Abstract
In this chapter, I describe the concept of happiness based on popular philosophical writings such as Bentham and Aristotle. In this vein, I make the case that happiness is a strong and universal motive. A distinction is made among three philosophical views of happiness namely, psychological, prudential, and perfectionist. Psychological happiness, philosophically-speaking, is translated into a wellbeing concept coined as “hedonic wellbeing.” Psychological happiness or hedonic wellbeing is defined in terms of positive and negative affect, hedonic sensations of monetary pleasures, neuronal chemical release of dopamine in the brain, psychological utility, and emotional wellbeing. In contrast, prudential happiness is translated psychologically into the popular concept of life satisfaction. In that vein, prudential happiness is further translated in research related to life satisfaction, domain satisfaction, flow and engagement, desire satisfaction, and attitudinal pleasure. The third major philosophical concept of happiness is perfectionist happiness, which is translated in the psychology literature as eudaimonic or psychological wellbeing. The wellbeing research that comes under this umbrella concept include eudaimonia, purpose and meaning in life, positive mental health or flourishing, satisfaction of the full spectrum of human needs (basic and growth needs), wisdom, resilience, and functional wellbeing.
“Conceive yourself, if possible, suddenly stripped of all the emotion with which your world now inspires you, and try to imagine it as it exists, purely by itself, without your favorable or unfavorable, hopeful or apprehensive comment… No one portion of the universe would then have importance beyond another; and the whole collection of its things and series of its events would be without significance, character, expression, or perspective. Whatever of value, interest, or meaning in our respective worlds may appear endued with are thus pure gifts of the spectator’s mind.”
—William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (cited in Spurlock, 2006).
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Notes
- 1.
See McMahon (2018) for an interesting and a thought-provoking read on the history of understanding happiness.
- 2.
For an informative philosophical discussion of “heterogeneous pleasures,” please see a recent publication by Andrew Alwood (Alwood, 2018).
- 3.
Repeated in the sense that the item appears in different part of the questionnaire to allow the testing of internal consistency-type of reliability.
- 4.
Examples of life domains include leisure life, work life, family life, social life, and community life, among others.
- 5.
See Kunicki and Harlow (2020) for an attempt to measure resilience as a higher-order construct involving the following constructs: purpose in life, self-esteem, life satisfaction, cognitive flexibility, proactive coping, and social support.
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Sirgy, M.J. (2021). Philosophical Foundations, Definitions, and Measures of Wellbeing. In: The Psychology of Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 83. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71888-6_1
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