Scientists have recently been debating what creates happiness, which has caused me to reflect.
Happiness, a notoriously difficult concept to define, is accepted to be based on our state of mind and can be stimulated, or suppressed, by an almost infinite range of things such as our personal situation, relationships with others, sense of achievement and, of course the possessions we own or wealth accumulated.
Bizarrely, we sometimes derive happiness – or at least joy or pleasure – at others’ misfortune; a state for which the German word schadenfreude has come into common usage.
Given the ontological perspective of New Scientist – the clue is the word scientist – it is hardly surprising that the perspective of some of its recent articles is that given sufficient understanding of what constitutes thought and happiness we may eventually be able to better predict how one leads to the other. Ironically the experience of those with brilliant minds suggests that increasing the former is no guarantee to producing the latter. Brilliant thinkers seem to suffer extreme unhappiness because of their apparent inability to escape the complexity of the issues they constantly consider. Enjoying simplicity is an illusory goal.
I fully acknowledge that this is a sweeping generalisation but it is well known that suicide and emotional problems among highly intelligent people is higher than for those who possess average levels. Nobel laureate, author and journalist Ernest Hemingway committed suicide in 1961 at the age of 62, and once stated that happiness in intelligent people was “the rarest thing I know”.
Many others seem to be tortured by their great thoughts including Birmingham-born Tony Hancock who committed suicide in 1968 aged only 44.
Happiness in whatever way this is assumed to be measured has taxed the thinking of philosophers for as long as humanity has been able to communicate ideas and argument.
One of the earliest philosophers to do so was Aristippus of Cyrene (435-356BC) who spent his life in Athens and was a disciple of Socrates. When we hear the word hedonism, the belief that pleasure is the over-ridding objective of humanity, we should remember him. Aristippus was able to live in luxury and did not have to work to secure his existence obviously assisted in attaining ‘the dream’.
Other philosophers have presented their thoughts or treatises on what constitutes happiness. Plato thought that as long as the three parts of the soul were in balance – the reason, the will and the desire – happiness was secured. The importance of the soul was, of course, central to the belief of religious thinkers, particularly Christians, who emphasised the need to seek happiness through prayer and indulgences to God. So, the argument tended to go, if one lived a Holy life and demonstrated charity and, where required, forgiveness to others, inner peace and contentment would be possible.
In Europe until education was made available to the masses, most remained ignorant and accepted what those with ‘intelligence’ told them. When priests, who usually had the luck to be born of wealthy families, and which allowed them to be educated, informed their congregation that suffering on Earth would ease their passage to heaven, they had little choice but to believe. Being seen to be ‘Godless’ was often led to being given a premature departure from this world.
The Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century heralded an epoch when rational (scientific) thinking was given greater prominence by the efforts of those who employed logic and empirical observation to challenge traditional beliefs and dogma.
Notable philosophers of this period, including Germans Gotthold Lessing and Moses Medelssohn were influential in arguing that progress and by implication happiness could be garnered by the application of science to practical affairs.
As we know, the consequence was the introduction of processes and machines upon which The Industrial Revolution became possible.
Whether the shift from the supposed rural idyll increased or decreased the sum total of happiness is debatable, though it is hard to believe that those who spent most of their waking hours working in the dreadful factories of the time felt that their state of contentment was enhanced.
What flowed from this thinking was the development of sciences that were applied to consideration of the mind and by dint, the way in which inner happiness becomes possible.
At this stage English philosopher John Locke identified the importance of understanding the theory of the mind through which we develop our thinking based on experience and the environment in which we develop as human beings.
Interestingly there is research into measuring the way in which happiness is achieved. Every organisation is assumed to be after ways to ensure their employees are happier and will thereby increase the effort they put into carrying out their jobs.
Though motivation theory based on psychology had its heyday in the period immediately prior to and subsequent to the Second World War, it still has a power of persuasion beyond its ability to provide anything remotely useful or practical.
In considering the import of the contents of two articles in New Scientist it is worth reflecting on the fact that as we become more ‘advanced’ in our thinking and have access to limitless amounts of knowledge, we seem less happy. Perhaps, like alcoholics, the more knowledge we consume the more we need. This is the classical vicious circle and it seems that those with the most brilliant minds have a voracious thirst which becomes a curse.
The quest of science to solve the conundrum of what drives our thoughts and, crucially, what creates inner happiness is unlikely to be solved within the near future, if ever. Considering the brain in which our thoughts occur as being analogous to a computer is fallacious though we are led to believe that in the future they will have emotions ‘designed’ into them.
In the meantime, despite the current age of austerity, we live in an age of relative plenty. If our antecedents were alive they would surely marvel at our lives of luxury and, it might be thought, indolence. They might wonder how we are not happier as we apparently have so much time for the pursuit of leisure and to expand our mind through the plethora of available information available. But let’s not forget that the primary objective of economic migration is driven by the assumption that increased wealth will lead to happiness. Moreover, despite what we tend to tell ourselves about money not guaranteeing happiness, the lack of it will most certainly result in unhappiness. This is precisely the argument made in a new book by Princeton economist Angus Deaton, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth And The Origins Of Austerity.
Deaton suggests that the level of GDP per person in Kenya (1,800 dollars) is a good index point for considering how happy people are (based on people’s feelings). His research suggests that the further someone is below this point the less unhappy they are likely to be. Equally, the more a person rises above an income of 1,800 dollars, the happier they are likely to become.
Significantly, his research suggests that beyond an income of 70,000 dollars per year there is no difference. One of the things that always intrigued me about economics was the theory of diminishing marginal utility. Perhaps Deaton’s work is a derivation of this belief?
It is worth concluding this consideration of the connection between happiness and thought with reference to that most brilliant of thinkers, the French existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre who died in 1980 aged 74 (and not by his own hand). Sartre believed that as free-thinking and sentient beings we have the freedom to be self-conscious. However, in being self-conscious we inevitably reflect on our purpose for being (existence). Sartre argued that there are two incompatible desires in us all which lead to unhappiness by being incomplete. We seek perfection but realise we can never attain it.
As Sartre wrote: “We are what we are not and we are not what we are.” So, it seems, the more we engage in the act of thinking the less satisfied we are likely to be. We tend to want more and to seek answers to questions of the point in our existence. Ultimately there is truth in the adage that we should be careful what we wish for.
* Dr Steven McCabe is director of research degrees at Birmingham City Business School
