The Rational Animal

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” - Aristotle

I’ve gotten into a couple of discussions with people who disliked the idea that happiness is the ultimate goal in life. I’m writing this to give a brief explanation of what I mean when I say happiness, because in most cases the contention seems to ultimately fall on what happiness is.

For example, someone suggested to me that, if all I seek is happiness, why don’t I just take a pill to elevate the seratonin levels in my brain? I asked him why he doesn’t take said pill if that is all he believes happiness is. His response was that there were things that needed to be pursued, like truth, in order to be satisfied.

I found this confusing, because if taking this “happy pill” did not satisfy him, then he’s not happy in any real sense of the term. A brief discussion revealed that he equated happiness with pleasure (though he denied it).

Of course if one defines happiness as pleasure, then it’s easy to think of things worth pursuing at the expense of it. As he pointed out, taking a happy pill would leave some part of you unsatisfied. But this is not what I mean when I say happiness.

Happiness is a sense of satisfaction with one’s own existence that results from the successful achievement of one’s values. it is the advanced form of the pleasure-pain mechanism as only experienced by rational animals.

Happiness signifies a successful state of life. As Aristotle noted, it is the only thing people seem to pursue for its own sake rather than for the sake of something else. Aristotle’s entire system of ethics is a discussion on how to achieve happiness.

Virtues like rationality, honesty, truth seeking, justice, courage, etc. are all means to the end of happiness. A happy life does not consist of laying around all day taking pills to elevate seratonin, and I think any casual observation of a drug addict would reveal this fact. The fact that such an existence repulses you is evidence that you don’t expect to achieve real happiness from it.