Happiness

A survey of issues

General forms:

• (Sensory / Kinetic) Pleasure; Hedonism; Preference-satisfaction; Katastemic pleasure; Flourishing; Eudaemonia; Wellbeing; Mindfulness; Enlightenment;
• Higher pleasures
• Idiosyncrasies

Particulars:

• Hope; Power and Confidence, not Fear; Trust, Honor, and Company
• Love, Beauty, Food, Shelter, Sex
• Dance, Laughter
• Riches; “wanting more”
• Meaning; “it’s about the journey”
• Authenticity; “being true to yourself”
• Escapism, including Wireheading
• Flow
• Ataraxia, not rumination; Rational /selective ignorance; epistemic non-negligence; “living in the moment”
• Comfort
• Aponia / abolition of suffering / negative utilitarianism / painkillers
• Above Absolute poverty
• Minimising Regret

Issues:

• Paradox of happiness
• Self-reports (quality of life self-reports incorrigible?) / unknown objects of happiness / miswanting / procrastination / akrasia / addiction
• Intertemporal identity; delayed gratification; fickelty
• Atomism, holism; Experience vs Memory
• Fixed points; hedonic adaptation
• Variety and novelty vs boredom
• Contrast; no light without the dark? BDSM; watching sad films
• Hedonic treadmill
• Easterlin paradox/(in)equality

Techniques:

• Premeditatio malorum
• Optimism/Pollyanna; “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”
• Metriopatheia; avoid Seven Deadly Sins
• Desirelessness; “the secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness”
• Accepting impermanence, dissatisfaction, non-self
• Serenity prayer; fatalism
• Gratitude; would you trade the loss of limb or a sense organ for $100M?
• Peak-End Rule and Duration Neglect
• Sour grapes (Rationalising and Myths we live by)
• Displacement
• Sublimation
• Periodic (re-)evaluation of assumed values, behaviours and manifest values. What is fun? Whats important?