Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

SUBSCRIBE NOW

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Articles

Whatever Happened to Happiness?

Adam Potkay says there was always much more to happiness than just feelin’ good. He argues that we should once again recognise that the good life is the happy life.

Everyone thinks they know what happiness is. Most people I’ve asked to define it – I’ve tried this with friends as well as my college students – reply at first that it’s a feeling, a mood, a degree of elation. This feeling sometimes has nothing to do with external circumstances, as proved by our ready comprehension of the question “what are you so happy about?” in situations where the expected reply is an “oh, nothing” by the idly smiling party. Of course, that the question gets asked at all proves that we more readily think of happiness as part of a proposition: “My new car makes me happy.” To quote a Peanuts book from the sixties, “Happiness is a warm puppy,” or “Happiness is a thumb and a blanket.

…