Platonic View of Happiness

On Happiness

In the Greek philosophy, the conception of happiness was disputed. The Greek philosopher tended to inquire about happiness and his real meaning for man.What is happiness? What are its constituents? What are the causes and conditions of happiness? How, if at all, does it differ from pleasure? What are its relations to man's intellect, to his will, to his life as a whole? What is its position in a general theory of the universe?
These are questions which have much occupied the various schools of philosophy.
The Greeks deemed the concept of happiness as an issue that had to do with psychology and ethics. They commonly identified happiness with the common good of men. Dismissing the view that happiness was a lot arbitrarily bestowed by capricious Fortune, the more serious thinkers among the Greeks regarded it as a gift of the gods. Further reflection led to the view that it was given as a reward for goodness of life. Hence the acquisition of happiness depends on the working out of the good for man in man's life. What then is the good?

For Socrates it is (eupraxia), which receives closer definition at the hands of Plato, as such harmonious functioning of the parts of man s soul as shall preserve the subordination of the lower to the higher, of the non rational to the rational. In this view happiness becomes for Plato less the reward than the inevitable concomitant of such harmony. It is the property of the whole soul, and the demand of any element of the soul for preferential treatment in the matter of happiness Plato would thus look upon as unreasonable. In setting happiness as the intrinsic result of a policy of "following nature", the Stoics and the Cyrenaics were in verbal agreement with Plato, though diverging to opposite poles in their answer to the psychological question as to the constituents of happiness. "Follow Nature", for the Cyrenaics, meant: "Gratify the sensuous faculties which are the voices of nature." For the Stoics it signified: "Satisfy your reason which nature bids us to exalt by the entire suppression of our sensuous appetites." Happiness is for these latter the consequence of the virtuous life which issues in spiritual freedom and peace. In Aristotle's ethical system, happiness, as expressed by (eudaimonia), is the central idea. He agrees with Plato in rejecting the exaggerated opposition set up between reason and nature by the Sophists, and fundamental to both the Stoic and Epicurean schools.
For Aristotle, nature is human nature as a whole. This is both rational and sensuous. His treatment of happiness is in closer contact with experience than that of Plato. The good with which he concerns himself is that which it is possible for man to reach in this life. This highest good is happiness. This must be the true purpose of life, for we seek it in all our actions. However it dosent consist in mere passive enjoyment, for this is open to the brute, but in action (energeia), of the kind that is proper to man in contrast with other animals. This is intellectual action. Not all kinds of intellectual action, however, result in happiness, but only virtuous action, that is, action which springs from virtue and is according to its laws; for this alone is appropriate to the nature of man. The highest happiness corresponds to the highest virtue; it is the best activity of the highest faculty. Though happiness does not consist in pleasure, it does not exclude pleasure. On the contrary, the highest form of pleasure is the outcome of virtuous action. But for such happiness to be complete it should be continued during a life of average length in at least moderately comfortable circumstances, and enriched by intercourse with friends and society. Due to the fact that human beings are social animals just as Aristotle refered to them.

Virtues are either ethical or dianoetic (intellectual). The latter pertain either to the practical or to the speculative reason. This last is the highest faculty of all; hence the highest virtue is a habit of the speculative reason. Consequently, for Aristotle the highest happiness is to be found not in the ethical virtues of the active life, but in the contemplative or philosophic life of speculation, in which the dianoetic virtues of understanding, science, and wisdom are exercised. Theoria, or pure speculation, is the highest activity of man, and that by which he is most like unto the gods, for in this, too, the happiness of the gods consists. It is, in a sense, a Divine life. Only the few, however, can attain to it; the great majority must be content with the inferior happiness of the active life. Happiness (eudaimonia), therefore with Aristotle, is not identical with pleasure (hedone), or even with the sum of pleasures. It has been described as the kind of well being that consists in well doing, and supreme happiness is thus the well doing of the best faculty. Pleasure is a concomitant or efflorescence of such an activity. Here, then, is in brief Aristotle's ethical theory of eudemonism; and in its main features it has been made the basis of the chief christian scheme of moral philosophy. Constituting happiness the end of human action, and not looking beyond the present life, Aristotle's system, it has been maintained with some show of reason, approximates, after all, in sundry important respects towards Utilitarianism or refined Hedonism.

