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There is a logical relation between happiness and events/things that I referred to and used in my previous post, but I don’t think I explained it explicitly enough. So here goes:

Why do we value certain things? So, why do we value good food, good jobs, etc? The answer, according to Aristotle (who I roughly agree with here), is that all our actions must end with some ultimate end, namely happiness. So the things (food/jobs) are valuable because they produce happiness, so they are instrumentally valuable whereas happiness is intrinsically valuable.

The point to notice is that the “reasons” for being happy aren’t intrinsically valuable. Realizing that happiness is the intrinsic value brings up the question: why not just pursue the intrinsic value, and not arbitrarily assign necessary conditions for happiness to purely instrumental values.

I’ve written before on the idea that in life, finding meaning involves forming your own conception of what is valuable in life (http://fensel.net/2011/07/27/getting-caught-up-in-the-absurd/). I purposefully left what this meaning could be blank, I find that it has to be a variable depending on the individual person. What is valuable to me might not be to you, and so forth.

However, there is some universal idea of happiness that people have that we may all share. Happiness is an incredibly difficult word for me to define without providing a circular definition, but it implies a basic idea of enjoyment, satisfaction, and coincides with whatever people think has meaning in life.

Movies, quotes, etc. have perpetuated the idea that their is some pursuit of happiness (which happens to be the title of a really good movie). Meaning, there is some end goal that people are pursuing that will result in happiness. Since we all want happiness, we should all pursue it, and we find our own ways of doing this.

A lot of people would reply that happiness is not something to be pursued, and that people have to learn to be happy with what they have (I’m one of those people). In general however, this idea can often be boiled down to one idea: you already have enough reasons to be happy.  The people in your life, where your at, family, etc. are often the “real reasons” that people will use to show why you should be happy with what you’ve got. This contrasts with the successful, rich, perfect family ideal that some people use to pursue happiness. If these were the only two options, I would obviously go with the former-learn to be happy with the things you already have.

The point of this post, however, is a rejection of the idea that you already have things in your life that give you reason to be happy. Meaning, you shouldn’t be happy because you have a nice family/job/relationship/etc. The reason for this is because under this system of logic, happiness becomes a result of what you have, justified by the things you have. Meaning, you are happy because you have a family.

Instead of being happy because of the family, you should be happy because being happy is worthwhile. Happiness is, as argued to some degree by Aristotle and utilitarians, the only valuable end. So, if you were strictly logical, you would reason:

1. Happiness is intrinsically valuable.

2. There is no such value that happiness could be worth sacrificing for.

Therefore,

3. There is no reason, other than to improve happiness in other places, for you to be unhappy.

What I am effectively saying is, you always have a reason to be happy. Since happiness is valuable at all times, you should always be happy. Other values, such as other people’s opinions, social status, money, etc., are not intrinsically valuable. Their instrumentally valuable only as much as they relate to your own happiness.

This probably doesn’t seem like I’m saying much, but discovering this idea, and actually understanding it, defined who I am possibly more than any other revelation. Consider what I’m saying: there never needs to be a reason for you to be happy. Happiness, due to it’s intrinsic value, is reason in itself for you to have it. So, you are happy because you want to be happy.

Conversely, this means that you never really have a reason to be unhappy. Being unhappy diminishes the value of your happiness, and their is no separate value that could logically justify this.

To apply this idea (that I imagine is sounding like obvious stuff, but I can’t stress enough how different life is if you actually hold this belief), reflect on yourself when your at times of high happiness or high misery. When your really happy, do you always have a justification outside of happiness (ie are you only happy when something goes really well)? When your really miserable, do you think you have reasons to be (like saying: I’m sad because of ____)? The idea of this post, that I hope comes across, is that both of these reasons are completely illogical. Failing a class, losing a job, etc. are not reasons to be unhappy. They are reasons to do other things (like look for a new job), but feeling unhappy about it literally is only a negative value that improves nothing.

Two possible objections:

1. If you buy into Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, you might think that you need food/shelter/security before you can feel truly happy. This might be true, as people might be animals that need these basic necessities before being able to escape stress of fearing death. However, to respond, I would simply say: the lack of those things aren’t truly reasons to be unhappy. We may be incapable of avoiding unhappiness in these situations, but we are also not purely logical creatures. The point of this post is simply that, if we had perfect logic, we would realize that we should always be happy. (Side note: the ability to be happy for no outside reason, or to be happy when we think there are reasons to be sad, is not easy. As illogical animals, we don’t have the ability to act and feel logically at all times. So, as illogical animals, we should simply try to be logical as often as possible. Just, when reflecting on this, at least realize the logic even if your emotions won’t listen).

2. The happiness of ourselves isn’t the only end worthwhile, as we also value the happiness of others (if this is true, I can potentially prove morality, but I am working on it and it isn’t easy). What this entails is that perhaps when the happiness of another is decreased, or worse ended, we might have a reason to be unhappy as something we value for its own sake is gone. However, the logic still goes against this. Being unhappy does not improve the happiness of others that we value, so the unhappiness is not intrinsically or instrumentally justified. However, I would never advocate someone being purely reasonable in all areas, as value itself is slightly unreasonable (I’ll get into this in a future post). It would be wrong to expect people to be able to logically deduce that they shouldn’t be sad when a relative dies. However, this only applies in extreme cases, and in almost every other area, it is not intrinsically or instrumentally worthwhile to be unhappy.