On Happiness
Dialogs May 24th, 2007Your question on measuring happiness reminded me of this scene from the TV show Frasier (series 1, final episode):
Niles: So, Frasier, now that chapter two of your life is in full swing, do you mind if I ask you something?
Frasier: No, go right ahead.
Niles: Are you happy?
Frasier thinks.
Niles: Did you hear the question?
Frasier: Yes, I’m thinking. It’s a seemingly complex question.
Niles: No, it’s not.
Frasier: Yes, it is.
Niles: No, it’s not. Either you’re happy or you’re not.
Frasier: Are you happy?
Niles: No, but we’re not talking about me.
Anyway, I think the empirical method they used was get participants to carry a personal data assistant (PDA) for a few days. It beeps a few times randomly a few times a day. When this happens, the participant marks on the PDA on a 7 point scale from one end “very unhappy” to “very happy”. This tends to get people to measure their happiness when actually living their lives instead of sitting in a lab.
You asked “What if we were unable to communicate our senses of approval or aprobation?” Unless there is a way of determining happiness in a participant using brain scan or hormone levels, this would not be measurable. This is therefore outside the scope of empirical investigation until we figure out a way to measure it. It is an interesting philosophical question which I am not going to initiate until I have some interesting ideas – but you can if you want. 
The formula H=S+C+V, I think, is trying to state the following ideas:
There are various (generally) independent factors that contribute to happiness. Of course there are changes to our conditions of living (C) that we respond to in our voluntary actions (V) so admittedly they are not completely independent.
Most contributing factors to happiness are outside our control (S and C)
Since most external factors in our life conditions (C) get normalized in the long term (we eventually get used to most things), they do not give long term happiness/unhappiness. They tend to zero contribution. (Note: there is nothing wrong with short term happiness! It’s just short!) The Happiness Hypothesis does list some factors that are not normalised by time.
Our set point (S), which is “hard wired” in our body/mind is more or less constant.
For more information check out this Discover magazine article.
Anti Citizen One
May 27th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Thankyou for expanding on the science of happiness. I will have to ponder the philosophical approach to what I call happiness awareness. I guess the question of happiness awareness doesn’t need to be clothed in hypothetical scenarios such as how can I express my happiness if I have no means of communication. The problems of happiness awareness are more obvious than that. The problem with happiness it appears to me is twofold, firstly how do we define happiness? Is it simply pleasure or the satisfaction of desire? If so then isn’t the Heroin addict happy when he has his fix. (Quite relevant in my ongoing battle to quit smoking!)In fact more happy than he would be if he were to forego that fix and suffer from withdrawal symptoms? Of course we can talk about the longterm benefits of breaking addiction, but as you have already noted ‘there is nothing wrong with short term happiness.’ The philosophical/psychological response is to say that genuine ‘pleasure’ can often be confused with the physiological and psychological sensations of compulsive behaviour and its rewards. Is the smoker genuinely happy? Or is their sense of comfort/elation/satisfaction and pleasure just the neurological and psychological response of the addict who has surrendered to their addiction (did they even choose to surrender in the first place?) So I think the confusion between compulsion and pleasure makes happiness a very difficult field to study. This I would guess covers the variable ‘V’ of our voluntary actions, just how voluntary though are those actions say in the case of addiction/compulsive behaviour?
My second concern philosophically is about pre-conditioned notions of happiness. Which is closely related to the first concern but differ in that such ‘notions’ of happiness in this case are entirely outside of our control and determination. In other words is it not the case that we are ‘taught’ how to be happy? Is happiness a social variable (S and C) that in all honesty only resembles what ‘happiness’ actually is?
This could get into the Wittgenstein field of how do you define a game, what common denominators do they have etc. But I guess this is one of those scenarios, being social animals we are conditioned from birth to behave in certain ways, these social ‘ethics’ over which we have no control define the boundaries of our happiness. And how? By expressions of social approval or disapproval.
Imagine all the people who disapprove of ‘rowdy’ or noisy behaviour by drunkards late at night. This behaviour impinges upon their happiness, keeping them awake, making them tired and irritable at work. The drunkard could be happily oblivious to all of this (which brings us into ideas of competing rights again!)But then let us consider the deaf person, for whom the experience of noise would be a great wonder and a cause of happiness. So really to say such things as ‘I’m happiest living in a quiet part of town’ (for example) is really saying ‘I have a preference for not being disturbed at night so I choose to live in a quiet part of town’ or ‘I disapprove of noisiness’. So notions of happiness are in part socially defined, and are certainly not constants. In these cases then I would think that the measurement of happiness would be a rather difficult thing to achieve, or at the very least any measurement of happiness must be by its nature vague. In which case then is it of any scientific merit at all?
Of course I have ignored one of the constants (S) which as you stated it is hard wired into us I would assume is the type of happiness associated with pleasure/satisfaction. I’m thinking in these cases of the ‘happiness’ of relieving or satisfying hunger pains. The ‘happiness’ an infant child (non-verbally expressed) when it is bonding with its mother.
The concept of happiness and the attempt to measure it isn’t a new one in philosophy, and was attempted by the Utilitarians. ‘The greatest happiness to the greatest number’
Bentham provided the following criterion for measuring happiness/pleasure when using this measurement to evaluate the moral rectitude and desirability of a certain action and its possible outcomes.
1) Intensity
2) Duration
3) Certainty of occurence
4) How long must I wait?
5) Fecundity (the likelihood that these sensations will be repeated)
6) Purity, will pleasure be counterbalanced by pain?(drunkeness/hangover)
7) Extent (only of concern to the social Utilitarian).
All of these could be measured using the method that you described but, considering my two philosophical concerns I think such measurements are nonsensical. Furthermore the happiness of different people is incommensurable (in other words what one person would equate as a 10 rating happiness another may only eqaute with an 8, even though both had experienced the same sensational triggers).
p.s. I would have posted this as part of the thread but alas am at work and cannot remember my login!