Afterwards in the times of the roman empire some philosophical and religious movements emerged from countries that were conquered by the romans. And this movements cleaved into the roman culture. Due to the mood of oppression in which this movements were developed, their concept of happiness was not an earthly one but they deemed that the real happiness was in the afterlife. This movements paved the way to a new perspective of happiness as something eternal.
Later on, Christianity adapted some Aristotelian and Platonic features to their own philosophy. In the scholasticism the schoolmen , influncited by the Christian Revelation and taking over some elements from Plato, come to complete the Peripatetic theory. St. Thomas teaches that beatitudo, perfect happiness, is the true supreme, subjective end of man, and is, therefore, open to all men, but is not attainable in this life. It consists in the best exercise of the noblest human faculty, the intellect, on the one object of infinite worth. It is, in fact, the outcome of the immediate possession of God by intellectual contemplation. Scotus and some other Scholastic writers accentuate the importance of the will in the process, and insist on the love resulting from the contemplative activity of the intellect, as a main factor; but it is allowed by all Catholic schools that both faculties play their part in the operation which is to constitute at once man's highest perfection and supreme felicity. "Our heart is ill at ease till it find rest in Thee" was the cry of St. Augustine. Therefore the Christian stance about happiness is linked with theism and the concept of God.

The divorce of philosophy from theology since Descartes has, caused a marked disinclination to recognize the importance in ethical theory of the future life with its rewards and punishments. Consequently, for those philosophers who constitute happiness whether of the individual or of the community the ethical end, the psychological analysis of the constituents of temporal felicity, has become a main problem. In general, such writers identify happiness with pleasure, though some lay considerable stress on the difference between higher and lower pleasures, whilst others emphasize the importance of active, in opposition to passive, pleasures.
The poet Alexander Pope tells us, "Happiness lies in three words: Peace, Health, Content".

Reflection, however, suggests that these are rather the chief negative condition, than the positive constituents of happiness. Paley, although adopting a species of theological Utilitarianism in which the will of God is the rule of morality, and the rewards and punishments of the future life the chief part of the motive for moral conduct, yet has written a celebrated chapter on temporal happiness embodying a considerable amount of shrewd, worldly common sense. He argues that happiness does not consist in the pleasures of sense, whether the coarser, such as eating, or the more refined, such as music, the drama, or sports, for these pall by repetition. Intense delights disappoint and destroy relish for normal pleasures. Nor does happiness consist in exemption from pain, labour, or business; nor in the possession of rank or station, which do not exclude pain and discomfort. The most important point in the conduct of life is, then, to select pleasures that will endure.
Owing to diversity of taste and individual aptitudes, there is necessarily much variety in the objects which produce human happiness. Among the chief are, he argues, the exercise of family and social affections, the activity of our faculties, mental and bodily, in pursuit of some engaging end, that of the next life included, a prudent constitution of our habits and good health, bodily and mental. His conclusion is that the conditions of human happiness are "pretty equally distributed among the different orders of society, and that vice has at all events no advantage over virtue even with respect to this world's happiness".

For Bentham, who is the most consistent among English Hedonists in his treatment of this topic, happiness is the sum of pleasures. Its value is measured by quantity: "Quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry." Rejecting all distinctions of higher or lower quality, he formulates these tests of the worth of pleasure as an integral part of happiness: (1) its intensity, (2) duration, (3) propinquity, (4) purity, or freedom from pain, (5) fecundity, (6) range. J. Stuart Mill, whilst defining happiness as "pleasure and absence of pain", and unhappiness as "pain and privation of pleasure", insists as a most important point that "quality must he considered as well as quantity", and some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and valuable than others on grounds other than their pleasantness. "It is better", he urges, "to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." This is true; but it is an inconsistent admission fatal to Mill's whole position as a Hedonist, and to the Hedonistic conception of happiness. The aid of the evolutionist hypothesis here as elsewhere was called to the support of the Sensationist school of psychology and ethics. Pleasure must be life-giving, pain the reverse.
The survival of the pleasure fittest to survive will, according to Herbert Spencer, lead to an ultimate well-being not of the individual, but of the social organism; and the perfect health of the organism will be the concomitant of its perfect functioning, that is, of its perfect virtue.
Thus happiness is defined in terms of virtue, but of a virtue which is a mere physical or physiological excellence.
Spencer's critics, however, have been keen to point out that the pleasure of an activity in man is not by any means a safe criterion of its healthiness or conduciveness to enduring well-being.

