Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

What Makes Humans Happy?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Human Thriving and the Law

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Law ((BRIEFSLAW))

  • 244 Accesses

Abstract

Happiness is sometimes thought to be part of living well. This chapter looks at some of the evidence about what makes humans happy. Happiness is surprisingly independent of physical or environmental circumstances: humans are very adaptable. Much of what we are, and much of what contributes to our happiness, is located in our subconscious. Good relationships are important to happiness. So is a sense of significance. Happiness is linked to virtuous behaviour.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Romans 7: 15–20 (NIV).

  2. 2.

    Dhammapada v 326. Plato uses similar language:

  3. 3.

    For an accessible review of the evidence for animal consciousness, and a cogent criticism of the ways traditionally used to search for it, see Safina, Carl. Beyond words: What animals think and feel. Macmillan, 2015.

  4. 4.

    The fact of accommodation to changed circumstances has an ethically and legally important consequence for advance directives. It has consistently been found that when patients find themselves in the situation anticipated by an advance directive, they are better able to tolerate the new situation than they imagined they would be at the time they made the advance directive: see, e.g., Fagerlin, A. and Schneider, C. E. (2004), ‘Enough: The Failure of the Living Will’. Hastings Center Report, 34: 30-42; Fried, T.R., O'leary, J., Van Ness, P. and Fraenkel, L., 2007. ‘Inconsistency over time in the preferences of older persons with advanced illness for life‐sustaining treatment.’ Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 55(7), pp. 1007–1014; Sudore R, Fried TR. ‘Redefining the ‘planning’ in advance care planning: preparing for end-of-life decision making.’ Ann Intern Med. (2010) Aug 17; 153(4): 256–61.

  5. 5.

    David Wootton puts the point dramatically: ‘A friend of mine, close to death, made a long journey to see the Rothko exhibition at the Tate. He had no doubt there could be no better way to spend what might have been his last day. At such times our choices say a great deal about who we are; much of the rest of the time our answers are not to be trusted.’ ‘Desire without end’: Times Literary Supplement, 27 February 2009, p. 3.

  6. 6.

    Robert Byron put it well: ‘The frame upon which the profuse metaphysical speculations of the Roman Mediterranean spluttered to extinction, was the Hellenic subscription to the wholesale efficacy of Reason…. The essence, the fundamental mood of all Greek thought, lay in the problem of the immediae present, in the quest of an ars vivendi…[T]he whole pursuit of ‘well-being’ was based on a short-sighted rationalism which assumed that once man was aware of his true interests, he must be incapable of action contradictory to them. Hence the grotesque slogan ‘Virtue is knowledge’; the implicit belief in the panacea of truth; and the consequent distrust of all instinct and all compromise, the major conditionals of any ars vivendi. This elevation of the mind to supreme control will inevitably find supporters in that class of persons who are more concerned with intellectual processes than the goals to which they lead. But in the majority of human beings, the speculative faculty is either absent or subordinate. Among the masses of the Roman Empire, Greek thought, the kingdom of the mind, had never wholly conquered.’ The Byzantine Achievement: Routledge & Kegan Paul: London and New York (1987): 53–54.

  7. 7.

    For discussion, see Haidt, ibid, 28–29.

  8. 8.

    Iain McGilchrist describes schizophrenia as a ‘hypertrophy of reason’, in which everything has to be worked out, agonizingly, from first principles, often with bizarre conclusions – partly, at least, because some of the material used for the process of reasoning wells up from the subconscious and is not intended to (and is not, in the normal subject) to be pushed through the machine of conscious reasoning: ‘Neuromania: Spiders, yes, but why cats?’ Lecture: Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkVwGpOXhf8&frags=pl%2Cwn (accessed July 2018).

  9. 9.

    Along with bipedalism, opposing thumbs, and despite what we have said in the previous section, cognitive firepower.

  10. 10.

    Genesis 2:18.

  11. 11.

    Epistle 48, cited Haidt, ibid, 81.

  12. 12.

    Sacks, ibid.

  13. 13.

    See the discussion in Haidt, ibid, 87–90.

  14. 14.

    For discussion see Haidt, ibid, 219–226.

