Happiness: Selfish Pursuit? Or a Natural Human Desire? It Can Be Both...

Getting to genuine happiness requires community and virtue.

Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889.

Is the pursuit of happiness a selfish agenda?

Victor Frankly, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, famously wrote that happiness is not something we should pursue but something that ensues from responsible and meaningful activity. Alongside the Statue of Liberty, he thought, there should be a Statue of Responsibility. There is a lot of truth to this perspective.

Many philosophers—though, of course, certainly not all—would agree that happiness is the purpose and goal of human life. Aristotle thus describes happiness as virtuous activity in a complete life.

The realization of our abilities and the proper use of them can be described, in part, as happiness. When our physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual lives are integrated and running smoothly, we can aptly describe that state of affairs as happiness. Of course, true happiness is measured here not by our feelings but by our attainment of the authentic human good.

How the Road to Happiness Challenges Us

Still, there is a puzzle here. What do we do when other goods come into conflict with our fulfillment and happiness in this life? We might consider here the virtue of courage that Aristotle discusses. If the city is under attack, we need to display courage in order to defend it. For without courageousness, that true happiness would be impossible. Even if that means the loss of one’s own life. So, oddly, the pursuit of happiness here results in its definitive exclusion.

How should we make sense of this paradox?

In our own lives, we face smaller sorts of challenges every day. We probably are not going to feel delighted to wake up in the middle of the night to take care of a sick child. We are usually not going to feel enthused about dealing with a difficult customer. We are generally not doing to appreciate being misunderstood by a close friend or family member. Indeed, taking on familial and other  responsibilities means that we will not “actualize” ourselves as we might have.

In these cases, the exercise of “virtuous activity” does not really feel good. While virtue can make it easier and more delightful to performs some actions, there is a limit to its reach. Even the courageous person is going to feel fear and natural revulsion at the prospect of losing his life.

So here is the paradox. In order to secure the possibility of happiness, we often have to do things that are unpleasant and difficult in the moment. Virtue is the precondition for happiness and not its fulfillment. One can live a virtuous life but suffer through much of it. Happiness is something added above even that.

Happiness Requires Virtue and Community

Aristotle would thus say that no man can be truly happy and live, at the same time, a vicious life. The best one can do is to live a life that seems mistakenly happy or pleasurable. So, the odd but obvious fact about life is that living virtuously and living happily are not identical. Happiness is a kind of perfection over and above virtuous living that is on this earth ultimately a gift.

From this perspective, happiness requires some kind of providential order that is a gift of the gods, as Aristotle would have it. One cannot perfectly arrange the happiness of one’s own life. Our physical health, the welfare of our friends, and the security of our country are not entirely within our hands.

What, then, is the ultimate good we should be aiming at? It is still happiness. But only with the realization that genuine happiness presupposes a virtuous life, friendship, and community. And that such happiness in this life will always be imperfect and episodic, though not for that reason any less treasurable.

Perfect and Imperfect Happiness

That leaves us with something of a question. Is there anything more out there? For the spiritual writers of many traditions, true happiness is a state of union with the divine. In whatever way we understand that reality, it seems that subordination of our earthly good to a higher and more definitive spiritual good will be the source of our ultimate happiness.

I think that means we need to hold the pursuit of earthly happiness with a light touch. It is good to aim for our holistic wellbeing and that of others. And true happiness does indeed require sacrifice and a good deal of luck or providence that is outside of our control.

When we do experience those moments, then, we can rightly savor them, knowing that they will also flit away. And knowing that the securing of that happiness is an ever-ongoing task.

Happiness, Freedom, and Responsibility

And so, to return to Victor Frankl’s observation, happiness requires both freedom and responsibility. Without freedom, we would be merely animals. Without responsibility, our freedom would not be sufficient to guide us to a deep and true happiness.

Our desire for happiness is a genuine and good human desire. We ought to aim for happiness in this life, and help others attain it, so long as we understand that true happiness—and not the mere satisfaction of our whims—cannot exist apart from, and indeed presupposes, the responsibility and sacrifice that a life of human virtue and excellence asks of us.