In the writings of the German Rationalists from Kant onwards we meet echoes of the ancient Stoicism. Usually there is too narrow a view of human nature, and at times an effort to set aside the question of happiness as having no real bearing on ethical problems. Kant is inclined to an over-ready acceptance of the Hedonistic identification of happiness with sensuous pleasure, and for this reason he is opposed to our working for our own happiness whilst he allows us to seek that of others. His rigoristic exclusion of happiness from among the motives for moral action is psychologically as well as ethically unsound, and although "Duty for duty's sake" may be an elevating and ennobling hortatory formula, still the reflective reason of man affirms unequivocally that unless virtue finally results in happiness, that unless it be ultimately happier for the man who observes the moral law than for him who violates it, human existence would be irrational at the very core, and life not worth living. This latter, indeed, is the logical conclusion of Pessimism, which teaches that misery altogether outweighs happiness in the universe as a whole.



Platonic View of Happiness

One of the central claims of Plato’s Republic is that justice is not only desirable for its own sake, but that it maximises the happiness of those who practice it. By practicing justice and ethical principles, in that way, one will be able to be a better person, and a good for the whole society. Plato stressed the fact that being ethically good is the end of every man.

For Plato, the happiness (eudaimonia), is also deemed to be related with adquiring knowledge. in The Allegory of the Cave, he stressed that knowledge is a source of happiness. The Allegory of the Cave was used in The Republic and it depicts how knowledge can enlighten people, in order for them to be more capable human beings. Plato distinguished the twofold meaning of the term pleasure, in his works there is a distinction between the pleasures of the flesh arising from body desires, and the superior pleasures of the intellect.
The descriptions of the pleasure seeking nature of democratic individuals and the just man, who pursues a balanced and harmonious lifestyle, not surrendering himself to ‘savage and unreasoning pleasure shows that Plato’s view was that pursuit of happiness and pleasure for its own sake leads only to injustice and enslavement. This amounts to a clear condemnation of hedonism, and is illustrated by the example of the tyrant who is not only unhappy but is a ‘true slave’ to his own desires.

Plato identified three forms of pleasure that correspond to the three different elements of the soul: Reason, Spirit, and Appetite or Desire . Here, the distinction between pleasures of the intellect and pleasure resulting from the pursuit of desire or honor, victory in war, for example, is clear with the philosopher falling into the first category. In order to fully appreciate what Plato means by eudaimonia, we must instead consider the ways in which it is supposedly achieved: In the dialogue of Plato, Socrates states that everything has both a characteristic function and a virtue or excellence that enables it to perform its function well. He goes on to say that living is the function of the soul, and justice its characteristic excellence, from which it follows that the just man lives well and is therefore happy.
This is a classic piece of Socratic wordplay that relies upon a disputed, question begging premise (justice being the virtue of the soul), two unsubstantiated assumptions, that the soul has both a function and an excellence and equivocation to (live well is the same as to be happy).

A more plausible case for Plato’s thesis can be found in his analysis of the three classes of society and the corresponding types of individual that inhabit his hypothetical ideal state. In accordance with the three forms of pleasure described above, the happiness of each of these classes is said to arise from their characteristic love of wisdom, honor or profit, respectively, which is pursued under the guidance of reason in accordance with Plato’s notion of justice.

