Pursuinghappinessby Timothy Renick

THE ROMAN POET Horace tells the tory ofLycas a wealthy merchant who spent hi days entertained byimagined actors performing nonexistent dramatic play on thegrounds of his estate. Lycas drew his greatest joy in life fromthese imaginary performances, but to onlookers his behaviorwas sheer madness.

Should one value and affirm a happiness that is based on anillusion? Lycas's relatives thought not. When they finally awak-ened him from his dream world, Lyca reacted as if betrayed:"You call it re cue, my friends, but what you have done i mur-der me!"

The story of Lycas captures one of the great challenges toany meaningful discussion of human happines . Unlike con-cepts such as ju tice and courage that seemingly lend them-selves to rich treatises about their true nature, happiness ioften perceived to be subjective, even inscrutable. We all claimto be able to identify courageous people when we ee them,and we believe that we have the critical ability to determine, attimes, that a per on who claims to be courageou is in fact afraud, a coward. But what does it mean to ay that a per onwho claims to be happy i not, or that the happiness a personexperiences is not real?

Was Lycas' happiness any Ie s real because those aroundhim failed to find joy in the ame imaginary plays? If hi hap-piness was somehow less real-less valuable-because it wasbased on a world not perceptible to onlookers, where does thisleave romantics who find their greatest joy in their love foranother or religious believers who e happine s rest in a Beingbeyond conventional sight and sound? Are the experience ofall of the e people to be dismis ed a madne s, or can were ponsibly affirm and even promote at lea t orne of thesepaths to happiness?

These questions are the subject of a pair of book by twoleading commentators on contemporary moral and ociali ues. Sissela Bok, senior visiting fellow at the Harvard Centerfor Population and Development Studies, offers a clear andengaging historical tour through dozens of competing philo-sophical renderings of happiness over the age -from theGreeks to Desmond Tutu. Her husband, Derek Bok, the for-mer pre ident of Harvard and currently a re earch profe orthere, examines the political implication and ocial impera-tive that emerge from modern empirical re earch on the sub-ject of happines .

Sissela Bok asks, "What do we mean by happines T" Derek

Christian Century January 11, 2011

EXPLORINGHAPPINESS

.( 'SELA BOK

Exploring Happiness: FromAristotle to Brain Science

By Sissela BokYale University Press,224 pp., $24.00

The Politics of Happiness: What GovernmentCan Learn from the New Research on Well-Being

By Derek BokPrinceton University Press, 272 pp., $24.95

Bok asks, "Given our emerging scientific con ensus about thenature of human happiness, how can government best serve topromote and maximize it?" Not surprisingly, the answer theBok offer to the e questions are complex and provocative-and, I believe, incompatible in significant ways.

Sis ela Bok argues that ours is a special time, parallel to thesixth and fifth centuries BC when thinkers such as ConfuciusBuddha, Lao-Tzu and Socrate posited a range of competingand world-altering paths to happiness. She write " ot sinceantiquity have there been such pas ionate debates as tho etaking place today about contending vision of what makes forhuman happiness." She holds that there is thus great contem-porary value in the proce s of exploring what others-philoso-phers, historians, theologians-have written over the centuriesabout the nature of happiness. The purpose of her book, shecaution, is not to help readers find happiness but to help them"learn about its nature and its role in human lives." In so doing,she tells us we will learn much about ourselves.

The contemporary political philo opher Robert ozick rais-e thi po ibility: uppo e you could attach your body for theremainder of your life to an experience machine. Floating in atank of fluid and connected by electrodes to an incrediblyadvanced computer, you would spend the rest of your days fullyrealizing your greatest personal dreams-winning the PulitzerPrize or the Super Bowl, inventing a cure for cancer or a newvideo game-in such a way that these experiences would beutterly indi tinguishable to you from reality. The things experi-

Timothy Renick is a professor of religious studies at Georgia State Universityill Atlanta, where he currently serves as associate provost. He is principalinve tigator for a Teagle Foundation-American Academy of Religionstudy of the long-term impacts on college students of the academic studyof religion.

22

enced, though, would not be real; they would be created olelyin your mind by the machine. Given the opportunity, would youplug yourself into this machine for life, thu en uring the per-petual satisfaction of all of your most cheri hed desires?

For Augu tine, the answer was a clear no. A Si ela Bokexplain, Augustine held that there i but one happiness that iworth experiencing, and it is not determined by per onal pref-erence. Speaking to God in his Confessions, Augu tine as ert-ed, "Happiness is to rejoice in You and for You and because ofYou. This is true happiness and there i no other." Many thingseemed to prorni e pure happine to Augustine in his youth-

play, food, friendship, sex-but he came to conclude that the epleasures are not real and do not bring happines of a true sort.Aquina agreed: "Final and perfect happiness can consist ofnothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence."

