Happiness, Rationality, Autonomy and the Good Life

MARK CHEKOLA

HAPPINESS, RATIONALITY, AUTONOMY AND THE

GOOD LIFE

ABSTRACT. The paper starts with a general discussion of the concepts ofhappiness and the good life. I argue that there is a conceptual core of hap-piness which has to do with one’s life as a whole. I discuss affective andattitude or life satisfaction views of happiness and indicate problems faced bythose views. I introduce my own view, the life plan view, which sees happi-ness as the ongoing realizing of global desires of the person. I argue that onsuch a view one’s life could be happy without a high level of rationality or ahigh level of autonomy; such rationality and autonomy are not built into theconcept of happiness. So while happiness is a final value, and good for theperson, it is not the only final value. Rationality and autonomy are also finalvalues and, where they exist, are good as ends for the person, part of thegood life.

KEY WORDS: autonomy, good life, happiness, life plan, rationality

INTRODUCTION

What is happiness? What is the good life? For much of the his-tory of thought these two questions have been understood asasking the same thing. For some of the ancient Greeks a keyquestion was whether happiness or the good life had to be amorally good life. For instance, Plato is concerned to showthrough a number of arguments in the Republic that the just(‘‘dikaios’’) or morally good person is also the happy person.And Aristotle, by defining happiness or ‘‘eudaimonia’’ as activ-ity exercising or realizing excellence or virtue, seems to by hisdefinition work in morality as part of the nature of happinessor the good life.

The topic for this collection of papers is the role of happinessin the good life. This leads to questions such as ‘‘Is happiness

Journal of Happiness Studies (2007) 8:51–78 � Springer 2006DOI 10.1007/s10902-006-9004-7

sufficient for the good life?’’ and ‘‘Are there other final valueswhich are constituent or part of the good life?’’

I will be arguing that happiness does not conceptually re-quire significant levels of autonomy and rationality. When wethink of the good life, happiness is certainly a significant, andperhaps central part of it, and something which is good for theperson who is living that life. I believe that rationality andautonomy with regard to lives can also be seen as having finalvalue, being good for the person living that life. Therefore theconcepts of happiness and the good life do not seem to equiva-lent; while happiness is certainly a major constituent of thegood life, it is not the only one. I have chosen to focus onrationality and autonomy because they might be believed bysome to be necessary conditions for happiness. I do not meanto suggest that these are the only other possible additional finalvalues. The introduction to this special issue mentions someother possibilities, such as friendship and self-knowledge. I shallsuggest several other candidates at the end of this paper.

I will first discuss some general things about the concept ofhappiness and the concept of the good life. Then I will sketchout my view of happiness. Following that I will discuss ratio-nality and autonomy and their role in the good life.

SOME REMARKS ON THE CONCEPT OF HAPPINESS

While the word ‘‘happiness’’ and its adjective ‘‘happy’’ aresometimes used to refer to feelings (‘‘I feel so happy’’), moods(‘‘She’s in a happy mood’’), and attitudes (‘‘I’m happy with myjob’’) I believe its central use is to refer to a life (‘‘He lived ahappy life’’). There are of course theories that attempt to ana-lyze the happiness of a life in terms of feelings (e.g., hedonistictheories), or an attitude (e.g., life satisfaction views, which seehappiness as liking, being satisfied with, or being pleased withone’s life), or attitude and mood (e.g., Headey and Wearing’sDynamic Equilibrium Model: according to that theory happi-ness is a mix of life satisfaction and positive affect (largely gen-eral good moods) (Headey and Wearing, 1989, 1992).

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Happiness is a ‘‘big’’ concept and it has been used in differ-ent ways. Some people have been ultimately pessimistic aboutits meaningfulness. However, it has been used significantly inthe history of philosophy. In addition, in recent empirical workpeople consistently make reference to it even when they usealternative terms such as ‘‘subjective well-being,’’ believing it iseasier to specify operational definitions of such terms to use inempirical studies.

In order to clarify some things about the concept of happi-ness I would like to make use of a distinction between conceptsand conceptions. Some concepts, particularly ‘‘big’’ conceptssuch as happiness, justice, and race, while generally understood,may be unclear. There is no shared clear definition of them. A‘‘conception’’ is a particular understanding or articulation ofthe concept in question. For example, Rawls (1971) argues for aparticular conception of the concept of justice which he believescan be put to work to make good public policy recommenda-tions. Hardimon (2003) uses the distinction in a recent article toargue that we cannot get rid of the concept of race, as somewould like to do. What we want is to refuse to accept the‘‘racialist conception’’ of race. As messy as ‘‘big’’ concepts suchas these are, we cannot avoid dealing with them.

It seems to me there is a logical or conceptual core of theconcept of happiness that goes back at least to the ancientGreeks and still forms our general understanding of the con-cept. This logical core consists of happiness (a) as having to dowith one’s life as a whole,1 (b) as being relatively long-lasting(when we talk about happiness of a life it is not just for a mo-ment or a day; it is for a significant period),2 (c) as makingone’s life worthwhile (it is a final value), and (d) as being some-thing all people desire. I believe people generally understandwhat it is, in terms of this logical core, even though they maydisagree with regard to particular conceptions of it. It is some-thing important, and of great concern to people. The logicaland conceptual core of the concept, then, is about the life useof the term. In addition, I believe that discussions of happinessin philosophy and the social sciences, while typically holding aparticular conception of happiness, presume the general conceptual

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core of happiness. Some social scientific studies have used termssuch as ‘‘subjective well-being,’’ often claiming this makes whatthey are focusing on more precise and amenable to empiricalmeasurement. However, they generally indicate that subjectivewell-being is synonymous with or roughly synonymous with‘‘happiness.’’ Diener (1994) titles his article ‘‘Subjective Well-Being,’’ but often in the article uses ‘‘happiness’’ as a synonym.Headey and Wearing in their Dynamic Equilibrium Theoryfocus on subjective well-being and positive affect, but we cannote that the title of the book is Understanding Happiness.

Haybron (2000, p. 211) distinguishes psychological happinessand prudential happiness, where the former focuses typically onstates of mind and the latter on well-being. He claims ‘‘The no-tions of psychological and prudential happiness are not differenttheories, or conceptions, of happiness; they are different con-cepts altogether, and denote different things.’’ In the conclusionof the article (2000, p. 218) he says ‘‘We may, when all is saidand done, wish to distinguish multiple varieties of happiness, oreven eliminate the term altogether.’’

