Robert B. Talisse
PROFESSOR: Why have you enrolled in my course?
STUDENT: Because it’s required for my major.
PROFESSOR: But why are you doing what’s required for your major?
STUDENT: Because I want to complete my degree.
PROFESSOR: But why do you want to complete your degree?
STUDENT: Because I want to get a good job.
PROFESSOR: But why do you want to get a good job?
STUDENT: Because I want to earn a good salary.
PROFESSOR: But why do you want to earn a good salary?
STUDENT: So that I can afford to buy the things I want—a nice house, a fast car, delicious food, fashionable clothes, and so on.
PROFESSOR: But why do you want those things?
STUDENT: Because having them will make me happy.
PROFESSOR: But why do you want to be happy?
STUDENT: Huh?
It was probably Aristotle who first took note of the special role that the concept of happiness plays in our thinking about how to live. Happiness, he argued, is the final end of all human activity, that for the sake of which every action is performed. The Student is perplexed at the end of the exchange above because the Professor, in posing her final question, betrays a lack of familiarity with this basic Aristotelian insight. The Student understands that there really is no response to the question “Why do you want to be happy?” To identify an action as necessary for one’s happiness is to explain why one would even perform it. When explaining human action, happiness is where the buck stops.
Aristotle’s insight seems undeniable and, understandably, it remains popular among philosophers. However, like most undeniable philosophical claims, it ultimately does not tell us much. To identify happiness as the definitive aim of human action is to simply assert that we do what we think will bring us happiness. It is to say that when we act, we act for the sake of what we take to be happiness. As appearances can be deceiving, deep questions persist about what happiness is.
Perhaps this is why Aristotle affirmed further that happiness is the culmination of all of the good things a human life could manifest. He claimed that the truly happy person not only derives great enjoyment from living, but is also both morally and cognitively flawless. In fact, Aristotle goes so far as to posit that the happy person necessarily has friends, good looks, health, and wealth. And, as if these advantages were not enough, he holds that the fully happy person is invulnerable even to misfortune and bad luck. According to Aristotle, then, happiness is not simply that for the sake of which we act; it is that which renders a human life complete, lacking nothing that could improve it.
Few philosophers today subscribe to Aristotle’s view that complete success in every evaluative dimension is strictly required for happiness. Most will readily concede that a person could be happy and yet not especially intelligent, beautiful, or wealthy; some even argue that a happy life typically involves various kinds of deficiency. Still, a slightly more modest version of Aristotle’s second claim continues to be influential among contemporary moral philosophers. This is the idea that the immoral person is necessarily unhappy, that morality is necessary for happiness.
The attraction of this view is easy to discern. Since Plato, moral philosophers have been embroiled in a confrontation with immoralism, which is the view that morality is some kind of sham. The immoralist’s challenge is often posed as a simple question: “Why be moral?” In asking this, the immoralist demands an account of why one should be motivated to act according to morality’s demands, especially given that to do so is often burdensome. Interestingly, most versions of immoralism accept Aristotle’s initial claim that happiness is the ultimate aim of human action, and they typically accept the further thought that happiness renders one’s life successful as well. What the immoralist denies, then, is that anyone has a good reason to be moral. However, if it could be shown that being moral is necessary for happiness, then immoralism would be defeated. The moralist’s argument against immoralism looks simple enough: One aims ultimately to be happy, and morality is necessary for happiness; therefore, one has sufficient reason to be moral. Again, the buck stops with happiness.
Contemporary moral philosophers tend to presuppose the success of some version of this simple argument. Believing they have settled the matter of why one should be moral, philosophers have almost exclusively attended to the task of discerning morality’s requirements. The results have been impressive. We now have highly developed versions of almost every conceivable theory of morality, and the long-running academic debates among those who propose competing views is fascinating. But in recent years some have expressed frustration with the technicalities of moral philosophy; they have aspired to reconnect the discipline to the larger questions of morality’s relation to happiness and living well.
This broadening of moral philosophy’s scope is well timed. Academic interest with happiness is widespread and growing. Researchers from fields as diverse as psychology, economics, history, art, medicine, theology, business, and biology have taken up research about happiness. At present, there is not only a
Journal of Happiness Studies, a
Journal of Happiness and Well-Being, and a
Journal of Happiness and Development, but also many scholarly societies and research institutes devoted to inquiry regarding happiness, well-being, and related phenomena worldwide. In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly declared March 20th the “International Day of Happiness.”
Perhaps more importantly, contemporary popular culture seems obsessed with happiness. Given this, happiness is a big business. Effective speakers on the topic are able to command handsome fees for giving speeches to corporate and popular audiences. In Hollywood and elsewhere, it is possible to earn a quite comfortable salary as a “life coach” or a “spiritual adviser” to wealthy and powerful clients. Talk-show personalities and made-for-television psychologists appear daily to advise their viewers on all matters pertaining to happiness, spirituality, and emotional well-being. Even the tiniest chain bookstores in Nashville, Tennessee, stock dozens of titles promising to help a popular readership achieve happiness.
