Monday, September 08, 2003
The Futile Pursuit of Happiness in the New York Times Magazine this weekend is an interesting intro into the hedonic studies done by economists like Kahneman over the past decade or so. The happiness studies are fun and interesting, though not terribly surprising. Any semi-reflective person over the age of 14 realizes that he is prone to gross errors in estimating the pleasure to be gotten from the things he covets. But it's always fun to read that parapelegics are happier than lottery winners.
Skimmed through the piece - the biggest problem with it is that it seems to buy into some common assumptions about happiness that are, I would guess, largely responsible for why people's pursuit of it is futile. The most problematic assumption is that happiness is an affective state or mood, something like pleasure. People who take hedonism seriously (e.g. Stoics, Epicureans, et al.) have known since ancient times that the pursuit of pleasure is highly problematic, and therefore so is the pursuit of happiness if one equates happiness with pleasure (that possessing cars, money and fancy houses is supposed to put you in).
Daniel Gilbert seems to allude to Aristotle in the article (''People ask why I study happiness,'' Gilbert says, ''and I say, 'Why study anything else?' It's the holy grail. We're studying the thing that all human action is directed toward.''). (Aristotle famously notes that eudaimonia/happiness is the end of all human action). But Aristotle's most basic result, that happiness is not a feeling, is not mentioned. So perhaps Gilbert wasn't actually alluding to Aristotle. Whatever.
Happiness as affective state is certainly not what all human action is directed toward (think Brave New World), so if Gilbert assumes that happiness is just an affective state (I doubt that he does), then he's certainly not studying the thing that all human action is directed toward.
Economists are sorta in an odd position on this one, though... What do they have if they can't take people's preferences or estimates of their own well-being seriously? I'll have to query the economisttobe on this.
¶ 5:57 PM
Skimmed through the piece - the biggest problem with it is that it seems to buy into some common assumptions about happiness that are, I would guess, largely responsible for why people's pursuit of it is futile. The most problematic assumption is that happiness is an affective state or mood, something like pleasure. People who take hedonism seriously (e.g. Stoics, Epicureans, et al.) have known since ancient times that the pursuit of pleasure is highly problematic, and therefore so is the pursuit of happiness if one equates happiness with pleasure (that possessing cars, money and fancy houses is supposed to put you in).
Daniel Gilbert seems to allude to Aristotle in the article (''People ask why I study happiness,'' Gilbert says, ''and I say, 'Why study anything else?' It's the holy grail. We're studying the thing that all human action is directed toward.''). (Aristotle famously notes that eudaimonia/happiness is the end of all human action). But Aristotle's most basic result, that happiness is not a feeling, is not mentioned. So perhaps Gilbert wasn't actually alluding to Aristotle. Whatever.
Happiness as affective state is certainly not what all human action is directed toward (think Brave New World), so if Gilbert assumes that happiness is just an affective state (I doubt that he does), then he's certainly not studying the thing that all human action is directed toward.
Economists are sorta in an odd position on this one, though... What do they have if they can't take people's preferences or estimates of their own well-being seriously? I'll have to query the economisttobe on this.
¶ 5:57 PM