While Haybron is correct in noting that ‘‘happiness’’ is usedin some widely different senses in the literature, it seems to methat his claims go too far. Much of the interest in happiness hasto do with our lives, what I have claimed is the conceptual coreof the concept of happiness. Even the views that focus on psy-chological happiness, states of mind, are framed, I believe, in thelight of the happiness of a life. That is why both theorists andordinary people are interested in it. If a study uses ‘‘happiness’’in a way that cannot in some sense be related to the core con-cept, rather than attempting to allow for this new application ofthe term we should strongly consider whether it is not either amisleading use of the term or even a misuse of it. To connectthis to my earlier discussion of different uses or senses of ‘‘hap-piness,’’ when we are thinking about the happiness of a life weare using it in the life sense. There is a feeling use or sense ofthe term, but that refers to feelings, and not one’s life as awhole. Insofar as a theory uses ‘‘happiness’’ just in the feelingsense, and makes no effort to connect it to the life sense (e.g.,to claim that a happy life is one with general positive affect and

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moods over time), then that theory is not a theory of happinessof a life.

THE CONCEPT OF THE GOOD LIFE

The good life is also a ‘‘big’’ concept. It has a long history. Ibelieve, however, that it is less clear than the concept of happi-ness. This can perhaps be seen by its easier application to vari-ous kinds of things such as a name for a chain of health clubs,advertisements about vacation spots, etc. It is harder to see aconceptual or logical core of it. Nevertheless, it is important forthe issues we are studying. Therefore, rather than relying onany kind of shared understanding, some stipulation of how weare using the term will be required. If we understand it to referto a life that is good for the person who lives it, good as a finalvalue, then we can meaningfully ask whether such a life will bethe same as happiness, or whether there may be other thingswhich could be seen as part of the good life, such as rationalityand autonomy.3

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

If we seek to understand what a happy life is, or what makes alife happy, at the outset we should take care to note an ambigu-ity of the question ‘‘What is happiness?’’ Sometimes the ques-tion is about what is its nature. Sometimes the question is aboutwhat its conditions, antecedents, or determinants are, or how itmight be brought about (satisfying personal relationships, ade-quate income, meaningful work, etc.). I wish to focus on thenature of happiness. Some empirical studies of happiness sug-gest they are providing definitions of happiness, saying what itsnature is, when they really are discussing conditions, causes orcorrelations related to happiness (e.g., people who are relativelymore sociable report higher rates of satisfaction with their lives;people who are unemployed report significantly lower rates ofsatisfaction with their lives, even if they are in a society with so-cial support such that they experience no loss of income).


I would like to briefly discuss several views of the nature ofhappiness: affective views, attitude views and then my ownview, which sees it as the realizing or ongoing satisfaction ofglobal ends of the person (a life plan) along with a dispositionto have certain feelings and attitudes. These are, of course, notthe only views there are. For instance, there is Aristotle’s influ-ential view of happiness or eudaimonia as being virtuous activ-ity. Since I am focusing on happiness as a final prudential goodfor the person, I do not see morality as conceptually built intohappiness. Happy lives can be moral or immoral. Aristotle’sview of happiness makes happiness identical with the good life,including the morally good life.4 I will leave Aristotle’s viewaside and focus on views that do not build morality into theconcept of happiness.

AFFECTIVE VIEWS

The Nineteenth Century British Utilitarians held an affectiveview of happiness, identifying it with pleasure or a collection ofpleasures.5 Jeremy Bentham claimed

By utility is meant that property of an object whereby it tends to producebenefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness, (all this in the presentcase comes to the same thing) (Bentham, 1967, p. 368).

Bentham believed that one could use a calculus related to plea-sure to determine the best alternative. John Stuart Mill seems tosee it as a collection of pleasures, with some qualifications as henotes in saying that happiness

...is not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made upof few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decidedpredominance of the active over the passive and having, as the foundationof the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing(Mill, 1963, p. 255).

Daniel Kahneman in ‘‘Objective Happiness’’ (1999) holds anaffective view that similarly sees happiness as a kind of collec-tion of positive feelings. He defines ‘‘objective happiness’’ as‘‘the average of utility over a period of time.’’ This is composedof a record of ‘‘the quality of experience at each point-instant

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utility.’’ (He interprets ‘‘utility’’ as an evaluation of one’s cur-rent state on a Good/Bad dimension.) About ‘‘instant utility’’he says it is best understood as the strength of the dispositionto continue or to interrupt the current experience’’ (1999, p. 4).He is concerned about how we can deal with the distortionsthat arise when we rely on ‘‘remembered utility’’ of past experi-ence. His ideal seems to be a record of actual ‘‘instant utility’’that you could then average to come up with ‘‘objective happi-ness.’’

I believe the affective view fails as an adequate theory ofhappiness of a life. I will first give an argument against identify-ing happiness with pleasure and then some arguments againstthe view that happiness is a collection of pleasures.

If one identifies happiness with pleasure (as Bentham seemsto) a problem that arises immediately is that while pleasures arefairly short-term experiences, happiness referring to a life islonger-term. For one to identify happiness with pleasure as afeeling, it would seem that one is using the feeling sense of‘‘happiness.’’ While we cannot specify a time span for happinessin the life sense, it is clear that it refers to at least a period of alife.6

The view that claims happiness is a collection of pleasuresavoids this argument. Mill clearly thought of happiness as akind of collection of pleasures, and this is perhaps what Ben-tham really had in mind. Kahneman’s ‘‘objective happiness’’seems to be a variety of this view, seeing happiness as havinghigh average positive moods or feelings.

If the nature of happiness is a collection of pleasures a ques-tion that immediately arises is: When does a collection of plea-sures constitute happiness? It would seem that such a viewwould probably be committed to some kind of proportionality:not just any collection of pleasures will constitute happiness,and, in general, the more pleasures, the happier the person willbe. Will any balance of pleasure over pain constitute happiness,or is more required? If not just any collection of pleasures con-stitutes happiness, then, if this is to be an adequate theory ofhappiness, it must tell us what kind of collection constituteshappiness. Assuming an adequate theory of the nature of happiness


should be able to handle typical cases, there are counterexam-ples that arise. There are happy people who seem to have rela-tively fewer pleasures compared to others, and happy asceticswould be one example. The lives of some people with manypleasures are not happy (for example, the Don Juan story). Andwe can easily think of cases where two people have roughly thesame number of pleasures but they vary in happiness. Forexample, Amartya Sen in criticizing utilitarian and preferenceapproaches to welfare or well-being writes of people living livesof deprivation to which they have adjusted and who may ‘‘takepleasures in small mercies’’ and claim to be happy (Sen, 1987,pp. 45–46). Those same pleasures experienced by most of us inmore fortunate circumstances would not likely lead to our judg-ing our lives to be happy. People also sometimes report thatwhile they have enjoyed a certain kind of life they find that theynow want ‘‘something more’’ or feel that ‘‘there’s somethingmissing.’’ It seems plausible to posit that they and others livingthat kind of life are experiencing roughly the same pleasures. Sothe person who now wants something more may be a case ofunhappiness with the same number of pleasures as others whoare happy. And individuals sometimes claim that periods oftheir lives that had less pleasure were happier than periods withmore pleasure.7

Someone committed to the view that happiness is a collectionof pleasures or positive feelings might deal with these counte-rexamples by claiming that the collection has to be one that theindividual likes or is satisfied with. But then we have slippedinto an attitude or life satisfaction view, the view I will be dis-cussing next. I believe that affective views cannot get aroundthese problems, and ultimately do not work as a theory of thenature of happiness. It is clear that positive feelings such aspleasure have a role in happiness, but it will not work to iden-tify happiness with them.

