The desperate quest for “happiness” does not discriminate between sex, or age, or race. The struggle to attain happiness is at the core of our many actions, goals, and decisions. We can assume this is true because we assume that any human, when given options, would choose that option that would make him happiest. It is this constant experience of striving to reach happiness that inevitably sets us apart from the rest of the species. That is to say that an animal need little if any more than food, shelter, and mate to achieve this state of being, whereas a human may live on earth for seventy years and never attain this with any consistence. William James, a founder of American pragmatism, questions, “If I were to ask the question: ‘What is human life’s chief concern?’ one of the answers would be: ‘It is happiness’. Indeed, it is happiness and the seemingly endless hunt to define it and conquer it that has been the concern of many of our great modern thinkers. In The Conquest of Happiness, Bertrand Russell seeks to define happiness, and the factors inhibiting happiness. Specifically, it is the unhappiness that occurs in wealthy, developed nations among the privileged (those living in comfort) that Russell is concerned with.
For the text to have any valid application in one’s life, or in order to criticize Russell, one must formulate some idea of what he/she interprets happiness to be. For me, simply, I define happiness as a sustainable state of being that arises from freedom from guilt, shame, and obsession with self. Russell’s proposition is that unhappiness in circumstances where income is sustainable, Conditions comfortable and other stresses benign, is avoidable. That our beliefs are the cause of our unhappiness, Russell also denounces. “It is thought by many who are themselves unhappy that their sorrows have complicated and intellectualized sources. I do not believe that such things are genuine causes of either happiness or unhappiness; I think they are only symptoms.” (Russell, pg. 178) Essentially, it is Russell’s belief that one must come to realize that he has likely adopted his theories and outlook only as a result of either his happiness or his unhappiness. He goes on to say that it is a happy man that adopts a happy creed.
After this realization has been made, Russell would have the Unhappy Man examine his own preoccupation with himself. How much time is the individual spending preoccupied with past shortcomings? Lost in infinite, fruitless self-analysis? How often does he spend obsessing over how he wishes he was? Also, how many of the individual’s interests are genuine and spontaneous and not ultimately for purposes of recognition? It is Russell’s belief that only those interests that arise spontaneously can be of any real use to us. Similarly, man ought to free himself from moral obligation, and act in accordance with his natural sense of virtue that arises from within. This is what Russell defines as ‘Sane’ morality. It is ‘Insane’ morality that Russell finds to be disruptive to happiness and to virtue, suggesting that what one does only for his own betterment, such as the rigid adherence to rules and regulations ought not to be done at all. Insane morality is morality of a premeditated kind, and examples of this would be moralists – or modern Christian fundamentalists, for example, against pre-marital sex, birth control, and masturbation. Russell would classify these positions as those of the insane moralist. Profoundly, Russell blames this approach to good deed utterly self-centered, and responsible for the sinner complex many people who have grown up under Puritan ideals experience and struggle with in adult-life (pg. 175).
It can be argued that a distinct parallel between the sane moralist (he who acts out of pure virtue) and the hedonist (he who fulfills his external interests) can be made. This argument would rely on the assumption of one fundamental truth: that humans are inherently good. If humans are inherently good, it can be assumed that they would naturally choose good behavior over bad (harmful to others) behavior. In class, when the question arose of what would constitute as negative behavior, it was suggested that Russell would espouse John Stuart Mill’s principle of harm that limits ‘bad’ behavior to that that harms another. Also, Russell’s hedonist would believe that any exception to the rule of positive behavior (again, anything that is not overtly disrupting another’s happiness) would be someone who is maladjusted for a variety of possible factors (i.e. serial killers, rapists, etc).
In contrast with the majority of Russell’s ideas, are the ideas presented in Plato’s Republic, which seeks to define a just society. Plato’s fictitious example, ‘Glaucon’, presents us with the story of a man who is confronted with the ability to become invisible when he finds the ring of Gyges. He need only wear the ring and turn it towards him to disappear. Upon realizing this, he seduces the Queen of the land, overthrows the King with the Queen’s help and then subsequently takes over the kingdom. Plato’s statement is that all humans when confronted with the option of doing such things, provided only that they could get away with it without external consequence, would act as the man in the story did. That is to say that when there is not threat of punishment we will act out of pure selfish interest – look out for number one. Furthermore, it’s Plato’s contention that what separates humans from beast is logic, and without the schools, churches, governments and conventions that rule us, we would surely be overtaken by our more animalistic appetites. The happy society is the just society in which the individual’s animal instinct is governed by his intellect, and the common man is governed by those suited to govern.
Although I have already defined happiness by a definition that would probably not be far from hedonistic, the ideas presented in The Republic appeal to me because I think the proposition of the three-tiered soul is a good one. Thus, I don’t think we should do away with governments – just yet anyway, and it would probably be safe to say that Russell wouldn’t recommend this either. Also, identifying those interests of ours that are genuine arises out of self-respect and also self-understanding. Self-understanding is not possible, however, without viewing ourselves in relation to the scenarios that have always created our reality (such as our parents, our religious upbringing, and our government). Indeed, it is these basic infrastructures along with our cultural identities that have formed the basis of our identities. Ultimately, happiness seems a result of openness and a wiliness to accept possibility. Accepting the possibility that I could be happier was the most important step for me. As far as if happiness is the ultimate aspiration one should seek to attain in one’s life, I don’t know, and this seems almost irrelevant. If we were all to decide that happiness was in the end just vanity anyway, no matter how objective our interests, I do not think we would stop striving for it, and I do not think this to be bad thing. Happiness, the understanding of it, the seeking of it, all seem good endeavors. And if it is not our happiness we strive for, all else does seem without point. All the busy tasks of the day would be leading us on a fruitless path.
