Many people believe that happiness is a fundamental element of well-being. Few schools of thought deny that, although hedonists and emotion state theorists may not think that it’s as important as other concepts such as eudaimonia or meaning.
But how is happiness measured? It seems like a numbers game.
Partial Tank
Some philosophers have sought an irenic solution to the diverse intuitions about happiness by identifying it with both life satisfaction and pleasure or emotional state. This approach, which may include domain satisfactions and positive and negative emotions, avoids the objection that hedonism is too narrow.
But it raises the concern that it does not address people’s different intuitions about what counts for happiness. A hybrid theory also risks pleasing no one, for it might resemble the marriage of two unpromising accounts or, worse, it might be taken to imply that there is only a single, ineffable feeling called “happiness” (Nussbaum 2008).
More light-handed attempts at boosting happiness have involved promoting it directly through social policy, for example by prioritizing unemployment reduction over economic growth on the grounds that it has greater effects on well-being. This is a more indirect route than focusing on material possessions, and it is less prone to charges of paternalism, though some worry that putting happiness at the center of public policy can actually backfire by sacrificing other substantive goods like freedom (Haybron and Alexandrova 2013).
Full Tank
Using the car analogy, when your happiness tank runs low, you start to feel frustrated and irritable. You may notice that your relationships and work performance begin to suffer. This is why it’s important to regularly fill your happiness tank, and to know what to do when you find yourself running out of fuel.
Research has shown that higher-energy emotions like joy, gratitude, compassion and love boost the immune system, improve heart health, and increase trust, monogamy and caregiving behavior. They also stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, allowing the body to heal, rest and connect.
There are three main traditional theories about happiness. Hedonism, which is based on the pleasure/pain paradigm (you’re either happy or you’re not) assumes that a life filled with pleasure and avoided pain is most desirable. Other theories, such as Nussbaum’s Objective List Theory and Sen’s Capability Approach, place happiness outside of raw subjective feeling and onto a human life that satisfies certain needs and wants.