THE ATTITUDE/LIFE SATISFACTION VIEW

Now let us turn to the attitude view of happiness, which ana-lyzes happiness as liking, being pleased with, or being satisfied

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with one’s life.8 This view is held by a number of social scien-tists. For example, Veenhoven has claimed ‘‘‘Happiness’ or ‘lifesatisfaction’ denotes the degree to which a person evaluates theoverall quality of his present life as a whole positively’’ (1988,p. 334), and adds in a later article (1997, p. 3) ‘‘In other words,how much the person likes the life he/she leads,’’ and prefaceshis statement of his definition with ‘‘Happiness is a state ofmind. In common language the term is used for evanescent feel-ings as well as for stable appreciation of life. Here the term isused in the latter meaning only.’’ Headey and Wearing (1992)claim:

...when we ask people in surveys how satisfied they are with their lives,the evidence is that they make relatively calm, cognitive judgments abouthow well their lives are going. In the English language, judgments of lifesatisfaction are very closely related to judgments of happiness (p. 5).9

The attitude view has some advantages. In discussing the affec-tive view I mentioned some counterexamples, such as peoplewith few pleasures who are happy, people with many pleasureswho are unhappy, and people who claim they were happierwhen their lives involved fewer enjoyments. While these exam-ples are problematic for an affective view focusing on pleasure,the attitude view could note that the real issue for happiness ofa life is whether people are pleased with or satisfied with theirlives. For social scientists this view holds promise with regardto the desire for empirical evidence. One can do surveys askingpeople about their lives.

Let us start with a definition of ‘‘attitude’’:

An evaluative response, usually contrasted with simple belief by its moredirect connection with motivation and behavior. An attitude is a statewhose essence is contentment or active discontent with some way theworld is, rather than a simple cognition of the way the world is (Black-burn, 1994, pp. 28–29).

Attitudes consist of beliefs and rather complicated sets of dispo-sitions, dispositions concerning one’s thoughts, feelings, emo-tions, actions and statements about the particular object ofone’s attitude.


While there is much about the attitude or life satisfactionview that is plausible, I have some questions about it. Whenspelling out their views attitude theories usually go on to indi-cate features that go beyond just the felt attitude. Veenhovennoted that it is satisfaction with one’s ‘‘life as a whole.’’ So theobject of the attitude where happiness is concerned is one’swhole life, and not just the pleasantness of the day, or a recentsuccess or good fortune. The object of the attitude, what one issatisfied with, is one’s life as a whole. Since this attitude in-volves a judgment about one’s life being happy, it must beabout one’s life not just at that moment, but over a substantialperiod of time, including a sense that it will continue into thefuture. We can ask then whether the attitude is the nature (orpart of the nature of) happiness, or a typical concomitant or aby-product. In other words, is the attitude theory in the end atheory of the nature of happiness or of a condition or correlateof happiness?

The attitude view has been held by a number of empiricalinvestigators. From their point of view it may well be easier todesign instruments to assess ‘‘subjective well-being’’ than happi-ness. And it would seem that investigators would like resultsthat allow us to compare people with regard to levels of what itis that we are measuring. If ‘‘subjective well-being’’ is seen assatisfaction with life, then presumably the stronger the attitudethe more such well-being the person is presumed to have. And,as I mentioned earlier, it seems that some easily move from‘‘subjective well-being’’ or ‘‘well-being’’ to ‘‘happiness.’’

Now if happiness itself is claimed to be constituted by anattitude (e.g., of being pleased with or satisfied with one’s life),there are some questions that come to mind. It is not clear howweakly or strongly we should interpret the ‘‘pleased with’’ or‘‘satisfied with.’’ If we interpret it in a strong sense, so as tomean positively pleased with one’s life or positively satisfiedwith it, we might exclude some lives where we might want toclaim that the person is happy but yet ‘‘pleased with’’ or ‘‘satis-fied with’’ (other than in a very simple sense) is too strong. Wecould think of this as involving personalities that are ‘‘quieter’’or calmer. Headey and Wearing (1992) for instance suggest

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different mixes with regard to the dynamic equilibriums, someof which likely involve less strong judgments of satisfactionthan others. They also claim, in noting that older people are ingeneral, contrary to widely held assumptions, generally quitehappy: ‘‘One’s senior years emerge as a calm, benign period.People over 60 report higher than average levels of life satisfac-tion and low levels of both positive and negative affect’’ (1992,p. 154). Thus it seems that they are, on Headey and Wearing’sview, relatively high in happiness, but the attitude involved maynot easily be described as a strongly positive attitude.

In addition to these examples it seems to me there are caseswhere people are going through trying difficulties or workingfor some future goal or some difficult causes who are, overallhappy, but who could not be said to be in a strong sense satis-fied or pleased with their lives. This may often include a sensethat things will be better in the future, though I think it neednot. Rather than being ‘‘satisfied with’’ or ‘‘pleased with’’ in thestrong sense, here what seems to be closer to the truth is thatthese persons are in a state in which they would have been dis-pleased with their lives if they weren’t lived in that way.10

The attitude of being satisfied or pleased with one’s is seen asinvolving a cognitive judgment about one’s life. If we do not re-late the subjective part of this in some clearer ways to featuresof a person’s life I believe we might run the risk of a case suchas this: Let us say that pharmacologists are able to develop anew drug which has the effect of leading those who take it tohave more positive attitudes toward things, including their lives.While this may increase felt life satisfaction, I think we wouldresist seeing this as increasing happiness. In response we mighttry to distinguish being really satisfied with one’s life and simplyfeeling satisfied with one’s life. But this serves to support myview that an attitude such as being satisfied with one’s life maynot alone suffice as an analysis of the nature of happiness.

