I think you hit the nail on the head at the end where you acknowledge that an excellent way of being happy is not to try to be happy, but just to do what you find fulfilling. Once you start asking questions about what makes you happy it is difficult to feel content with any particular state of affairs, especially if you see happiness as a reward in the future for hard work in the present. I would get out of the library and spend more time doing things you enjoy doing right now, and that will make your academic work much more productive and enjoyable.

The ancient Greeks are among those who are often said to claim that happiness is the "ultimate aim" of human life, but one reason scholars have insisted that this is misleading is indicated to some degree in the question here. The actual word in Greek that is usually translated as "happiness" is eudaimonia, and scholars now argue that we should understand this not as a subjective experience, but as an objective state of the person--scholars have suggested "well-being" or "human flourishing" as more accurate translations. In other words, for the Greeks, the ultimate aim is something more like being healthy than like feeling happy. Just as the experience of pain may sometimes be required for a healthy life, it may also be required for one to live a eudaimÇn life, so we should not suppose that what these philosophers endorse is the opposite of pain, or the (mere) pursuit of pleasure or subjective satisfaction. Of course, one would expect that a human being living in a way we would describe as "flourishing" would also enjoy a substantial degree of subjective satisfaction. But a drug addict given unlimited access to his favorite drug might experience equal--perhaps even greater!--levels of subjective satisfaction than people living well might experience, for full human lives also include pain, grief, and other subjective "negatives." To put it another way, to live the best possible human life, one must (at the right times and in the right ways, and to the right degrees, etc.) sometimes experience such subjective negatives. Pain felt when it is right and appropriate to feel pain is a part of the eudaimÇn life. Those who are incapable (or too stoned!) to feel grief when grief is appropriate do not lead enviable lives, and we would not wish such conditions on ourselves, our friends, or our children.

If we frame the question this way, "What is it for a human being to do well, to live a life that is the sort we would regard as choiceworthy and would wish for ourselves, our friends, or children?" then I think it will be clearer that we would not necessarily think of "happiness" as our main aim, unless we have a very enriched sense of the word in mind. Lying on a warm beach makes me happy--so does playing with kittens--but I wouldn't count such things as prividing a main aim for human life.

At any rate, I am thus sympathetic with the questioner who wants to know what's supposed to be so great about happiness. I would propose framing the question I gave above, and whatever is the answer to that question is what we may reasonably regard as our main aim.

Some philosophers have argued that happiness is the ultimate aim of everything we seek to do, not because we are programmed in that way, but because it is only rational to aim for something if we think it is going to have some sort of result in terms of happiness. I suppose that is not a bad way of telling the difference between people who are mad and those who are not. The former often do things which we just cannot link with any conception of happiness, while the latter behave in ways we can understand. As I am writing this response I am eating an apple, and if someone were to ask me why, and I replied because I dislike eating apples, it would be difficult to know how to understand why I am then doing it. You suggest that it is rather weak to prefer something that makes you happy rather than something painful, and that the difference is to be understood in terms of a distinction in memories. But it seems to me that there is nothing "weak" about my decision now to eat an apple, given that I like apples and I am hungry, as opposed to sticking a knife in my hand, which would not only produce painful memories, but also pain itself.

I am not at all sure of your conclusion. If existence has a reason, then happiness has some role to play in it, surely. That does not mean that one has to spend one's life entirely devoted to securing personal happiness, but it does mean that this should play some part in that life. It is worth remembering that many of the experiences that make us happy are far more direct than just reflecting on memories. Similarly with pain. We don't need any additional reasons to strive for happiness, although we might need some reasons to show why what we are doing is in fact linked with our conception of happiness. You might call such reasons weak, but you would need to suggest some plausible alternatives and see if they could replace happiness in our approach to life.

In the general muddle of psychological impulses that might come under the category of motivations for a given action, we can distinguish between our principle aim(a) in doing the action, and enabling conditions such as its being broadly in their interests to do such actions. The mere existence of such enabling conditions does not mean that they figure in one's principle aims; the mere fact that it is in my interests to look after my child does not mean that that is my principle aim when I treat her kindly - in particular, it does not mean that my interests are what I have in mind when I treat her kindly. So one might have a situation in which someone - a nice person who enjoys helping others - has nothing more than 'helping my friend' as her principle aim, even while something like 'I'll feel better for doing it' might figure as an enabling condition (it might make it easier to put in the necessary time and effort that the friend needs).