Inour times, supposedly dominated by individual elf-interest and the quest for material atisfaction, we mightassume that Nozick's personal-happiness machine would

be preferred over the Augustinian vi ion of a happine that ifound only through individual denial in deference to a higherideal. But ozick reports that only about 5 percent of currentcollege students say they would accept the offer to plug intothe hypothetical experience machine. Why is there such aresounding rejection of thi guaranteed path to per onal sati -faction, Bok wants to know. Alternately, what i distinctiveabout that 5 percent of students that lead them to embrace

ozick soffer?

Can happiness be foundby empirical research?Here emerges one premise of Si sela Bok's book: how a

per on conceive of and defines happiness tells u muchabout who that person is. Bok s examples are many. FriedrichNietz che rejected the link, suggested by Augustine andAquinas, between happines on the one hand and virtue,altruism and God on the other. He defines happiness a 'notcontentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; notvirtue, but proficiency." Jonathan Swift told us that 'happi-ness ... is a perpetual possession of being well deceived."Seneca wrote, "When once we have driven away all thatexcites or frightens us ... there come upon us first a bound-less joy that is firm and unalterable, then peace and harmonyof the soul." Sigmund Freud warned, "One feels inclined tosay that the intention that human beings hould be happy wanot included in the plan of the 'Creation.'" By means of suchsingle sentences about happiness, we learn much about thefundamental beliefs and overarching philosophie of each ofthe e thinkers.

For reader who seek an answer to the inevitable que tionof which thinker best captures the true nature of happiness,Sissela Bok offers little help. "There i no one definition ofhappiness, I suggest, that should exclude all other, much les

be impo ed by force and indoctrination." As to how the eern-ingly oppo itional definition offered by the like of Augustineand Freud can coexi t Bok once again offers only very gener-al guidance. "We need to look at the different [theories]together and con ider the roles they have played in humanlive weighing together the evidence they offer and the practi-cal implications for how to live and how best to pursue happi-nes , 'she uggests.

While Bok's reluctance to exerci e her formidable philo-sophical skills to develop a moral recommendation here can befrustrating, the point of Exploring Happiness is not to pre-cribe the content of happiness but to describe the ways in

which the rich and continuing historical discourse on humanhappine has come to define our deepest convictions and tocapture our highest ideals. This it does very well.

In The Politics of Happiness, Derek Bok takes a very differ-ent tack, basing his argument almost exclusively on recentempirical re earch into the nature of happine s. Bypassing thehi tory of idea that is the focus of Sissela Bok's volume, heexplores the post-1970 "boom indu try' of surveying peopleabout what they think make them happy. "Mounds of evi-dence have accumulated on how happy people claim to be indifferent countries, how their levels of contentment vary fromone ubgroup of the population to another, and what condi-tion or experiences are most clo ely related to the way peoplefeel about their lives" Derek Bok tells u .

Although he concedes that there are limits to the value ofthe e polls and opinion surveys about happiness-for onething, re earch shows that people are often very poor judge ofwhat will make them happy-Bok believes that "inve tigators

23 Christian Century January 11. 2011

can now publish findings about the well-being of populationthat are far more useful to policy makers" than the theorieavailable to previous generations. This research holds "theprospect of improving many of the judgments that public offi-cials make in devising programs to better the human condi-tion."

Standards of living haveimproved, but levels ofhappiness have not.

What pecifically does this recent empirical re earch onhappiness reveal? Bok starts by mapping out four initial find-ings. First, we learn that while the standard of living in theUnited States has improved markedly over the past 50 year,average levels of happiness have not. Rich American todayare, as a whole, modestly happier than poor American, but thepercentages of Americans who describe themselves a 'veryhappy," "pretty happy" and "not happy" have not changed forgenerations. Apparently, our levels of happine s have Ie s to dowith the material comforts we posses and more to do with ourexpectations about the material comforts we believe we shouldposse s.

Second, people tend to overestimate the effects that certainchanges in their lives will have on their levels of happines .They predict that a new car, more money or a move to awarmer climate will bring them more happiness than thesethings do. The impact of uch changes on levels of happiness ismodest, and it tend to dissipate almost entirely in a short peri-od of time.

Third, growing levels of inequality in the U.S. between havesand have-not have not led to growing levels of dissati faction.Ironically, the only group that empirical research shows to bemea urably upset by the growing economic inequality in theUnited State are well-to-do Americans. If the election ofBarack Obama ignaled a new populism in the U.S., there is noign of such a shift in the happine research.

Finally, the re earch shows that there is no correlationbetween the percent of gro national income that a nationspend on social welfare program and the average happineslevels of that nation's population. Swedes are, on average,moderately happier than Americans, but this has more to dowith the average economic level of Swede than with theirstate-guaranteed health care and family leave rights.

