Measuring the Intangible

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
 
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Our country was founded on these three words, but what do they mean to us? How were these rights given to us by our “Creator”? Lets take a closer look at these three words:

Life- the quality of being alive; a living, breathing human being. This happened when the “Creator” created us, giving us life and a soul, separating ourselves from his other creations. 
Liberty- the idea that humans are able to govern themselves and to do so on free will. This was first given to us when God gave Adam and Eve the option to obey or not to obey in the Garden of Eden.
Pursuit of happiness – the motion of trying to find contentment. But what is contentment? What makes someone happy? Isn’t it different per person?

Back in the late 1700s, there was no modern technology, no email, blogging, or Facebook. As sad as it was, only a small portion of the population could actually read and write and America was definitely not equal. So what did happiness mean to them? Adam Ferguson, author of “An essay on the history of civil society,”explains his definition of the pursuit of happiness as “Within its original rich context, the pursuit of happiness is a phenomenon both obvious and paradoxical. It supplies us with the ground of human right and the goal of human virtue. It is the basic drive of the self, and the only means given for transcending the self.”

He comments that striving for happiness is the ultimate goal for finding one self. This was achieved through the foundations of life and liberty that the Declaration provided and protected us with. Thomas Jefferson clearly agreed by putting “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. But it is quite ironic that as Jefferson was advocating freedom through life, liberty and finding the right path toward happiness, when he himself enslaved 200 men and women who were not given any of these rights even though he clearly stated, “all men are created equal”.

But we are not in 1776 anymore. In today’s society, in America at least, we drive cars, find our information on the world wide web, communicate with our friends through Facebook, have business meetings through Skype and heat our food up in a microwave. We can fly across the country in six hours, have a calculator add up our numbers and ride an elevator up three flights of stairs. Life and liberty are taken for granted; those rights do not even have a hint of doubt. But what about the pursuit of happiness? Does it mean the same as it did when the Declaration was written? Not so much anymore. Like life and liberty, we take happiness for granted. We just assume everyone around us is happy and the days we are not content, we figure out why and strive to happiness again.

When someone asks “Are you happy?” the answer is usually a yes or no unless the person is one of your closest friend/family member. But is this question really that simple? Are you happy with where you are in life? Are you economically satisfied? Are you pleased with your social life? Are you content with all your materialistic possessions? Now it doesn’t seem so simple… it all depends on what kind of happiness you are inquiring about.

So what is the definition of happiness?

According to the Merriam-Webster:
hap·pi·ness
noun \ˈha-pē-nəs\
1 obsolete : good fortune : prosperity
2. a) a state of well-being and contentment : joy b)a pleasurable or satisfying experience

Could that be any more ambiguous? What does it mean to be content? How is this measured? Although happiness is subjective (only you know if you yourself is happy), to a degree there must be some sort of standard that we measure our happiness from. But the question is, how is it measured and through what angle? Happiness is broken down philosophically, economically, and psychologically. Dating back to the ancient Greeks, happiness has always been questioned on how to find it and how it affects us. Economically happiness is measured through the Gross National Happiness and the effects of capitalism (at least in America). Meanwhile psychologists approach happiness through positive psychology and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Yet even with all the science and data to support it, I don’t believe personal happiness can be measured on a scale. Happiness is completely subjective and purely dependent on external and internal influences of each individual.

The debate of what happiness actually means dates back to the times of the ancient Greeks. The Greek word most closely associated with happiness is eudaimonia. Broken down into its roots, "eu" means good and "daimōn" means a type of supernatural being. It is a state of being mankind thrives to and may possibly one day reach. The theory of eudaimonia is most closely associated with the works of Aristotle. Aristotle’s work the Nicomachean Ethics, proposes one of his key theories, what is the purpose of human existence? He saw happiness as an end result that could only be measured once we have reached death. “For as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.” Anything we felt at a certain moment in time was considered temporary pleasure.

