Introduction
Positive psychology is a science of positive features of the life of a human being, including happiness, welfare, and prosperity. It stretches back in history a long way. The modern studies of happiness and ancient views on the good life relate and contrast to each other from different angles.
Ancient Concept of Happiness and Good Life
The ancient studies and views on happiness and excellence in life mainly focus on virtue. The scholars and philosophers, from East and West, put across various perspectives on the reality of happiness.
The prominent Greek philosopher Aristotle says that every individual strives for happiness as an effective comprehension of their intrinsic qualities and thrives to achieve it as a goal of human life. In his Nicomachean Ethics, he analyses human intellect and personality with relation to happiness, in which he drew a beautifully balanced relation between happiness and virtue. A eudemonic person chooses to do what reflects his best characteristics as a human being and utilizes external or material goods only to produce conducting conditions for achieving eudemonia.
Aristotle’s concept of virtue and doctrine of the mean
Aristotle differentiated virtues or excellent qualities as moral virtues and intellectual virtues. Moral virtue depicts the manifestation of an individual’s personality developed by the actions and choices that become habitual. It’s measured as a mean between two extreme qualities; is excessiveness and deficiency. However, intellectual virtues focus on rationality focus on rationality and pragmatic intelligence. It depicts one should know in every condition how to do the right thing at the right time in the right way. (Charles Sylvester).
Epicurus however expressed some inclination towards ethical hedonism and subjective happiness. According to him, happiness is freedom from pain in the body and a disturbance in the mind. A man starts every act of choice and evasion from pleasure, and using this experience of pleasure as the criterion of every good thing, he returns to it.
Stoic emphasizes the notion that the vital quality of human beings is rational thinking. He held the opinion that virtue contributes to eudemonia and vice prevents eudemonia (Juhi Sihvola). Controlling pain is not in our hands, though we can avoid it through tolerant and courageous acknowledgment of unpleasant things. Nothing can be detrimental to a virtuous man, either he lives or he dies (Socrates).
Steering towards the school of thought in the East, the idea of happiness is found more inclined from individual to humanitarian perspectives.
Confucius introduced the idea of compassion to happiness. His focus is on being righteous in one’s actions, rather than being hedonistic. He cultivated love and generosity towards humankind. A perfect form of virtue can be achieved if one follows five qualities in their life: solemnity, nobility of character, honesty, genuineness, and compassion. (Confucius).
In Taoism, Laozi’s emphasis was on living a life by the general pattern of nature, giving the arbitrary choice a second priority. It promotes people to concord with nature and mankind by focusing on simplicity and harmony in their lives. However, an opinion worth mentioning is that it’s hard to free the world from subjective human values.
Gautama Buddha, a Nepalese-born founder of Buddhism, also concurs with the existence of sorrow in suffering in human life but he attributes it to the penchant of human desire. The desire must be eradicated and this could be achieved through his Aryan Eightfold Path that that suggests a right form of view, objective, action, speech, profession, effort, awareness, and meditation pursued by an individual. (Inderbir K Sandhu).
Modern Concepts of Happiness and Good Life
The modern theories on happiness came forward with more liberalism in them. Modern happiness and satisfaction are eventually things that are determined by an individual’s evaluation of his mental and sentimental states (Charles Sylvester). It provides a very supple concept of happiness- different for each individual and based mainly on fulfillment of his desires. In the modern era, the concept of subjective well-being (SWB) has emerged.
Subjective Well-being
It is that field of positive psychology in which it is tried to figure out how people assess their lives. Their different aspects of life are examined to judge how they perceive their experiences and feelings (Charles Sylvester). It gives a picture of their general degree of happiness and contentment.
English terms such as happiness, well-being, and flourishing can have greatly different implications which make our interpretations of the Greek term more complex (Thornton Lockwood). But the difference of opinion between the two lies with the practical notion, not on a semantic or conceptual basis. The concept of subjective well-being and desire-satisfaction attributes largely to the fissure of contrast between ancient and contemporary approaches. (Julia Annas).
In Richard Kraut’s view, the essential constituent of happiness is an optimistic mindset towards life. One is happy with their life when their wishes and desires are fulfilled, whatever they may be.
Wayne Sumner retorts that virtues are not necessary to be achieved. In his view even ethically challenged people to feel happy and positive with their lives if they believe that their desires are getting satisfied (independent of the authenticity of their belief).
Juhi Sihvola argues with Sumner’s denial of some of the primeval views and claims to be aligned with the ancient concept in her view that a positive attitude towards life is both essential and adequate for one’s happiness.
Edip Yuksel divides the concept of happiness into temporal and permanent happiness: the first is our present response to a certain pleasant experience, while the second is our sense of self-satisfaction from our overall aspects of life. It all depends on an individual’s personality, the context of his action, and his culture as to what he considers right or wrong, and eventually, that determines his contentment and happiness.
The Relation between Earlier and Contemporary Concepts
The modern concepts of happiness and virtue brought along many contrary angles to what ancient scholars stated, but the chief concepts still relate strongly.
Well-being is used by modern moralists as satisfaction and complacency with one’s life, but it also presents a notion of good and valuable life. L. W. Sumner highlights the point that if eudemonia is considered more as “well-being” than happiness, then its link with virtue, as stated by Aristotle, could be justified.
Though Sumner has articulated the debate that immoral and bad individuals can be equally happy as the virtuous ones (as there are people who incessantly desire for more) but even at this age, with exceptional technological advancement and unparalleled access to knowledge, there’s no impartial degree of good and bad desire. The ancient developed strict beliefs and virtues including an instinctive sense of morality and natural moral character. It teaches us how to actualize the ideal of the good life. This can also be comprehended from Edip Yuksel’s idea of permanent (real) happiness.
Conclusion
These approaches on happiness share a common structure: we all implicitly strive for an ultimate purpose in all our actions, but different theories present contradictory versions of its contents. The concept of happiness modified with the time but it always indicated a notion that ultimate happiness, in the context of a good life, cannot be purely achieved if one violates what Mahatma Gandhi stated as- “Happiness is when your thought, your speech, and your actions are in harmony.”
References
Yuksel, E. Happiness, and Virtue as a Mean. 2009. Web.
From Eudemonia to Happiness. 2009. Web.
Sihvola, J. (2006). Happiness in Ancient Philosophy. 2009. Web.
Julia, A. (1995). The Good Lives and the Good Lives of Others. 2009. Web.
Lockwood, T. (2004). Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 2009. Web.