From the e empirical findings, Bok develops a eries of pub-lic policy prescriptions designed to boost overall levels of hap-piness in society. If people are poor judges of what will makethem happy, then, he advises, we should offer more classe inhigh chool to teach students what psychologists and pollstershave learned about happine s: "Learning more about the

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Christian Century January 11, 2011 24

sources of happiness and dissatisfaction can clearly be of greatvalue to students." If at least minimum levels of wealth areneeded for happiness, and if a great source of unhappiness isfear of the loss of a job, Bok suggests, we can employ privatearbitrators to provide a basic means of redress for Americanworkers who are unjustly fired. It would also help, Bok con-tends, to more strictly enforce a 60-day notice period beforelayoffs are permitted

Mostof Bok's suggestions are modest and reasonable.They also seem arbitrary. It is not clear why alternateand perhaps more radical steps would not be war-

ranted. If people greatly overestimate the happiness derivedfrom the purchase of an expensive new car, we could offer ahigh school course outlining for students the latest happiness

People are poor judges ofwhat will make them happy.

research and the sober reality of consumer remorse, all thewhile knowing that the students will go home and be bombard-ed by the latest Lexus and BMW commercials on television.We might alternately decide to adopt as public policy a ban onthose flashy car commercials, much likewe did with cigarette ads; or we mightimpose a hefty luxury tax on cars to getmore people to support and utilize pub-lic transportation; or we might teachBuddhism in high school, promoting itas a path to the cessation of worldlydesire in our youth.

It is not clear why Bok's suggestionsshould be preferred over countless otheroptions, why his proposals would bemore effective means of raising happi-ness levels, or why the considerable pub-lic resources necessary to pur ue anyone of these options would be betterpent in curbing the people's desire for a

new car (that research shows will notmake them happy) than their desire fora fat-laden fast-food burger (thatresearch shows will not make themhappy). This quandary uncovers aninherent limit to the research on whichBok is so reliant: at its best, empiricalresearch uncovers what is; it has little tosay about what might be.

Using happiness research, Bok alsooffers cientific affirmation of some of thecore values and mores of American life.He reports that people who sustain lastingmarriages, contribute to charities, engagein community service, maintain close

friendships and participate in organized religion are all, on aver-age, considerably happier than those who do not. In short, happi-er people tend to be morally good people-at least by the stan-dards of mainstream American ethics. Bok finds this finding"gratifying" and expresses relief that widespread satisfactiondoe not come from "taking advantage of others and being insen-sitive to their needs."

While I, too, find comfort in these findings, I wish Bok weremore critical of the research that he utilizes. One wonders, forinstance, if supporting mainstream moral values actually makesone happier, or if people who adhere to mainstream values arehappier because their behavior receives less resistance fromtheir peers. In other words, does being married make one hap-pier, or does being married in a culture that validates marriagemake one happier? This is a crucial question to settle if we areto use happiness research, as Bok suggests, to shape public pol-icy. If the former is true, we would presumably want to enactlaws and policies to promote marriage for as many Americansas possible. If the latter is true, we might want to considerremoving tax laws and social policies that favor marriage sononmarried individuals could find greater happiness in andsupport for their personal life choices.

It is appropriate to remember that, for all of their differ-ences, Nietzsche and Augustine agreed on at least one point:the vast majority of people find greatest satisfaction in follow-ing the path of least resistance-in pursuing the common, the

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everyday, the banal. Both thinker wereat odds with their age, exhorting theirpeers to a vi ion of happiness and thegood that was wholly unpopular-onethat required personal sacrifice and self-denial. To ay that people find happinessin mainstream mores would be neither asurprise nor a validation for Nietzscheor Augustine. To them, it would merelybe confirmation of the magnitude of themoral task at hand.

As I read The Politics of Happiness, Icame increasingly to feel that somethingsignificant was missing from DerekBok s account. Then it hit me. What wasmi ing was a theme that is central toSis ela Bok's volume.

Since ancient times and through cen-turies of passionate debate-in Horace,Seneca, Augustine, Aquina , Nietzsche,Swift, Freud and countless others-philo opher , historians and theologianhave suggested that there is a critical dif-ference between where people in factfind happines and where they shouldfind happines , at least if happiness is tobe lasting and true. It is not that this dif-ference has been universally embracednor that a consensus has emergedaround where happiness should befound, but thinker have been nearlyunited in the view that a serious discus-ion of the philo ophical and theological

nature of happiness must precede anypolicy di cu sion about how happinesmight be promoted.

Contemporary re earch on happi-nes , grounded as it is in polls and opin-ion surveys, circumvents this importantdebate. It reifies that which is and thusLimits the debate about what might be. Ittreat existing opinion as reasoned judg-ment and proclivities as prescription.

To the modern pollster the opinionsof each individual must by definition beweighed equally-the opinions ofLycas as heavily of those of Nietzscheor Augustine. Truth is found in compil-ing results and determining a consen-sus. It is tempting to resolve age-oldand eemingly Intractable philosophi-cal debates by deferring to popularopinion. It is tempting, and it may evenbe cientific, but i it wise? If not, thenwhen all is aid and done, modern hap-pines research may tell u very littleabout happine s. tit