  15. 15.

    Psalm 1:3. There is a very similar description in Jeremiah 17:8.

  16. 16.

    See the discussion in Haidt, ibid, 167–170.

References

  • Bellah R, Madsen R, Sullivan WM, Swidler A, Tipton S (1985) Habits of the heart. Harper and Row, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Biswas-Diener R, Diener ED (2006) The subjective well-being of the homeless, and lessons for happiness. Soc Indic Res 76(2):185–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biswas-Diener R., Vittersø J., Diener E. (2009) Most people are pretty happy, but there is cultural variation: the Inughuit, the Amish, and the Maasai. In: Diener E. (eds) Culture and Well-Being. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 38. Springer, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown S, Nesse R, Vinokur AD, Smith DM (2003) Providing support may be more beneficial than receiving it: results from a prospective study of mortality. Psychol Sci 14:320–327

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown SL, Brown RM, House JS, Smith DM (2008) Coping with spousal loss: the potential buffering effects of self-reported helping behavior. Personal Soc Psychol Bull 34:849–861

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown SL, Smith DM, Schulz R, Kabeto M, Ubel P, Yee J, Langa K (2009) Caregiving and decreased mortality in a national sample of older adults. Psychol Sci 20:488–494

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown SL, Brown RM, Preston S (2011) A model of human caregiving motivation. In: Brown S, Brown R, Penner S (eds) Moving beyond self interest: perspectives from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and the social sciences. Oxford University Press, New York

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Campos D, Cebolla A, Quero S, Bretón-López J, Botella C, Soler J, García-Campayo J, Demarzo M, Baños RM (2016) Meditation and happiness: Mindfulness and self-compassion may mediate the meditation–happiness relationship. Personality Individ Differ 93:80–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Choi Y, Karremans JC, Barendregt H (2012) The happy face of mindfulness: Mindfulness meditation is associated with perceptions of happiness as rated by outside observers. J Positive Psychol 7(1):30–35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener E, Diener C (1996) Most people are happy. Psychol Sci 7(3):181–185

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener E, Biswas-Diener, R (2011) Happiness: unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth. Wiley

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener E, Inglehart R, Tay L (2013) Theory and validity of life satisfaction scales. Soc Indic Res 112(3):497–527

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster C, Herring J (2015) Altruism. Welfare and the Law, Springer, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Fredrickson BL, Cohn MA, Coffey KA, Pek J, Finkel SM (2008) Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. J Pers Soc Psychol 95(5):1045

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gittins R (2010) The happy economist: happiness for the hard-headed. Allen & Unwin, CrowsNest, NSW

    Google Scholar 

  • Gottman J (1994) Why marriages succeed or fail. Simon and Schuster, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt J (2006) The happiness hypothesis: putting ancient wisdom and philosophy to the test of modern science, Arrow

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohn ML, Schooler C (1983) Work and personality: An inquiry into the impact of social stratification. Ablex, Norwood, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis CS (1943) The abolition of man. OUP, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • McGilchrist I (2009) The master and his emissary: the divided brain and the making of the western World. Yale University Press, Newhaven

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson C, Seligman MEP (2004) Character strengths and virtues: a handbook and classification. American Psychological Association and OUP, Washington DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Samman E (2007) Psychological and subjective well-being: a proposal for internationally comparable indicators. Oxf Dev Stud 35(4):459–486

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shermer M (2008) The mind of the market: compassionate apes, competitive humans, and other tales from evolutionary economics. Macmillan, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith T (2007) Job satisfaction in the United States: America’s general social survey. National Opinion Research Centre, University of Chicago, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Happiness’ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/#EmpFin. Accessed July 2018

  • Waite LJ, Gallagher M (2000) The case for marriage: why married people are happier, healthier, and better off financially. Doubleday, New York

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Charles Foster

  2. Exeter College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Jonathan Herring

Authors
  1. Charles Foster
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan Herring
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Charles Foster .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Foster, C., Herring, J. (2018). What Makes Humans Happy?. In: Human Thriving and the Law. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01135-2_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01135-2_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01134-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01135-2

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation