EXAM

• Main themes in Western traditions

  • Reason
  • Freedom
  • Desire
• Main themes in Eastern traditions

  • Connectedness: Natural, Social, Moral
  • Knowledge/understanding
  • Practice
• The Sciences of Happiness

  • History
  • Biology
  • Psychology: Positive Psychology, SWB, psychoanalysis
  • Economics: Easterlin Paradox
  • Politics: Gross National Happiness
• The Western tradition

  • Aristotle: Eudaimonia
  • Epicurus: disciplining desire, Tetrapharmakos
  • Kant: Categorical Imperative
  • Mill: quality vs. quantity of happiness
  • Marx: alienation
  • Sartre: radical freedom
• The Eastern tradition

  • Confucianism: benevolence and rituals
  • Daoism: wu-wei and meandering, conceptual fluidity
  • Buddhism: attachment, ignorance, compassion
• Mindfulness

  • Meditation
  • Mindful living: eating, learning, loving kindness, relationship
• Main concepts


  • Subjective vs. Objective
  • External (factors) vs. Internal (factors)
  • Extrinsic (motivation/reward) vs. Intrinsic (motivation/reward)
• Aristotle

  • Objective
  • Subjective
  • Morality
  • Social
  • Desire
  • Freedom
• Epicurus

  • Subjective
  • Internal
  • Extrinsic
  • Desire
  • Freedom
• Kant

  • Objective
  • Subjective
  • Morality
  • Freedom
• Mill

  • Objective
  • Subjective
  • Morality
  • Freedom
• Marx

  • Objective
  • Social
  • Desire
  • Freedom
• Sartre

  • Subjective
  • Internal
  • Freedom
• Confucianism

  • Morality
  • Social
• Daoism

  • Internal
• Buddhism

  • Morality
  • Social
• Factors of happiness/Levels of analysis

  • Attention/focus/tranquillity
  • Activity/practice/engagement
  • Social relations/attunement
  • State/community
• Aristotle

  • Tranquillity concentration
  • Activity
  • Social relation
  • Politics/Community
  • Meaning
  • Creativity
• Epicurus

  • Tranquillity concentration
  • Activity
• Kant

  • Tranquillity concentration
  • Activity
  • Politics/Community
  • Meaning
  • Creativity
• Mill

  • Tranquillity concentration
  • Activity
  • Politics/Community
  • Meaning
  • Creativity
• Marx

  • Politics/Community
  • Meaning
  • Creativity
• Sartre

  • Activity
  • Creativity
• Confucianism

  • Social relation
  • Politics/Community
• Daoism

  • Tranquillity concentration
• Buddhism

  • Social relation
  • Politics/Community
  • Meaning
• Building Blocks of a Flourishing Life

  • Attentive awareness
  • Effortless ease of action, guided by intuitive wisdom
  • Relationship and connection
  • Love or devotion
  • Creative engagement
  • Meaning, significance, and value
• Subjective

  Desire, pleasure, feeling → hedonism
• Objective

  Need, primary goods, flourishing life, capabilities
• 'Happiness' is a modern construct arising only in the 18th century.
• Before that, Western standards encouraged, if anything, a slightly saddened approach to life, with facial expressions to match. Sinful humanity had best display a somewhat sorrowful humility.
• Why the change

  • Culture: The Enlightenment – optimism, religion
  • Politics: The US Declaration of Independence
  • Science and Technology: medicine, comfort
  • Economy: material abundance, consumerism
  • Social structure: urbanisation, middle class, family function
• Consciousness evolved about 525 million years ago.
• The extended reticular thalamic activating system is responsible for sentience or consciousness. All vertebrates have this system.
• The consciousness centre is located near the end of the brain stem. It consists of the periaqueductal grey (PAG), which generates feelings of pleasure and pain.
• The PAG is activated by the body monitoring nuclei in the brainstem, which monitors the state of the body and ensures that the parameters stay within a very narrow range.
• Feelings are for survival, to give us evolutionary advantage.
• Feelings are transferred through the limbic circuits to hypothalamus, then to the prefrontal cortex where actions will result.
• Direction: unconscious (body) → conscious (feelings) → emotion → intentional, rational cognition → action
• Messages are transmitted through chemical and electric signals. Examples of hormones and neurotransmitters are Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endorphin.