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What Is This Thing Called Happiness? 1st edition by Feldman, Fred (2010) Hardcover
According to an ancient and still popular view -- sometimes known as 'eudaimonism' -- a person's well-being, or quality of life, is ultimately determined by his or her level of happiness. According to this view, the happier a person is, the better off he is. The doctrine is controversial in part because the nature of happiness is controversial. In What Is This Thing Called Happiness? Fred Feldman presents a study of the nature and value of happiness. Part One contains critical discussions of the main philosophical and psychological theories of happiness. Feldman presents arguments designed to show that each of these theories is problematic. Part Two contains his presentation and defense of his own theory of happiness, which is a form of attitudinal hedonism. On this view, a person's level of happiness may be identified with the extent to which he or she takes pleasure in things. Feldman shows that if we understand happiness as he proposes, it becomes reasonable to suppose that a person's well-being is determined by his or her level of happiness. This view has important implications not only for moral philosophy, but also for the emerging field of hedonic psychology. Part Three contains discussions of some interactions between the proposed theory of happiness and empirical research into happiness.
- GenresPhilosophy
Hardcover
First published March 18, 2010
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January 26, 2025
This is a great book! Feldman’s writing style is very clear, to the point of being blunt or glib at certain points. It’s kinda funny, in the way that analytic philosophy can be funny. It’s also relative short and the arguments of each section hold up independently, so it could be excerpted for whatever yoir interests are.
The central aim of the book is to clear up confusion about the concept of happiness, especially as it is treated in empirical “happiness” research. Feldman thinks happiness is “intrinsic attitudinal pleasure,” a psychological state of being pleased with/about, or taking pleasure in, some state of affairs. He defends that account against others, including “sensory hedonism,” Kahneman’s view(s), satisfactionism(s), and preferentism(s). He also argues that happiness so understood is not the same thing as well-being (an evaluative, rather than descriptive concept). But he also argues that happiness does, in fact, correlate with well-being: “the good life is the happy life.” He notes that there are other modes of life-evaluation than the one represented by well-being, such as moral and aesthetic value. I am not as convinced as he is of the distinctness of all these categories, but it would take a lot to work out why.
I think he’s more right than wrong on the descriptive account; I think his account represents what most people mean by the word, whether they know it or not. But I’m not as convinced as he is that ‘happiness’ has a singular “core meaning” that belongs to its ordinary uses. I think some people do use it in an evaluative sense, corresponding to well-being. Some people probably also use it to refer to preference satisfaction or whole-life satisfaction, and maybe even sensory pleasure. I think this is because the word has a complicated history and people inherit different conceptions and usages. Some use it like Bentham used it; others use it to translate the beatitudes (“happy are the poor…”) or Eudaimonia in Aristotle. These clearly aren’t the same, and neither clearly maps onto Feldman’s definition. I think he would have to say that these are exceptional cases of usage, most people, on reflection, would not think of happiness in strictly these ways. I’m not sure what to say about this.
But I think ‘happiness’ ranges in usage from the lofty sense of “the final end of practical reason,” the good for the sake of which all else is done, to the plainer sense of feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, or pro-attitudes towards propositions. And the history of ‘happiness’ is what generated this plurality and the confusion it has caused. Also, the empiricists and utilitarians are responsible for all the confusion about “empirical happiness research.”
Anyway, this is definitely worth reading, an exemplar of analytic philosophy.
The central aim of the book is to clear up confusion about the concept of happiness, especially as it is treated in empirical “happiness” research. Feldman thinks happiness is “intrinsic attitudinal pleasure,” a psychological state of being pleased with/about, or taking pleasure in, some state of affairs. He defends that account against others, including “sensory hedonism,” Kahneman’s view(s), satisfactionism(s), and preferentism(s). He also argues that happiness so understood is not the same thing as well-being (an evaluative, rather than descriptive concept). But he also argues that happiness does, in fact, correlate with well-being: “the good life is the happy life.” He notes that there are other modes of life-evaluation than the one represented by well-being, such as moral and aesthetic value. I am not as convinced as he is of the distinctness of all these categories, but it would take a lot to work out why.
I think he’s more right than wrong on the descriptive account; I think his account represents what most people mean by the word, whether they know it or not. But I’m not as convinced as he is that ‘happiness’ has a singular “core meaning” that belongs to its ordinary uses. I think some people do use it in an evaluative sense, corresponding to well-being. Some people probably also use it to refer to preference satisfaction or whole-life satisfaction, and maybe even sensory pleasure. I think this is because the word has a complicated history and people inherit different conceptions and usages. Some use it like Bentham used it; others use it to translate the beatitudes (“happy are the poor…”) or Eudaimonia in Aristotle. These clearly aren’t the same, and neither clearly maps onto Feldman’s definition. I think he would have to say that these are exceptional cases of usage, most people, on reflection, would not think of happiness in strictly these ways. I’m not sure what to say about this.
But I think ‘happiness’ ranges in usage from the lofty sense of “the final end of practical reason,” the good for the sake of which all else is done, to the plainer sense of feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, or pro-attitudes towards propositions. And the history of ‘happiness’ is what generated this plurality and the confusion it has caused. Also, the empiricists and utilitarians are responsible for all the confusion about “empirical happiness research.”
Anyway, this is definitely worth reading, an exemplar of analytic philosophy.
Displaying 1 of 1 review