Headey and Wearing in Understanding Happiness make someclaims that may make us less trusting of people’s reported lifesatisfaction. They discuss what they regard as the surprisingfact that most people, regardless of social group, report highlevels of happiness (life satisfaction) (1992, p. 4). In the Australian


panel data that they use, most people claim their lives now arebetter than they were in the past, better than the average Aus-tralian’s, better than their parents’, etc. Their explanation forthis identifies two things. One is something they call the ‘‘senseof relative superiority’’: a tendency of the majority of people tojudge themselves to be above average, whether it be in happi-ness, as spouses, in performance of their jobs, etc. (1992, p. 69).The other is a tendency to seek to maintain an equilibrium stateof high well-being through changes in how they perceive theirown lives – ‘‘mutually reinforcing perceptions which support acomfortable level of happiness or felt well-being’’ (1992, p. 58).

Summing up, my concern here then is with the identificationof the attitude of life satisfaction with happiness, or with well-being. I have already argued against the view that the nature ofhappiness is such an attitude. I would like to add that insofaras researchers may believe that such attitudes (as reported bypeople) help us to determine the well-being of persons, I wouldargue that the reported attitude is, at best, an indicator of well-being or a part of well-being, or the good life. Happiness, how-ever, is an actual constituent of the good life.

A GLOBAL DESIRE OR LIFE PLAN VIEW

When we are thinking about happiness of a life and the goodlife we must take seriously the fact that our lives involve morethan feelings and attitudes. I will argue for a view I call the lifeplan view of happiness, which I think works better in under-standing happiness. This view claims that happiness of a life isthe ongoing realizing of a life plan (or a kind of ongoing suc-cess in a life plan).11 I believe it makes more sense than alterna-tive views in terms of the structure of human behavior and ofhuman lives. In addition, it avoids the problems faced by someother views, such as the affective and attitude views discussedearlier. I believe it fits better with basic beliefs about and repre-sentative claims about happiness. In this paper my presentationof the view and argument for it will have to be briefer andsketchier than would be ideal.12

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The word ‘‘plan’’ sometimes focuses on a design or schemefor realizing a particular end. Sometimes it focuses on an aim,intention or goal (‘‘He went to the university with the plan ofstudying law’’). My use of ‘‘plan’’ will be closer to the latter.

The concept of plan has been usefully applied to the conceptof intentional action, actions being seen as carrying out a planconsisting of wants and beliefs.13 I believe it can be applied to aperson’s life, in terms of a ‘‘life plan.’’14 The idea here is astructure or organization of desires of the persons into globaland local desires.15 The life plan is comprised of the set of glo-bal desires (ends) of a person. Typically these will include de-sires about the kind of person one wants to be, life goals (whichmay include a career), desires concerning relationships with oth-ers, etc. This could be called an inclusive end, for it has as itsobject the harmonious and orderly satisfaction of a number ofdesires. There are some people who have dominant ends, whoseobject is a single prime desire (to be a successful artist, to winthe Olympics). Though such lives are rare, my view can allowfor cases where there is in the life plan a dominant end.

Persons have desires which go well beyond the moment.They have desires, plans, intentions for the future. Some seethis as part of the nature of what it is to be a person. When weexamine the major desires people have I think we find that theycan be seen to form what I call a life plan. Some life plans arevery sketchy, some are very detailed.

To understand what this life plan is we must first have aclear understanding of the structure of desires and ends in per-sons. Global desires can be distinguished from local desires interms global desires forming a kind of system or hierarchy ofdesires. They are ‘‘higher order’’ in a system sense in which rel-atively less global or more local desires will be related to carry-ing them out.16 There are a variety of relations here, includinglower, less global desires being a means to realizing the globaldesire, constituting the global desire, or being caused by theglobal desire. The distinction (global/local) is a relative one, be-cause it is impossible to isolate and name levels very neatly. Alower level local desire will be one whose object is a single orsmall group of things, states of affairs, etc. A higher-level local


desire is one whose object is not a single or small group ofthings or states of affairs. For example, a desire to write a bookhas as its object a complex set of activities that would occurover a relatively long period of time. In addition, there aresome global desires whose objects form an open-ended series,such as a desire for knowledge.

As I use ‘‘life plan,’’ it is made up of the global desires of theperson. The criteria we can use to pick out global desires thatmake up elements of the life plan are permanence, comprehen-siveness and importance. They are relatively more permanent:though they can change they do not change rapidly or fre-quently. These desires are relatively more comprehensive, affect-ing many of the local desires and ends of the person. Finally wehave the third criterion, importance: elements of the life planare important desires whose frustration brings serious dissatis-faction. Typically these global desires concern occupationalgoals, desires to have certain personal relationships, desires tobe a certain kind of person, important avocational goals, etc.

Now, what about the positive subjective experiences oftenseen by some views as being the nature of happiness or closelyconnected to happiness in some way, for example, pleasures,and attitudes such as being satisfied with one’s life? On the lifeplan view these typically accompany a happy life. When we dothings we want to do, and when we experience a success withregard to a global desire that is important to us, we typicallyexperience pleasure. When the pleasure occurs, it too is part ofthe realizing of the global desires, the life plan. For that reasonit could be said to be constitutive of happiness. But I do not be-lieve pleasures are a necessary condition for happiness, for thefollowing reasons. Pleasures are episodic and not long lasting.The ongoing realizing of the global end is not episodic in thatway, but is really what happiness is. Now, the pleasures aregood and worthwhile experiences. Were we not to experiencethem we might wonder whether something was wrong. Butthere is also the problem of expecting more than is possiblewith regard to pleasures and wrongly thinking something to bewrong. Along with the realizing of the life plan it would seemthat there is a disposition to experience pleasures associated

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with the realizing of the life plan. Whether they actually do oc-cur depends on the nature of pleasure (its being episodic andnot of long duration) and other things (e.g., some negativeexperiences that do not undermine happiness but neverthelessmake it more difficult to experience positive feelings).

Similarly, the realizing of the life plan is typically accompa-nied by positive attitudes, being pleased with one’s life. As I no-ted earlier, while raising questions about the attitude view, thereare cases where people are going through trying difficulties orworking for some difficult causes where they might not have aattitude of being satisfied or pleased with their lives. Whatmight be more accurate is that they would be displeased if theywere not living their lives in this way.