The centerpiece of The Republic is undoubtedly the definition of justice as the harmony of the parts of the soul or state in which each part performs its proper function under the command of reason . Injustice, on the other hand is defined as ‘some sort of civil war’ between the parts of the soul, a rebellion in which one rogue element, typically desire, usurps reason as the dominant power. Plato goes on to liken justice to health and injustice to disease. Nevertheless this somewhat begs the question as no rational person would choose to have an unhealthy soul. However, there is more to this argument than first meets the eye. If injustice is the ‘civil war’ of the soul, then justice is characterized by peace and harmony between its elements.
This notion of ‘psychic harmony’ is to the conventional conception of happiness what the Platonic definition of justice is to ordinary justice. it effectively redefines happiness in terms of its internal benefits and characteristics as opposed to its external rewards and actions.
This in turn justifies Plato’s argument that the perfectly just man who nevertheless has a reputation for the greatest injustice and so receives none of its external benefits, may still enjoy the greatest happiness.
No matter what life throws at him, he never loses his inner composure, maintaining peace and tranquility throughout despite his apparently terrible circumstances. Although it is difficult for us to imagine such a person actually existing, Plato had first hand experience of this in the form of Socrates himself, who is said to have maintained perfect composure even in the face of death.

Although the point is not made explicit until Book 9 of The Republic, the idea that true happiness flows from precisely the same arrangement of the soul that produces justice is almost certainly what Plato had in mind. That he does not clarify the matter earlier may be because, having already redefined justice in Book 4, he does not want to open up the argument on a second front by going on to redefining happiness as well, and instead opts for the safer route of equating justice with psychic health, a concept which nevertheless suggests a strong connection with happiness.

The second route to happiness described in The Republic is the pursuit of philosophy, and specifically philosophical contemplation of the Forms. This is held not only to produce the highest type of pleasure (that associated with reason), but also to mould one’s character in the image of what is eternal, beautiful and unchanging.
It is portrayed as a state of such rapture that those who experience it will literally think they have died and gone to heaven.
But what evidence does Plato have to offer for the truth of these claims? We are told that the pleasures of the intellect are superior to the pleasures of desire or spirit on the basis that only those who have tasted all three are qualified to judge.
Since only the philosopher has experience of the Forms then her opinion is the only one that counts and, being a lover of wisdom, of course prefers the philosophical life. This argument is unconvincing on the basis that the judgement appears to be subjectively biased in favour of the philosopher. However, again we are offered a second, more robust argument.
The happiness of the profit loving or honor loving individual arises from the enjoyment of objects that belong to the impermanent physical world of becoming. that which both is and is not. Consequently, their pleasures are relative ones that consist of a mixture of both pain and pleasure, and are therefore (matters of opinion and not of knowledge).

In contrast to this, the philosopher’s pleasure stems from contemplating the eternal and absolute world of ‘being’, or that which ‘is’ , making it different not just in degree but also in kind. According to Plato, only knowledge of ‘being’ can lead to this true and certain pleasure, which is in fact none other than the Platonic Form of happiness.
The form of Happiness by Plato is in its pure or ideal Form is a state of absolute peace, joy and contentment that results from having a perfectly harmonious and balanced soul. This complete absence of inner conflict and turmoil effectively renders the individual immune to all forms of suffering, regardless of their physical circumstances.
Such a state of mind may reliably be obtained in one of two ways. Firstly, by acquiring the virtue of justice, where each part of the soul is performing its proper function under the dominion of reason. Secondly, through the practice of philosophy, which brings the soul into equilibrium through the contemplation of what is eternal, beautiful and good.
Conventional happiness, as with conventional justice, is a mere image or shadow-picture of this Platonic ideal or form that depends upon the pursuit of transient physical pleasures, and so is itself fleeting and unreliable, consisting at best of a temporary respite from pain and suffering.In each case, the important point is that far from depending upon external factors, true happiness arises from within as a result of cultivating the correct state of mind, and cannot be destroyed for as long as the individual continues to maintain their internal balance and harmony, even in the face of great adversity.
The resulting account not only contradicts ancient Greek thought but also more modern theories such as utilitarianism which sees pleasure or happiness as more or less interchangeable, and as an universal good that can be realized in any number of ways.