Judging from these various materials, happiness is shrouded in mystery. A casual glance at my bookseller’s shelves suggests that there are “secrets” to happiness that must be “uncovered,” “unlocked,” “embraced,” “affirmed,” and “energized.” A slightly less casual investigation reveals that the more ambitious Aristotelian claim still thrives; in the popular views, happiness is understood to encompass all of life’s goods, including beauty, health, love, influence, popularity, and, of course, money. All of this makes for good marketing. Were happiness something obvious or easy, there would be no need for all of the books, lectures, and gurus. Yet one needn’t examine these materials too closely to find suggestions of debatable value. According to some, the way to achieve happiness—and all of its varied goods—is to recite the right words at the beginning of each day; others claim the key is eating the right foods; some recommend meditation; others prescribe physical exercise and plenty of sleep; some recommend elaborate psychological rituals to keep one focused on one’s goals; others claim that happiness is mainly a matter of keeping one’s household possessions neatly organized. The variety is truly staggering. To put a cynical gloss on these matters, a lot of people are making a fortune selling dubious advice about how to be happy.
Against this complex academic and cultural backdrop, Steven M. Cahn and Christine Vitrano offer Happiness and Goodness, their “philosophical reflections on living well.” The direct and often playful tone of this text should not be mistaken for simplemindedness or naiveté. Their critical maneuvers often cut deeply, and their positive view is a formidable one. Their central thesis can be put succinctly: Morality is not necessary for happiness. The immoral person might be a completely happy person, and the moral saint might nonetheless be absolutely miserable.
Of course, with morality and happiness decoupled, the immoralist challenge reemerges. Why be moral then? Yet Cahn and Vitrano do not endorse the immoralist conclusion that no one has reason to be moral. Although they do register a few serious concerns about the most popular theories of morality, they are not moral skeptics. They argue only that morality requires a grounding that is independent of human happiness. With its claim that living well is simply a matter of achieving happiness within the bounds of morality, the positive project of Cahn and Vitrano’s book is to devise a conception of happiness compatible with any plausible theory of morality.
As the authors duly recognize, their account of happiness draws heavily from the Epicurean tradition, supplemented with important insights from the Biblical text Ecclesiastes (known in Hebrew as Koheleth). The core of their view is that happiness is neither mysterious nor particularly difficult to achieve. It does not require a love of truth or an overriding desire to avoid ignorance and illusion; nor is it reserved only for those who engage in lofty intellectual pursuits, such as philosophy. To be happy, they say, is to engage in those activities that one finds to be particularly enjoyable, whatever they may be. Of course, the pursuit of this enjoyment must be guided by prudence. Living well, then, is pursuing enjoyment prudently and within the bounds of morality.
I leave it to the reader to weigh the merits of Cahn and Vitrano’s argument. Surely this assessment should involve a comparison of the authors’ position with other competing accounts. It should be said that one of the especially refreshing aspects of this intriguing little book is the authors’ discussion of some of the other views in currency. To be frank, I was surprised to find that so many contemporary philosophers have seen fit to identify some activities as intrinsically hollow and thus not conducive to happiness. Cahn and Vitrano do a nice job of exposing the folly in this. One can only wonder why academic philosophers might take themselves to be so equipped to pronounce on the relative merits of lives devoted to such things as raising pigs, mastering checkers, completing crosswords, and playing computer games. Why exactly might a philosopher declare these activities vacuous, wasteful, or devoid of meaning?
The answer, I think, is that contemporary moral philosophers are still rather attracted to the more ambitious Aristotelian claim discussed above. Their official denials notwithstanding, many philosophers are inclined to think that happiness must involve success along all evaluative dimensions, a life lacking nothing that could improve it. These philosophers are thus disposed to regard a life focused on seemingly trivial pursuits to be squandered, hampered, deficient, and therefore unhappy. Yet, as Cahn and Vitrano argue, just as one must admit the possibility of a happy immoralist, one must also admit that lives that appear mundane, trifling, and pointless to academic philosophers can nonetheless be filled with happiness.
I suspect that, in the end, many professional ethicists who are interested in the theory of happiness will be unmoved by the arguments found in this text. They will endeavor to defend the idea that happiness is elusive, complicated, difficult to achieve, and hence rare. No doubt many will continue to regard happiness as requiring not only moral behavior, but also the pursuit of lofty goals and high-minded objectives. The determination among academic philosophers to support conceptions of happiness that in effect condemn most people to lives of inescapable despondency is difficult to understand. But, thankfully, this provocative book, with its unusual combination of sharp debates, compelling examples, and insightful humor, presents a serious challenge to the current philosophical orthodoxy.
Robert B. Talisse is professor of philosophy and political science and chair of the Philosophy Department at Vanderbilt University.