My view that happiness is the ongoing realizing of a life planconsisting of a person’s global desires would seem to fall withinthe general category of desire-fulfillment theories. What isimportant for happiness is a person’s having the kind of lifethat person wants to live. The actual ongoing satisfaction ofglobal desires is subjective (in Kagan’s sense discussed in theintroduction to this special issue), since it depends on what per-sons themselves value and desire. It is externalist (in Kagan’ssense discussed in the introduction), since it depends on some-thing outside of the agent -- that the global desires actually arebeing realized (and not just believed to be realized). There is adisposition to experience favorable feelings and attitudes, butthey are on my view not necessary conditions for happiness of alife. They are typical, common, but their absence doesn’t ruleout happiness.17

Empirical studies which seek data related to happiness basedon feelings such as pleasure or attitudes such as being satisfiedwith one’s life are then using something which we can say typi-cally accompanies happiness of a life. In that regard we canunderstand their being used as indicators. But with regard toboth it is important to note that it would be wrong to see thenature of happiness to be the pleasure or the attitude.

Affective views, in particular, may be guilty of misleading uswith regard to happiness of a life. Consider Kahneman’s viewof ‘‘objective happiness,’’ discussed earlier, in which he defines


it as ‘‘an average of utility over a period of time’’ where ‘‘util-ity’’ is something like pleasure (1999, p. 4). On my view thisfails to take into account the structure of people’s lives that in-cludes their global desires which is importantly related to happi-ness. And it fails to distinguish pleasures that are associatedwith the realizing of parts of the life plan and pleasures whichare incidental and serendipitous (such as pleasant smells,sights). It would seem to make happiness, then, less importantthan it is.

I believe an additional way that feelings and attitudes mustbe considered in connection with the life plan view is that nega-tive feelings and attitudes, such as serious felt dissatisfaction, oran attitude of being displeased with or disliking one’s life, canrule out happiness, even where a life plan is being realized. Seri-ous felt dissatisfaction normally accompanies a failure in realiz-ing the life plan. However, there are cases where there is feltdissatisfaction, such as serious depression, where it is not thecase that, objectively, one’s global desires are not being realized.Similarly, an attitude of disliking or being displeased with one’slife can also rule out happiness even where a life plan is beingrealized. For example, Mill, in his famed ‘‘mental crisis’’ felt heno longer had a strong desire for his goal of social reform, feel-ing that these goals were not his own autonomous goals, but,rather, his father’s (1923, pp. 112–113). If this sort of negativeattitude were to not be resolved, and continue, it would seem torule out happiness. So these are things that can get in the wayand rule out happiness.

RATIONALITY AND HAPPINESS AND THE GOOD LIFE

Both Plato and Aristotle saw reason as having a role in thegood life not only in terms of controlling appetites and develop-ing virtues, but also in terms of the very best lives includingawareness of ultimate reality. That sense of rationality no long-er is taken very seriously in terms of the nature of the good life.But rationality in a more formal and instrumental sense is takenseriously by some as necessary for the good life. As examples I

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will discuss some claims John Rawls and Richard Brandt makeabout happiness.

At the outset I want to note that I believe some degree ofrationality is necessary for happiness. First of all, my view ofhappiness as involving the realizing of global desires, a life plan,requires a level of rationality to develop and possess such de-sires. But I find myself resisting the idea that happiness requiresrationality in a strong sense with regard to the development ofthe life plan or the origin of one’s desires. Let us consider Raw-ls (1971) first. Rawls claims

...we can think of a person as being happy when he is in the way of a suc-cessful execution (more or less) of a rational plan of life drawn up under(more or less) favorable conditions, and he is reasonably confident thathis plan can be carried through (p. 409).

When he explains his understanding of what it is for a life planto be rational he says that there are two conditions which arenecessary and together sufficient:

(1) it is one of the plans that is consistent with the principles of rationalchoice when these are applied to all the relevant features of his situation,and (2) it is that plan among those meeting this condition which would bechosen by him with full deliberative rationality, that is, with full aware-ness of the relevant facts and after careful consideration of the conse-quences (p. 408).

I think Rawls’ emphasis on rationality of this degree being nec-essary for happiness goes too far. While we regard deliberationin choices as often a good thing, how many people in choosingtheir global desires have been as careful in the process as Raw-ls’ suggests? Some might claim it is a conception of a philoso-pher’s happy life. Greater rationality of the sort he is describingmay have instrumental value for the person: their happinessmight be less risky. However, there is much in life that is uncer-tain, and choices have to be made in uncertainty. And mostpeople value some spontaneity and impulsivity in their lives.Rawls’ emphasis on ‘‘full deliberative rationality’’ would notseem, prima facie, to leave room for that. And might that sug-gest that his strong degree of ‘‘rationality’’ in the process maybe less good for the person?


Brandt (1969–1970) has argued that we can evaluate some ofour desires and aversions by asking whether the desire in ques-tion is one which would be kept by a rational person who isvividly aware of the properties of such a desire (p. 46). Prob-lems arise when the desire or aversion is ‘‘unauthentic’’ (not ac-quired by experience of the thing in question), or based onmisgeneralization (e.g., believing one dislikes all types of fish be-cause one disliked cod). In this way one has desires and aver-sions one would not rationally choose, and these can limitaspects of people’s lives. One might have a global desire, suchas a career goal that does not suit one’s personality (e.g., want-ing to be a lawyer because one’s parents want it, and being akind of person who would find work in law unfulfilling) or missthings that might be very enjoyable to the person. For example(p. 54), not trying out new activities because of an intense fearof failure to excel whose origin is based on experience of beingexcessively criticized or humiliated as a child. This could cer-tainly have serious impact on the formation of one’s global de-sires

Brandt claims that one can use techniques such as psycho-therapy to help eliminate such irrational desires and aversions.His focus is on whether desires have been formed rationally (inthe sense of not having been formed irrationally) and on thepossibility of critiquing them for that reason. At the end of hisarticle he himself raises questions about how far we would wantto go with this. The extinguishing of some such desires andaversions may be difficult. He notes that we may not want togive up some wants we have even though we realize that wewould not continue to have those wants if we were rational inthe way Brandt is describing. And ‘‘Remember that a personmay get joy from satisfying irrational desire and be unhappy ifhis irrational desires are frustrated’’ (p. 64).

Rationality of the sort that Brandt is describing certainly canhave significant impact on the formation of a person’s life plan.But should it be seen as part of the concept of happiness as therealizing of a life plan? I think not. Irrational desires and aver-sions sometimes get in the way in people’s lives. They can besimply limiting (e.g., avoiding all fish on the basis of not having

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liked cod) or can be possibly crippling (excessive fear of notexcelling). Nevertheless, a life plan with such desires is still a lifeplan. It may be risky. It may involve a global desire that isoverly demanding and difficulty to satisfy. But I do not thinkwe can rule such things out conceptually.

