham: (1748 – 1832)
• English philosopher, jurist, social reformer, founder of utilitarianism
• Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Chapter 1: Of the
Principle of Utility
• Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the
principle that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number
that is the measure of right and wrong."

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Utilitarianism
• Jeremy Bentham: (1748 – 1832)
• Right and wrong as well as cause and effect are derived from our response to the
two stimuli which “govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think”.
• Pain and pleasure, “the two sovereign masters”, govern mankind,
• Maximization of happiness
• Minimization of pain
• What about Masochist
• Bentham makes us believe that “the interest of the community ... is ... the sum of the
interests of the several members who compose it.”
• What is your pleasure plus mine?
• Better government augments rather than diminishes the sum total of the happiness of the
community.
• Parameters for quantitatively measure the pleasure:
• Intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity,
purity, and extent.

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Utilitarianism
• John Stuart Mill (1806–1873):
• Quantitative Pleasure Vs Qualitative Pleasure:
• Intellectual pleasures are of a higher, better, sort than the ones that are merely
sensual, and that we share with animals.
• To some this seems to mean that Mill really wasn't a hedonistic utilitarian.
• It is better to be Socrates ‘dissatisfied’ than a fool ‘satisfied.’
• The desirable means simply what deserves to be desired
• Human psychology (such as conscience) and Social feelings: effectiveness of internal
sanctions – emotions like guilt and remorse which serve to regulate our actions.
• He seems to associate virtue with aesthetics, and morality is reserved for
the sphere of right or duty.
• Like Bentham, Mill sought to use utilitarianism to inform law and social policy.

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat

Ethical Intuitionism
• G. E. Moore (1873 – 1958)
• He strongly disagreed with the hedonistic value theory adopted by the
Classical Utilitarians.
• He was a pluralist, rather than a monist, regarding intrinsic value.
• For example, he believed that ‘beauty’ was an intrinsic good. A beautiful
object had value independent of any pleasure it might generate in a viewer.
• Moral Sense Vs Perceptual Sense
• Moral truths are self-evident to a mature mind and are therefore known
through intuition.
• He writes goodness can only be evaluated through "moral intuitions:"

What is Happiness by Dr. Salman Sarwat