We judge people in important part by reference to their principle aims, and if someone's principle aims are sadistic then they are morally speaking entirely different from someone whose principle aims are to help others. Kant thought the mark of morally good action is doing it from duty, doing it just because it's the right thing to do. He thereby sets (I would say) a very strange standard of moral worth; one which has no place for altruistic feelings as moral motivations. By contrast, Hume before him was more Aristotelian and conceived most good moral actions to be, simply, those that we naturally admire. Here, in this (I would say) more natural philosophical conception of the moral, we find a proper home for the idea that if a person's principle aim is to help someone, then they and their action are to that extent morally good. The sadist's acts of sadism have no such admirable motivations.

When you are going through a depression your social identity is severely undermined. The mirroring effect that others have on your own perception of yourself- the way you "see yourself seen"- is so modified by your emotional states that one can argue that it would be probably safer to avoid too much contact with others. I'm not claimimg this on ethical bases: I agree with Thomas Pogge's idea that depressed people shouldn't avoid interactions on moral reasons, that is, to "spare" friends and acquaintances of their unpleasant presence. Still, I think that depression is a major distortion of the usual social feed-back we get from others in stabilizing our personal identities. Thus, one may argue that a mild isolation can be therapeutic. Jean Paul Sartre used to say that "Hell is other people". I think that depressed know very well the meaning of his claim and avoiding others in some circumstances can be a safe move.

When Mary is depressed, this rubs off on those who are close to her. It casts a shadow over their lives and deprives them of what Mary might otherwise add to their flourishing. Her depression also, and more substantially, blights her own life, makes it less rich, interesting, successful than it would otherwise be. Both points support the conclusion that it is ethically desirable that Mary get over her depression. For her own sake and for the sake of others, Mary ought to do what she can to get over her depression and others should support her effort.

This conclusion goes against your hypothesis that Mary should spare her friends the effects of her depression. This on your very plausible assumption that isolating oneself from one's friends has adverse effects on one's depression. Mary needs friends in the state she's in. And, realizing this, her (true) friends wouldn't want her to withdraw.

Putting this in terms of the Golden Rule, Mary might ask herself: If a good friend of mine were depressed, would I want him to withdraw or would I want to learn about this and have a chance to counsel and help him? Knowing vividly what it is like to be depressed, Mary would likely want her friend to tell and seek her company. And she would be saddened to know that he did not come to her in his depression (just as she would be saddened to know that he spent the night in the cold rather than bother her at midnight for his spare apartment key).

To be sure, we all have "friends" who wouldn't want to have much to do with us if this were not narrowly to their advantage. Those "friends" wouldn't want to be bothered and wouldn't be much help anyway. But there are also those real friends who would be saddened if they knew that Mary needed some extra love and support but did not think she could or should turn to them.

So, I think Mary should not withdraw but, on the contrary, seek comfort and help from those of her friends who share her ethical goal to overcome her depression. These friends would want to know and want to be there for her. And these friends will also find their lives enriched by Mary once she's back on her feet (though they'd want to be there for her quite independently of this benefit).

Maybe yes, if you unreflectively act to promote your own enjoyment and to avoid unpleasantness for yourself. But this condition may not be fulfilled.

One example is that of a person who has worked hard to become someone who takes deep pleasure in the (morally appropriate) happiness of others. Philosophers as different as Aristotle and Kant agree that we can and ought to promote such a disposition in ourselves -- Aristotle because he believed this to be a necessary element of true virtue, Kant because he believed this would avoid temptations that could lead the agent to fail in her duties.

Another example is that of a person who finds that helping others is what she most enjoys doing, but who also reflects on this enjoyment and conscientiously approves of it in moral terms. Had she found that sadistic conduct is what she most enjoys, she would have restrained herself and tried to change her own desires insofar as possible.

In both these case, the enjoyment conferred by the helping act is only a superficial part of a more complex motivation that, more fundamentally, is moral. Here it is because the agent understands that helping others is morally good that she tries to be someone who enjoys helping others. Neither the agent who has this motivation, nor this complex motivation itself, nor the particular act it motivates deserve the predicate selfish.

(It may also be helpful, perhaps, to have a quick look at my earlier answer to Question 1190: www.amherst.edu/askphilosophers/question/1190.)

For the reasons that David offers, I agree that subjective feelings of contentment are not sufficient for well-being: one could feel good and not be doing very well. At the same time, I would not conclude (not that David suggests otherwise) either that (1) positive feelings of contentment are not necessary for well-being or that (2) the fact that someone’s feeling of contentment was induced by drugs (anti-depressants, ecstasy) by itself undermines that person’s claim to well-being.

Individuals who are suffering from depression not only are suffering a loss of good feeling; in addition, they often have a difficult time motivating themselves to form and sustain significant relationships, to gain a deeper understanding of the world, to appreciate beauty, etc. In other words, without a subjective feeling of contentment, humans are often unable to engage in the sorts of activities that objectivists about well-being tend to associate with a genuinely good life.