So Brandt’s rationality with respect desires and aversionsmay be in general a good thing in with regard to a person andthat person’s well-being. But with regard to happiness I thinkwe cannot require such rationality. That’s not to say that rid-ding oneself of some serious aversions might not increase thelikelihood of one’s happiness. But, as Brandt noted, the satisfy-ing of some desires which are irrational in his sense might stillbe part of the successful ongoing realizing of a life plan.

I think a case can be made for rationality as something of fi-nal value for the person, such that rationality of one’s globaldesires and the beliefs involved, as discussed by Rawls andBrandt, has prudential value, is part of the good life for thatperson.

To make this point let me include consideration of someideas raised by Dworkin in ‘‘Foundations of Liberal Equality’’(1999). He sees the idea of a good life, or well-being, as havingto do with ‘‘how we should live to make good lives for our-selves’’ (p. 196). Dworkin claims we must recognize a complex-ity in the concept of well-being that includes a distinctionbetween ‘‘volitional well-being,’’ having or achieving what aperson wants, and ‘‘critical well-being,’’ which is ‘‘having orachieving what he should want, that is, the achievements ofexperiences that it would make his life a worse one not to want(1999, p. 230). When he goes on to further develop the idea ofcritical interests he claims there are two different and competinggeneral models of value which are used in ‘‘conceiving thesource and nature of the value a life can have for the personwhose life it is’’: the model of impact (its value consists in itsproduct – ‘‘its consequences for the rest of the world,’’ and themodel of challenge – ‘‘a good life lies in the inherent value of askillful performance of living’’ (1999, pp. 240–241). These ad-dress the concerns people have when they ask about their ownlives or the lives of others whether they ‘‘add up to anything.’’


Insofar as the model of impact is appealed to, that would re-fer to whether the person’s life is a good life in the sense of itsconsequences, its effect. And that model would seem to take usaway from our focus on prudential value. The model of chal-lenge is the one Dworkin prefers, and this model focuses on thelife as lived, not on some product independent of that life.Rationality might be seen as this sort of good, an aspect of‘‘skillful performance’’ in living. (He gives as an example of suc-cessful meeting of a challenge the value ‘‘a brilliant dive has andretains when the ripples have died away’’ (p. 195). In this man-ner rationality of the sort discussed by Rawls and Brandt can beseen as something which could be included in the concept of thegood life as something valuable as an final end for the person.

AUTONOMY AND HAPPINESS AND THE GOOD LIFE

Gerald Dworkin, summing up his basic discussion of autonomysays

Putting the various pieces together, autonomy is conceived of as a second-order capacity of persons to reflect critically upon their first-order prefer-ences, desires, wishes, and so forth and the capacity to accept or tochange these in light of higher-order preferences and values. By exercisingsuch a capacity, persons define their nature, give meaning and coherenceto their lives, and take responsibility for the kind of person they are(1988, p. 20).

Taking this notion of autonomy involving critical reflection ofand possible alteration of lower order desires, we can apply itto the structure and hierarchy of desires in the life plan view. Itwould seem that one way in which we could raise the questionof autonomy is to ask whether someone is considering theirown global desires in evaluating their local desires or prefer-ences. To my mind that is presumed in the notion of a set ofglobal desires that make up what I’ve called a life plan. If onereally has a global desire to be a good and loving parent, thenthat means that it will have an effect in making particular deci-sions related to the raising of one’s child. If it did not it wouldseem that one does not really have that global desire. Thisminimal level of autonomy, using global, higher order desires to

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reflect on desires subsumed under them is, I think, assumed inthe basic concept of happiness.

What is more interesting is whether one’s global desires mustbe autonomously chosen. This is a fuller sense of autonomy ofa life. I would argue that while autonomy of this sort would bea good thing for the person, and hence part of a good life, I donot see it as being necessary for happiness. Our important goalsand global desires have a number of sources. Sometimes theyare chosen after reflection, but sometimes they are fallen into orchanced upon. I may have as my occupational goal one fosteredin me by my parents, about which I have thought little -- or Imay have chanced into a certain occupation and find myselfwith a number of goals within it. My global desires with regardto the sort of person I would like to be may be influenced bypeople I admire. We do not construct life plans out of nothing.We construct them partly out of ideals formed by observingpeople around us and history. In addition, we may adopt roleswe are expected to fulfill as elements of our life plans that weadopt from the society (to be a good partner, teacher, neighbor,citizen). This is not to suggest that these are completely unre-flective. It is to recognize that it would be impossible for us tomake careful reflective decisions about all aspects of our lives.

There are two main approaches in discussions of autonomyof desires.18

One sees a desire as being autonomous if it is endorsed bythe person. The second sees a desire as being autonomous if ithas been formed in a certain way (for example, through a non-manipulative process that allows for critical reflection of valuesby the person).19

I’d like to look at two discussions of questions about happi-ness that are rooted in issues of autonomy, one by AmartyaSen, and the other by L.W. Sumner. Amartya Sen is critical oftheories that use utility, preference or desire-fulfillment to mea-sure welfare. He notes:

A person who is ill-fed, undernourished, unsheltered and ill can still behigh up in the scale of happiness or desire-fulfillment if he or she haslearned to have ‘realistic’ desires and to take pleasure in small mercies(Sen, 1999, p. 14).


Some adaptive preferences are realistic in a non-objectionableway: it would be best for me to give up any dream I might haveof being a rock star, given the person I am. Sen has in mindadaptive preferences based on socialization in situations ofinjustice. The person here seems to have endorsed desires for avery limited life, accepting what is a unjust social situation. AndSen posits that such person could be happy according to utili-tarian or desire-fulfillment views. (I should note that the exam-ple could be restated in terms of my life plan view.) Sen iscritical of this: while the person may be happy, he should notbe. If we switch to the more general concept of well-being for amoment, Sen is here criticizing subjective views of well-being astoo easily accepting morally objectionable cases of well-being,where individuals have settled for very limited lives in situationsof oppression. This is why we need something objective, such ascapabilities, in considering the well-being of lives.

So limitations in our preferences due to adaptation raisequestions of autonomy, and in particular, adaptation not due tounobjectionable realism about ourselves and our situations.There are a number of possibilities with regard to Sen’s case.One would be to claim that the person thinks he’s happy, buthe really isn’t. Though he doesn’t specifically say so, I thinkSen’s criticism of views that would accept the oppressed life ofthe person who has adapted his desires to the situation as ahappy life suggests that he might see autonomy of the sort dis-cussed as required for happiness. Another possibility, and theone I prefer, is to allow that he may indeed have a happy life,but one involving severe and unjustified limitations. Were he tohave more opportunities open to him for a life with richer alter-natives he would have a better life. So he may well be living ahappy life, but not such a good life. So greater autonomouschoice and not settling for so little would be part of a good life.

