The Pursuit of Happiness
The pursuit of happiness seems to crop up a lot lately. Last Sunday I saw Will Smith's new movie, "The Pursuit of Happyness (worth seeing, by the way)," and this week's New York Times Magazine has an interesting article, "Happiness 101," in it. The focus of the article is on the relatively new field of Positive Psychology founded about ten years ago by well-known psychologist Martin Seligman and several others.
The article raised a couple of issues that I have been thinking about lately having to do with how religious people are as well as the issue of the nature of science and religion and their "proper domains." As I read the article, I was aware of noticing the "religious" nature of positive psychology. One of my core beliefs about humans is that in the broadest sense everyone is religious: everybody has sacred "texts," symbols, "commandments," and even rituals by which they live their lives. This includes the most die-hard atheists as well.
My other observation is that for a subject to gain legitimacy all one need do is market it as "science." If you say that something is scientific, then it has automatic legitimacy. The professor of course on happiness at George Mason University that author D.T. Max sat in on referred to it as "The Scientific Pursuit of Happiness," and Seligman refers to Positive Psychology as "good tough science."
The problem is that science can say nothing about virtues, ends and goals that people "ought" to have or take. Science may describe what the course may be if one takes certain paths, but can't really comment on the "oughtness" of it; if it does it has immediately left the realm of science and entered into some other field.
I am not suggesting that research in this area is unwarranted: in fact I think that it is. However, the findings of certain attitudes and behaviors need to be placed into a larger interpretive framework in order to make sense, and this larger interpretive framework science cannot provide. By acknowledging this fact and then naming the interpretive framework(s) by which one chooses to evaluate them would be both honest and helpful. It is not a misfortune that human beings, human art, societies, and cultures cannot be reduced to scientific data. Actually, I think that life is much richer because of it.
What thoughts do you have about happiness and its pursuit? Is happiness something that one can pursue directly, or is it a by-product? Can science determine what makes for happiness by itself?
The article raised a couple of issues that I have been thinking about lately having to do with how religious people are as well as the issue of the nature of science and religion and their "proper domains." As I read the article, I was aware of noticing the "religious" nature of positive psychology. One of my core beliefs about humans is that in the broadest sense everyone is religious: everybody has sacred "texts," symbols, "commandments," and even rituals by which they live their lives. This includes the most die-hard atheists as well.
My other observation is that for a subject to gain legitimacy all one need do is market it as "science." If you say that something is scientific, then it has automatic legitimacy. The professor of course on happiness at George Mason University that author D.T. Max sat in on referred to it as "The Scientific Pursuit of Happiness," and Seligman refers to Positive Psychology as "good tough science."
The problem is that science can say nothing about virtues, ends and goals that people "ought" to have or take. Science may describe what the course may be if one takes certain paths, but can't really comment on the "oughtness" of it; if it does it has immediately left the realm of science and entered into some other field.
I am not suggesting that research in this area is unwarranted: in fact I think that it is. However, the findings of certain attitudes and behaviors need to be placed into a larger interpretive framework in order to make sense, and this larger interpretive framework science cannot provide. By acknowledging this fact and then naming the interpretive framework(s) by which one chooses to evaluate them would be both honest and helpful. It is not a misfortune that human beings, human art, societies, and cultures cannot be reduced to scientific data. Actually, I think that life is much richer because of it.
What thoughts do you have about happiness and its pursuit? Is happiness something that one can pursue directly, or is it a by-product? Can science determine what makes for happiness by itself?
posted by UCC Medfield at 6:26 AM
1 Comments:
Max's article provides a thorough overview of positive psychology research to date, but he glosses over positive psych's emphasis not just on happiness, but on "other-oriented" emotions, such as compassion and empathy. The magazine I edit, Greater Good, explores these topics from a positive psych perspective: www.greatergoodmag.org. Essays by Dacher Keltner (http://peacecenter.berkeley.edu/greatergood/archive/2004springsummer) and Frans de Waal (http://peacecenter.berkeley.edu/greatergood/archive/2005fallwinter/) provide useful compliments to Max's article.
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