IN QUEST OF HAPPINESS: SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Ganesh Prasad Das

Most of the scientific disciplines of today are realising that there is a positive need for not
breaking their umbilical cord and remain united with their mother discipline, philosophy. They
seek to combine data and hypotheses, which belong to the empirical zone with conceptual and
normative, which belong to the philosophic zone.

There have emerged a group of people, who trade happiness. They include psychologists,
who come out with self-help books, CDs, and talk-shows; wellness organisations represented by
voluble motivators; religious or secular gurus, who are inspirational speakers adept in
whitewashing the mind of the gullible. What they do is use individuals reports to proclaim that
they have successfully delivered happiness to seekers (consumers). Australia is said to be high up
on the list of countries that have a good institutionally-encouraged sense of well-being. In
Sydney, for example, there is something called the Happiness Institute, a place dedicated to
making people feel happier. The philosophical point here is that happiness traders (It is said that
there has come to be a happiness industry) must have a clear understanding of the possible
meanings of the term happy. In the absence of this, when on being asked whether they are
happy, the seekers answer in the affirmative, their responses would convey anything or nothing.
Cody Delistraty, a happiness counselor, says that happiness will never come until you say it has.
But then by saying, I am happy, one might mean, I am not feeling any serious pain right
now, another, My life is horrible and am getting reconciled to it, still another, I feel a lot
better now that I did yesterday.

A distinction needs to be made between happiness as a psychological state (e.g., feeling

overall more pleasure than pain) and happiness as a positive evaluation of lived life even though
it has sustained more pain than pleasure as it is with some of us. There is, above all, a more basic
question: Is happiness a proper goal of human life? Philosophical reflection, not empirical
investigation, can find solutions to these issues. Empirical investigation shows that peole have
different ideas of happiness. When they fulfill their ideas of happiness by, say, getting married,
getting a job, acquiring a house, an automobile, a smart phone, children, fame, they still feel not
happy. They feel they have one less than one hundred. As many they have, so many make up 99
only, short of 100.

This is a poor, sensate and goods conception of human happiness of the empirical scientist. It
is philosophy, which can give a rich and sensitive conception of happy life or good life. The
empirical investigator might bring out the full range of the possible conception of happiness.
There would still remain the question, of which we ought to aim to achieve. In the Upanisadic
tradition of India, the former is known as preya (the desired) and the latter as sreya (desirable). It
is a question concerning values.

Apart from self-report discussed above, happiness investigation has to face another
important methodological challenge. Happiness is a quality and a subjective quality at that. The
problem is how to objectify it and quantify it? The felicific calculus of Bentham is an item of
impracticable edification.

Intense, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure-

Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
Such pleasures seek if private be thy end;
If it be public, wide let them extend.
Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view
If pains must come, let them extend to few.

Aristotle is one of the earliest to ask the question, What is happiness? His question is two-fold:
(1) What is meant by the word happiness or better eudaimonia (worthwhile life), and (2)
Where happiness is to be found, or what is that, which makes us really happy? His reply to the
first question is that happiness is the supreme good, which gives the purpose and means the value
of all human activity and striving. It is for the sake of happiness that we all do everything else
we do. Aristotle defines happiness as an activity in accordance with virtue, that is, doing well
what is worth doing. (Cf. BG, Ones dharma is doing ones duty.) Two features are built into this
conception of happiness. (1) It must be an end rather than a means and (2) It must be self-
sufficient. Human life is a life of reason concerned with action. So human good is good human
functioning, namely, activity of soul in the exercise of virtue.

According to Aristotle, happiness is the enjoyment of philosophical study. The life of the
philosopher is the best fit to the definitional feature of happiness. He moderates his view lateron
saying that there is no pain in being a non-philosopher.

To the second question as to where happiness is to be found depends on how the term is
defined. Does it come about by nature, by training, by learning, by luck or by divine favour?
According to Aristotle, each of these has a part in the acquisition of happiness.

Russell appears to be in agreement with Aristotle when he notes down in the Prologue to
his Autobiography what he had lived for. These are three passions: the longing for love, the
search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often
have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next,
because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering
 consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I
have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the
prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I
sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have
found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of
men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the
Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not
much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But
always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart.
Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their
sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what
human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the
chance were offered me.