Sumner (1996) holds a mental-state life-satisfaction view ofhappiness. He sees welfare or well-being as not being conceptu-ally identical with happiness. Judgments of happiness can bebased on mistaken information and desires not autonomouslychosen. So in some cases a person might be happy in a waythat does not enhance that person’s welfare. What is necessary

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here, for welfare, is autonomy. He says ‘‘...(self-assessed) happi-ness or life satisfaction counts as well-being only when it isautonomous’’ (Sumner, 1996, p. 167). Autonomy involvesauthenticity, emphasizing that for beliefs, values, desires, etc. tobe autonomous, they must be the subject’s own. So happinessand welfare (well-being) coincide when the individual’s judg-ments of happiness are autonomous.

It would be difficult to see the case Sen refers to as involvingautonomy and authenticity in the sense that Sumner uses. Sum-ner would interpret it, I believe, pretty much the way I do:while the person may be happy, his life could be much better;his welfare is seriously limited. Were the person to autono-mously reflect on his life it would seem likely that he would notsee his life as a happy one.

For Sumner, then, autonomy is not required for happiness. Itis a good thing, good for the person who has it. As a matter offact, he claims ‘‘Autonomy is an intrinsic prudential good:something whose presence in our lives makes them go better initself’’ (Sumner, p. 205).

Autonomy is also instrumentally good for a person, makinga person’s happiness less risky. If someone becomes aware ofthe fact that a global desire or plan that was adopted is notreally his, this can upset the life plan in a serious way. Forexample, John Stuart Mill, in his famed ‘‘mental crisis’’ felt heno longer had a strong desire for his goal of social reform, feel-ing that these goals were not his own autonomous goals, but,rather, his father’s:

...it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself ‘‘Suppose thatall your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutionsand opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely ef-fected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness toyou?’’ And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, ‘‘No!’’At this my heart sank within me; the whole foundation on which my lifewas constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found onthe continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and howcould there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to havenothing to live for (1923, p. 113).

So autonomy is instrumentally good for the person since itmakes that person’s happiness mores secure and less risky. Mill


did come to endorse these goals and adopt them autonomouslyas his own, but some might not be so fortunate.

In discussing how rationality could be seen to be a final goodthat is part of the good life in addition to happiness I made useof Ronald Dworkin’s discussion of the model of challenge. Ithink we might make use of that for autonomy, too. When alife has the kind of autonomy and authenticity that Sumner dis-cusses, a life that is self-chosen and endorsed life, that persons‘‘own life,’’ that is significant.20 In terms of Dworkin’s model ofchallenge it demonstrates a life with a kind of skillful perfor-mance, being authentically the chosen life of the person, and offinal value for the person. And this seems to be independent ofhappiness. The autonomy doesn’t make it happier. In ourthinking about people’s lives I suspect this might well be re-garded as a more important final value in the good life thanrationality.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Happiness is good for the person who has it. It is a key part ofthe good life. I have argued that it is best seen in terms of akind of desire-fulfillment theory that holds that positive affec-tive states and attitudes typically accompany the fulfillment ofthe global desires or life plan of the individual. I argued that itis incorrect to require a great degree of rationality and a greatdegree of autonomy as necessary for happiness. Neverthelessrationality and autonomy, where they exist, are good as endsfor the person who has them, and thus should be seen, in addi-tion to happiness, as part of a good life.

Happiness, then, cannot be construed as identical with thegood life. There are other things that can be part of the goodlife, final goods for the person who possesses them. While Ihave discussed two, rationality and autonomy, I am not claim-ing that they are the only other possible final goods to be con-sidered. There is, of course health, which is a clear candidate.Another is serendipitous or surprise goods, for which we do nothave preceding desires. Sumner points out (1996, p. 153) ‘‘...thequality of our lives is enhanced both by what we do and by

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what happens to us. The fact that some benefits we enjoy arethe result of good fortune rather than achievement on our partdoes not make them any less worthwhile.’’ This will have to re-main a topic for future exploration.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Bengt Brulde and an anonymous reviewerfor helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.

NOTES

1 Diener (1984, p. 544) calls this one of the three hallmarks of subjectivewell-being.2 Happiness of a life covers an extended period of a life, certainly not just

a day or week. It doesn’t change easily or quickly. However, I think we canagree with Aristotle that very serious misfortunes could take it away. Hesays: ‘‘...it is possible that the most prosperous man will encounter great mis-fortune in his old age, as the Trojan legends tell about Priam. When a manhas met a fate such as his and has come to a wretched end, no one calls himhappy’’ (Aristotle, 1962, Book I, Chapter 9, p. 23). While questions can beraised about the well-known study by Brickman et al. (1978) about the long-range relative stability of happiness levels even after great fortunes and mis-fortunes, such as suffering paraplegia as the result of an accident, it doesclearly suggest that happiness of a life is not easily lost.3 My understanding of the concept of the good life is in substantial agree-

ment with Bengt Brulde’s remarks in the introduction to this special issue.4 For more discussion of major historical views of happiness, see Chekola

(1974).5 The view identifying happiness with pleasure had, of course, been around

a long time before the British Utilitarians. Aristotle in his Nicomachean Eth-ics noted that this was a common view of the nature of ‘‘eudaimonia,’’ andhe argued that it misidentifies ‘‘eudaimonia’’ (Aristotle, 1962, p. 1095b). Henotes that pleasure typically accompanies eudaimonia, but is not its nature(1099a). Aristotle’s addressing this issue shows that it is incorrect to say that‘‘eudaimonia’’ and ‘‘happiness’’ are different concepts with happiness havinghedonistic overtones that eudaimonia did not have.6 Hedonism is not the only affective view of happiness. There is a view

which sees happiness as an affective state of feeling happy or feeling good,


where those are not identical with pleasure. I believe the arguments I raiseagainst hedonism work against other affective views as well.7 For example, in his autobiographical collection of stories, A Moveable

Feast (Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1964) Ernest Hemingway notes: ‘‘But thisis how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy’’(p. 211).8 Examples of philosophers who have held this view include: Austin (1968),

