Scott Kamps
* 1st in a 3-part series
What is the unalienable right of “the pursuit of happiness,” from the Declaration of Independence?
The vast majority of Americans seem to assume that happiness flows from the accumulation of things, money or some other source of short-term pleasure. Author Peachy Keenan conveyed better understanding of the source of happiness by writing her “equation for happiness is pretty simple: maximize your number of children and minimize your number of spouses.”
Seneca, an ancient Roman moral philosopher, in his On the Happy Life, wrote, “There is not anything in this World, perhaps, that is more talked of, and less understood, than the Business of a Happy Life. It is every Man’s Wish, and Design; and yet not one of a thousand that knows wherein that Happiness consists.”
Not much has changed in this respect, since he wrote that around 58 A.D.
Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers wrote about pursuing happiness often. Pythagoras, Xenophon, Cato and others discussed the source of happiness. The Greek word “eudaimonia” – usually translated to “happiness” – is probably what Jefferson referred to in the Declaration. We usually think of happiness as a feeling of enjoyment, but “eudaimonia” referred to something less subjective; it suggested a life well-lived or the good life.
According to Aristotle, this flourishing was the purpose of life, a pre-political – and thus God-given, or unalienable – right no government can take away.
Classical thinkers viewed the good life as the pursuit of beauty, truth and goodness, requiring reason and cultivation of virtue, directly connecting happiness with virtue. The rationale is simple: the better person you become, the better/happier life you will lead.
Many founders read and were influenced by the classical tradition. Thomas Jefferson cited Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations as the best guide to the pursuit of happiness. George Washington referred to “the indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.”
Ben Franklin wrote, “Without virtue, man can have no happiness in this world.” After he famously attempted moral perfection and failed, he said he was still “a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been had I never attempted it.”
It’s the pursuit of virtue – not its attainment – that brought true happiness, they believed.
John Adams proposed an illustration of Hercules’ Choice for the Great Seal of the U.S. The famous fable depicted Hercules at a crossroads choosing between two women: Vice, who offered him a life of ease; and Virtue, who promised him a difficult but good path.
According to author Jeffrey Rosen, this classical understanding of pursuing the good life/happiness was taught to Americans for years – but since the 1960s, our understanding shifted from happiness coming from being good to coming from feeling good. Instead of rejecting pleasure in order to live the good life, society now celebrates the pursuit of pleasure in place of virtue.
The founders built the Constitution of our nation around the former idea.
We must consider what sort of consequences our endorsing the pursuit of pleasure in place of virtue has/will have on society and our nation.
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.