Indeed it is for happiness that virtue, justice, art, and ambition continue.
For the text to have any valid application in one’s life, or in order to criticize Russell, one must formulate some idea of what he/she interprets happiness to be. For me, simply, I define happiness as a sustainable state of being that arises from freedom from guilt, shame, and obsession with self. Russell’s proposition is that unhappiness in circumstances where income is sustainable, Conditions comfortable and other stresses benign, is avoidable. That our beliefs are the cause of our unhappiness, Russell also denounces. “It is thought by many who are themselves unhappy that their sorrows have complicated and intellectualized sources. I do not believe that such things are genuine causes of either happiness or unhappiness; I think they are only symptoms.” (Russell, pg. 178) Essentially, it is Russell’s belief that one must come to realize that he has likely adopted his theories and outlook only as a result of either his happiness or his unhappiness. He goes on to say that it is a happy man that adopts a happy creed.
After this realization has been made, Russell would have the Unhappy Man examine his own preoccupation with himself. How much time is the individual spending preoccupied with past shortcomings? Lost in infinite, fruitless self-analysis? How often does he spend obsessing over how he wishes he was? Also, how many of the individual’s interests are genuine and spontaneous and not ultimately for purposes of recognition? It is Russell’s belief that only those interests that arise spontaneously can be of any real use to us. Similarly, man ought to free himself from moral obligation, and act in accordance with his natural sense of virtue that arises from within. This is what Russell defines as ‘Sane’ morality. It is ‘Insane’ morality that Russell finds to be disruptive to happiness and to virtue, suggesting that what one does only for his own betterment, such as the rigid adherence to rules and regulations ought not to be done at all. Insane morality is morality of a premeditated kind, and examples of this would be moralists – or modern Christian fundamentalists, for example, against pre-marital sex, birth control, and masturbation. Russell would classify these positions as those of the insane moralist. Profoundly, Russell blames this approach to good deed utterly self-centered, and responsible for the sinner complex many people who have grown up under Puritan ideals experience and struggle with in adult-life (pg. 175).
It can be argued that a distinct parallel between the sane moralist (he who acts out of pure virtue) and the hedonist (he who fulfills his external interests) can be made. This argument would rely on the assumption of one fundamental truth: that humans are inherently good. If humans are inherently good, it can be assumed that they would naturally choose good behavior over bad (harmful to others) behavior. In class, when the question arose of what would constitute as negative behavior, it was suggested that Russell would espouse John Stuart Mill’s principle of harm that limits ‘bad’ behavior to that that harms another. Also, Russell’s hedonist would believe that any exception to the rule of positive behavior (again, anything that is not overtly disrupting another’s happiness) would be someone who is maladjusted for a variety of possible factors (i.e. serial killers, rapists, etc).
In contrast with the majority of Russell’s ideas, are the ideas presented in Plato’s Republic, which seeks to define a just society. Plato’s fictitious example, ‘Glaucon’, presents us with the story of a man who is confronted with the ability to become invisible when he finds the ring of Gyges. He need only wear the ring and turn it towards him to disappear. Upon realizing this, he seduces the Queen of the land, overthrows the King with the Queen’s help and then subsequently takes over the kingdom. Plato’s statement is that all humans when confronted with the option of doing such things, provided only that they could get away with it without external consequence, would act as the man in the story did. That is to say that when there is not threat of punishment we will act out of pure selfish interest – look out for number one. Furthermore, it’s Plato’s contention that what separates humans from beast is logic, and without the schools, churches, governments and conventions that rule us, we would surely be overtaken by our more animalistic appetites. The happy society is the just society in which the individual’s animal instinct is governed by his intellect, and the common man is governed by those suited to govern.
Although I have already defined happiness by a definition that would probably not be far from hedonistic, the ideas presented in The Republic appeal to me because I think the proposition of the three-tiered soul is a good one. Thus, I don’t think we should do away with governments – just yet anyway, and it would probably be safe to say that Russell wouldn’t recommend this either. Also, identifying those interests of ours that are genuine arises out of self-respect and also self-understanding. Self-understanding is not possible, however, without viewing ourselves in relation to the scenarios that have always created our reality (such as our parents, our religious upbringing, and our government). Indeed, it is these basic infrastructures along with our cultural identities that have formed the basis of our identities. Ultimately, happiness seems a result of openness and a wiliness to accept possibility. Accepting the possibility that I could be happier was the most important step for me. As far as if happiness is the ultimate aspiration one should seek to attain in one’s life, I don’t know, and this seems almost irrelevant. If we were all to decide that happiness was in the end just vanity anyway, no matter how objective our interests, I do not think we would stop striving for it, and I do not think this to be bad thing. Happiness, the understanding of it, the seeking of it, all seem good endeavors. And if it is not our happiness we strive for, all else does seem without point. All the busy tasks of the day would be leading us on a fruitless path.
Indeed it is for happiness that virtue, justice, art, and ambition continue.
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