To achieve eudaimonia at the end of a lifetime, Aristotle believed in living well and the virtue of wellbeing. These included three candidates: a life of pleasure, a life of political activity and a philosophical life. Yet since much of these qualities were subjective, explains Aristotle’s claim that happiness could not be measured until after we had died. So according to Aristotle, the goal in life is to thrive for happiness, or in other words, to find the pursuit of happiness. As described in the introduction of this post, our country was founded on this idea. Although written by Thomas Jefferson, “the pursuit of happiness” stems from the philosopher John Locke. John Locke claims the pursuit of happiness is the foundation of liberty because of the freedom it gives us from any attachments. He writes in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 
“The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action…” (p.348)
We as humans need to responsibly use our freedom to guide us down the right path to happiness. Like Aristotle, Locke believed happiness is the end result of living a life full of virtue and wellbeing. These were achieved through intellectual and moral effort. He then distinguishes “imaginary” happiness and “real” happiness. “Imaginary” happiness was a short-term pleasure later followed by discomfort or pain. Instant gratification, he believes is not why we were put on the Earth, otherwise we would have been stuck with simple pleasures such as eating and sleeping. Achieving “real” happiness is what separates humans from animals. Locke suggests the fear of death, is the one fear installed in all of us. If we live our lives with virtue and wellbeing, we will continue on to the afterlife. We will know if we have reached “real” happiness by our continuation into the afterlife. So according to Locke, happiness is measured by the afterlife.

Although Locke uses the afterlife as a measurement of happiness, it is still mostly subjective. There is still no solid scientific facts or data collection to accurately measure happiness from a philosophical standpoint.

So lets try measuring happiness from an economic standpoint.

King Wangchuck of the Himalayan nation of Bhutan measured the healthiness of his country not by gross domestic product, but by gross national happiness. Gross National Happiness or GNH, is based on the premise that “wealth” should be measured in other terms besides economic conditions. King Wangchuck, a practicing Buddhist, believed society should all be in harmony with the Earth - having an integration of material possessions with psychological, cultural and spiritual aspects. There are four pillars of GNH that coincide with each other to help create a material and spiritual development. These include:

• The promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development
• The preservation and promotion of cultural values
• The conservation of the natural environment, and
• The establishment of good governance.

Together these pillars of GNH help measure the wellbeing of the social and psychological meaning of society. But these measurements are subjectively reported. According to Ross McDonald of St. Xavier’s University, GNH has no exact quantitative definition, although elements that are contributed GNH can be measured quantitatively. The practice has been directed towards moving subjective expression of large numbers of people into meaningful quantitative data. Well what does this mean? The GNH survey takes measures on the wellness of personal wealth, the surrounding environment, physical and mental state, workplace environment, along with social and political wellness. The survey is subjective, questions varying from rating your agreeability to a statement based on 1-10 or asking a question such as:
Would you define your life as…
a) very stressed, b) somewhat stressed, c) not stressed, d) I don't know
These results along with GDP are rationalized together and result in the happiness of the country. While this is a good indicator of the general happiness of the country, this still does not truly measure personal happiness. Especially since it is subjective, there is no exact comparison to base your answers off of.

For example, the GNH asks:

I mean yes I consider myself happy but who do I base my happiness off of? Compared to my best friend who is suffering from depression, I am the happiest person on Earth. But compared to my cousin who just got married, I might not be as happy as he is. The day and my surroundings of when I take the survey also will affect my score. I could have been stuck in traffic or woke up late, dampening my mood. It is also a long administered process that takes half a day.

To an extent, happiness has a correlation with wealth. The rich are recorded happier than the poor but affluent countries to do not seem to be happier as they grow wealthier. So does the old phrase, “money can’t buy happiness” hold true? John Maynard Keynes, a world famous economist believed money could. In 1930, Keynes believed that societies with more money would have more leisure. Because they had more money, they did not have to work as hard to enjoy the finer things in life. They would work hard at their jobs to earn that money in hope that being able to afford luxuries would make them happier. This turned out not be the case. Stress would not only come from that drive to work laboriously but also the aspiration to be high in society.

Yet to an extent, there is a threshold of how much happier someone becomes after obtaining wealth. This usually pertains to the poor people or those who are sick. They know have some kind of economic freedom, which is strongly correlated with happiness. Now, not only are the poor now able to afford luxuries they never had the opportunity to have before, but an increase in wealth also brings an increase to their social status. Acceptance in society has a direct impact on happiness.