Taylor (1963), von Wright (1963), and Wilson (1968). For further discussionof these views see Chekola (1974, pp. 78–84).9 I wish to thank Ruut Veenhoven, Erasmus University Rotterdam, for

providing me with a hard-to-get copy of the original Headey and Wearingbook.10 Foot (2001) has an interesting discussion of people about to be executedin Nazi Germany for opposing the Nazis, who wrote letters to loved ones inwhich they indicate a kind of confidence about their refusal to give in. Footsays ‘‘One may think that there was a sense in which the Letter-Writers did,but also a sense in which they did not, sacrifice their happiness in refusing togo along with the Nazis.’’ If we can conceive of their lives being happy livesin these grim circumstances it would certainly be the case that they couldnot be pleased with their lives overall in a strong sense, but that they wouldbe displeased with their lives if they did not refuse to give in (p. 95).11 This emphasis on its being an ongoing state, not something over and donewith, bears some resemblance to Aristotle’s emphasis on happiness or eudai-monia being an activity.12 This view is developed and argued for more fully in Chekola (1974),Chapter III.13 For example, Goldman (1970, pp. 56–57).14 Josiah Royce (1908) seems to be the first person to use the term ‘‘life plan.’’He discusses it in The Philosophy of Loyalty, New York: Macmillan, particu-larly in Lecture IV. Rawls (1971) also uses it in A Theory of Justice, Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press. Neither of these give the notion of the lifeplan the kind of underpinnings in terms of the structure of desires for which Ihave argued. Griffin (1986) also makes some use of the concept of a life plan.15 Formerly I used ‘‘higher and lower order’’ instead of ‘‘global and local,’’e.g., in Chekola (1974). ‘‘Global’’ and ‘‘local’’ more accurately reflect thestructure of desires/ends, and avoid the particular limited sense of ‘‘higher’’and ‘‘lower’’ used by Frankfurt (1971) in his analysis of freedom of the will,where a higher order desire is a desire to have or not have a desire. I amemphasizing an hierarchical system of desires where global desires are desireswith more complex objects (which may be desires, but may be other things).I thank Bengt Brulde for suggesting the use of these terms.16 Rawls (1971, p. 411) uses this sense of ‘‘higher order.’’ I am avoidingmore general use of ‘higher order’’ because Harry Frankfurt’s use of it wherehigher order is understood as desiring to desire X (which could be a particu-lar object of desire, or a desire) has come to dominate the understandingthat people have of this term.

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17 Since my view does not see happiness as some kind of mental state it fol-lows that someone could be happy without knowing it, as well as be mis-taken in believing one is happy. Actual, not perceived ongoing satisfaction isrequired. This is probably not very common, but yet it is possible.18 I thank Bengt Brulde for reminding me of this.19 This is discussed by Sumner (1996, pp. 169–171).20 Gerald Dworkin helpfully notes that we should avoid being overly intel-lectualist about this, limiting it to people with certain personality traits andtraining, such as professional philosophers. He claims:

But a farmer living in an isolated rural community, with a minimal educa-tion, may without being aware of it be conducting his life in ways whichindicate he has shaped and molded his life according to reflective proce-dures. This will be shown not by what he says about his thoughts, but inwhat he tries to change in his life what he criticizes about others, the satis-faction he manifests (or fails to) in his work, family and community(1988, p. 17).

REFERENCES

Aristotle: 1962, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. M. Ostwald (Bobbs-Merrill,Indianapolis).

Austin, J.: 1968, �Pleasure and happiness�, Philosophy 43, pp. 51–62.Bentham, J.: 1967, ‘The principles of morals and legislation’, in A.I. Melden(ed.), Ethical Theories (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs), pp. 367–390.

Blackburn, S.: 1994, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford).Brandt, R.: 1969–1970, �Rational desires�, Proceedings and Addresses of heAmerican Philosophical Association 43, pp. 43–64.

Brickman, P., D. Coates and R. Janoff-Bulman: 1978, �Lottery winners andaccident victims: Is happiness relative?�, Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 36(8), pp. 917–927.

Chekola, M.: 1974, The Concept of Happiness (Unpublished dissertation,University of Michigan. Available at www.mnstate.edu/chekola).

Diener, E.: 1984, �Subjective well-being�, Psychological Bulletin 95(3), pp. 542–575.

Diener, E.: 1994, �Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities�,Social Indicators Research 31, pp. 103–157.

Dworkin, G.: 1988, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge Uni-versity Press, Cambridge).

Dworkin, R.: 1999, ‘Foundations of liberal equality’, in S. Darwall (ed.),Equal Freedom: Selected Tanner Lectures on Human Freedom (Universityof Michigan Press, Ann Arbor), pp. 190–306.

Foot, P.: 2001, Natural Goodness (Clarendon Press, Oxford).


Frankfurt, H.: 1971, �Freedom of the will and the concept of a person�, Journalof Philosophy 68, pp. 5–20.

Goldman, A.: 1970, A Theory of Action (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs,N.J).

Griffin, J.: 1986, Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Impor-tance (Clarendon Press, Oxford).

Hardimon, M.: 2003, �The concept of race�, Journal of Philosophy 50(9),pp. 437–455.

Haybron, D.: 2000, �Two philosophical problems in the study of happiness�,Journal of Happiness Studies 1, pp. 207–225.

Headey, B and A. Wearing: 1989, �Personality, life events and subjective well-being: toward a dynamic equilibrium model�, Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 57(4), pp. 731–739.

Headey, B and A. Wearing: 1992, Understanding Happiness: A Theory ofSubjective Well-Being (Longman Cheshire, Melbourne).

Mill, J.: 1923, Autobiography (Oxford University Press, London).Mill, J.: 1963, ‘Utilitarianism’, in A. Levi (ed.), The Six Great HumanisticEssays of John Stuart Mill (Washington Square Press, New York), pp. 243–310.

Rawls, J.: 1971, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge).Royce, J.: 1908, The Philosophy of Loyalty (Macmillan, New York).Sen, A.: 1987, On Ethics and Economics (Basil Blackwell, Oxford).Sen, A.: 1999, Commodities and Capabilities (Oxford University Press).Sumner, L.W.: 1996, Welfare, Happiness and Ethics (Clarendon Press,Oxford).

Taylor, C.C.W.: 1963, �Pleasure�, Analysis, Supplement 23, pp. 2–19.Veenhoven, R.: 1997, �Advances in understanding happiness�, Revue Quebec-oise de Psychologie 18, pp. 29–79.

Veenhoven, R.: 1988, �The utility of happiness�, Social Indicators Research 20,pp. 333–354.

Von Wright, G.H.: 1963, The Varieties of Goodness (Routledge, London).Wilson, J.: 1968, �Happiness�, Analysis 29, pp. 13–21.

Address for correspondence:MARK CHEKOLADepartment of PhilosophyMinnesota State University MoorheadMoorhead, MN, 56563USA.

E-mail: [email protected]

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Happiness, Rationality, Autonomy and the Good Life