In a chapter entitled Good Life of his book What I Believe, Russell says that the good
life is one that is inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Both are sine qua non for good
lifeOf the two love is more basic, because unless one has love, one cannot have knowledge.
(Cf. BG, sraddhavan lavate jnanam.) This knowledge, however, is not ethical knowledge, know
ought; but scientific knowledge, know that and know how. He contends that ethical theories are
superfluous.

We thus find that the empirical zone does not hold the solution. It has to appeal to the
philosophic zone for this. With this in view, Ludwig Wittgenstein strikes very profound insights,
some of which are produced below. One needs to reflect on them as an interrelated whole.

We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of
life remain completely untouched. (T. 6.52)

It is certainly not the solution of any problem of natural science that is required. (T. 6.4312)

The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (T. 6.521)

The world and life are one. (5.621)

The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.(T. 6.43)
 There are indeed things that cannot be put into wordsThey make themselves manifest.
(6.522)

One would stumble on the limits of sayability in trying to say in so many words what happiness
exactly is. It is shown, manifested, rather than said.

When we reflect upon the different accounts of happiness given by philosophers,

psychologists and economists, we find that there are three distinct elements in human well-being.
These may be called contentment welfare and dignity. Contentment is what is expressed by self
ascriptions of happiness. It is the best of all kinds of happiness, Yudhisthira tell Yaksa in the
Mahabharata (sukhanam tustiruttama). It is not exactly a feeling or sensation; it is rather an
attitude or state of mind. If we take welfare in the sense of material welfare, it consists in the
satisfaction of ones animal needs, for food, drink, shelter and the rest that are conducive to the
flourishing of the body. Welfare is the least controversial element in wellbeing. But then there
must be a sense of proposition in meeting the physical needs. Alexander Pope sings in his Ode
on Solitude,

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcerndly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

 Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease

Together mix'd; sweet recreation,

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lye.

Dignity is difficult to define. A dignified life is the objective of Aristotelian ethics. It involves the
control of ones destiny and the ability to live a life of ones choice. Such a life should be worthy
in itself and should enjoy the respect of others. It is possible that a person may have welfare and
contentment devoid of dignity, contentment and dignity without welfare, or welfare and dignity,
but no contentment.

The goal of a happy life is a complex one. If we try to measure well-being, a single
metric would not be adequate. Investigators may never enjoy the precision of the hedonimeter
once envisaged by Edgeworth to show just how happy a person is. Indeed, such a device might
be impossible even in principle, since happiness might involve multiple dimensions that either
cannot be precisely quantified or summed together. (SEP) Policies for the maximization of
happiness might involve compromise between dignity and contentment, between welfare and
dignity and between contentment and welfare.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) has now become a catch phrase for an alternative
global discourse of development. Some have even hailed it as a new paradigm of progress. The
term was coined by Bhutans former king Jigme Wangchuck in 1972; he had opened up the
country to modernisation and democracy. The Prime Minister of Bhutan, Jigmi Thinley, has
emphasised the need to translate GNH measures into public policy, which he thinks is not easy.
He has pointed out the three core values of peace, security and happiness which should guide
GNH, and that the well-being and happiness of all citizens should also be included in the agenda.
He has called for a new internalised ethical consciousness to combat consumerism.

In between Aristotle and Wittgenstein, there is a vast space occupied by wide variety of
philosophers, Epicureans, utilitarians, hedonists, altruists, deontologists and others. But Russell
has an insightful observation which surpasses all these doctrines. He believes that unhappiness is
very largely due to mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, mistaken habits of life, leading
to destruction of that natural zest and appetite for possible things upon which all happiness,
whether of men or animals, ultimately depends. (CH, p. 18) He says,

I came to centre my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world,
various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection. There is some kind
of pain due to external objects, but that does not destroy the essential quality of life. (Op.
cit., p. 19)

Before closing the keynote, let me muse for a while about human rights. The word
rights has become hackneyed; more often than not, it is wrongfully used. Some say that they
have a right to wear skimpy dress and kiss in public places; some others say that they and not the
Government are the rightful owners of the jungles, mountains and rivers; still some others say
that they have a right to end their lives at will. What kind of right these are, justiciable or non-
justiciable? Whatever that might be, it is evident that law cannot deliver and ensure happiness. It
is a different point and an important one that statutory laws lean on morality for their successful
functioning. Our state has enacted many laws and administrative rules for the good life of
people. But they come to lime light for their violation, not for their successful implementation.

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Formerly, Profesor and Head,

P.G. Department of Philosophy,
Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.