Additionally, if I were to learn that someone had been on anti-depressants for fifty years, had lived a life of contentment, and also had formed and sustained significant relationships, had a significant positive impact on the world, had thought deeply and well about the world and her place in it, etc., I would not conclude that her well-being was fake. She really did succeed in living a good life, because she really did manage to engage in activities that had significant value. The fact that this achievement was made possible through her fortunate access to anti-depressants is to my mind irrelevant. In contrast, if I were to learn that a person’s drug-use prevented him from engaging in objectively worthwhile activities, then I would conclude that, although the drugs gave him the illusion that he was doing well, as a matter of fact, he was not. As a matter of fact, he was not doing well, because, as a matter of fact, he did nothing worthwhile.

Loneliness does seem to be an affliction common among the aged in modern industrial/consumerist societies, but I'm not sure empirically that it's greater or less than that suffered by other segments of the population or the elderly of other sorts of societies. If it is, I suspect it may be caused by factors such as: isolation, the deaths of friends and spouses, the loss of meaningful work, and the loss of time with children to mobility and to the concerns of their own lives. In many ways, in our society the elderly seem to be left out and left behind. I doesn't strike me as accurate, however, that among the elderly hearts commonly "turn into shell[s]." On the contrary, I find that many among the elderly possess relatively open, warm, and giving personalities. Factors contributing to this seem to include being unburdened of the demands of work and freed from the business produced by modern life so that one possesses more free time to spend socializing and talking. Friendship often arises through the capacity to engage in meaningful conversations, to share projects and work and accomplishment, to enter into various human intimacies, and to assist one another in the realizing of various goods (like wealth, health, honor, etc.). Friendship does seem difficult to establish among people as they get older, however, in some cases because it's more difficult to establish meaningful shared histories composed of these sorts of things (because of the constraints of time, money, health, etc.).

The answer to your question depends on the concept of happiness. Two common assumptions about happiness are (a) that happiness is a good -- according to hedonism, the only good -- and (b) that happiness is subjective. But these two assumptions are in tension.

Consider (b). Some people treat happiness as an essentially subjective condition, akin to contentment. If we accept such a view, several other claims seem to follow. It looks like happiness is a matter of being in a certain subjective state and doesn't depend upon how this state is caused -- its sources or etiology. Its likely that this sort of contentment is dependent on brain chemistry, as any mental state presumably is. For any given individual there may be multiple brain states and processes that would produce contentment, and which brain states and processes produce pleasure may vary among individuals or across species. It also seems like contenment is something the subject ought to be authoritatiave about. If so, one can't be mistaken about whether one is happy.

But (a) and (b) may conflict. In Anarchy, State, and Utopia Robert Nozick famously discusses an Experience Machine.

Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desire. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life's experiences?

Nozick answers No, claiming that we value being certain kinds of people and doing certin sorts of things and not merely having experiences as if we were such persons or doing such things. He concludes that value cannot consist in psychological states alone, as hedonism, for example, implies. If happiness is understood in subjective terms, such as contentment, it seems to follow that happiness cannot be the only or the most important good. So, if we insist on (b), we might conclude -- So much the worse for happiness.

Alternatively, we might appeal to the tension between (a) and (b) to question (b). If we assume that happiness is an important good, then we might question whether happiness is or must be essentially subjective. Consider the case of the Deluded School Boy who desperately wants to be the most popular boy in school -- it's his all consuming desire. His classmates despise him. A measure of their contempt for him is that, knowing his greatest hope, they contrive to make him think he is the most popular boy in school by electing him Class President, all the while ridiculing him behind his back. Because the hoax is successful, the Deluded School Boy is euphoric. Of course, his euphoria is based on a false belief. Observers, who are aware of the hoax, might deny that he was really happy despite being euphoric or might describe his state as one of false happiness. Were the School Boy to later uncover the hoax, we could understand if he were deny that his euphoria was genuine happiness or if he described that euphoric period as a period of unhappiness or false happiness. To the extent that we can understand these reactions, we can formulate more objective conceptions of happiness that require that genuine happiness be grounded in certain activities and relationships that are worth wanting and pursuing. In this way, assumptions about the value of happiness may make us reconsider the assumption that it is essentially subjective.

(My discussion of the Deluded School Boy is adapted from an example in Richard Kraut's "Two Conceptions of Happiness" Philosophical Review 88 (1979), pp. 176-96. Kraut's article is a very nice discussion of the continuity between ancient and modern conceptions of happiness, in which he defends the coherence of more objective conceptions of happiness of the sort embodied in some ancient conceptions of eudaimonia.)