But after awhile, capitalism is adept atturning luxuries into necessities. Items that were once prized and thought after are now taken for granted. This notion becomes a circle, once a better standard of living is achieved, these pleasures become inured. For example, a long time ago, hardly any one used to go to college. It was not necessary to get a college degree unless you were trying to become a doctor or scientist. In today’s society, it is almost necessary to go to college, at least in the Western world, to be able to even compete for a well paying job. Turning luxuries into necessities takes the pleasure and joy of achieving such things until they become mundane and just become a necessity of living.

So if GNH does not measure happiness on a personal level and wealth does not contribute to our happiness, can our happiness be determined on a psychological need?

The purpose of the science of happiness is to identify the difference aspects of happiness. Because it means something different to everyone, psychologists wanted to attempt to at least find some kind of guidelines for happiness. This was the foundation of positive psychology started by psychologist Martin Seligman. Seligman found that the happiest people were those who had discovered “ signature strengths” such as humanity, temperance and persistence. These visions relate back to the works and findings of Aristotle that this post mentioned earlier. He concluded that happiness was cultivated in three ways:

· The Pleasant Life – Learning to appreciate and accept the basic pleasures of life

· The Good Life – Discovering our strengths and using them to creatively enhance our lives

· The Meaningful Life – Sense of fulfilment by using our strengths for a greater purpose

Seligman’s conclusions are directly correlated with the last need on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: self-actualization.

Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation suggests that humans are motivated by unsatisfied needs.

Each need needs to be satisfied before the next need can be attempted. Starting with physiological needs (eating, breathing, sleeping, sex), moving to safety needs (Economic, social, vocational, psychological security), than social needs (building family, friendships and intimate connections) and esteem needs (self esteem from being loved by family and the community). The last need on the top of the pyramid, self-actualization is described as “What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization… It refers to the desire forself-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in whathe is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become moreand more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” Maslow calls these experiences happiness. People who have reached self-actualization tend to be happier and more satisfied with life.

So according to Maslow, happiness is when self-actualization is achieved. Although this tells us how to achieve happiness, he does not explain how to tell how happy we are once we reach this optimal level of need. Even tying back to positive psychology, it is merely only shows us a path to achieve happiness beyond materialistic possessions. We as humans are shown the path and necessary steps to reach happiness but once getting there, measuring how happy we truly are is still somewhat undefined.

In today’s society, with GNH tying to positive psychology and the works of the ancient Greeks intertwined into positive psychology and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, all three concepts, philosophical, economical and psychological, are necessary for happiness. All three are needed to achieve happiness. Yet happiness research is still somewhat limited on current measurement techniques. Although attempted there is no empirical wide range scale that we can base our happiness off of. But then again maybe a scale is not necessary. As Aristotle and Locke have argued, finding happiness is a lifetime goal and all the short term “happiness” are just pleasures. Too many external and internal influences encompass someone’s happiness that it is near impossible to judge against someone else. All our experiences are unique and although we all work toward a common goal of finding happiness, each of our paths are completely different. As long as we as individuals are pleased with our decisions and opportunities, then we have found happiness.

References:

"Affluence: Happiness (and How to Measure It) | The Economist." The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance. 19 Dec. 1996. Web. <http://www.economist.com/node/8450035>.

Beavan, Colin. No Impact Man: the Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes about Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Print.

Cottingham, John. "The Fine, The Good, and the Meaningful." TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine. 11 Oct. 2010. Web. <http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=6>.

"Does Happiness Mean a Grande Vanilla Latte?" The Wartburg Watch. 2011. Web

Ferguson, Adam. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Print.

"Happiness and Economics: Economics Discovers Its Feelings | The Economist." The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance. Web. 19 Dec. 1996. <http://www.economist.com/node/8401269>.

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Vol. 1. New York: Dover Publications. Print.

McDonald, Ross (2005). Rethinking Development. Local Pathways to Global Wellbeing. St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. pp. 3.

Niven, David. The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It. [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000. Print.

Norman, Richard. "Meeting Human Needs." TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine. 23 May 2011. Web. <http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1919>.

Schoch, Richard. "Ideas of the Century: Happiness (40/50)." TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine. 10 Dec. 2010. Web. <http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1686>.