The paradox of hedonism: to be happy, do not aim at happiness

The paradox of hedonism; happiness as a by-product; "Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so"

John Stuart Mill 1806 · 1873An action is right if it increases happiness, but not all pleasures are equal.

What it claims

Happiness, the end of life, is reached only by aiming at something other than itself: the happiness of others, the improvement of mankind, an art or pursuit followed for its own sake. We then find happiness "by the way".

Why

Constantly asking "am I happy?" is enough to stop being so; happiness comes from aiming at something else.

The same idea through history

Joseph Butler1726Sermon XI: happiness consists in satisfying particular desires (loving one's family, loving one's work). If self-love filled the whole place and left no other desire, there would be nothing left to satisfy, hence no happiness. Butler does not yet speak of a "paradox": it is one of the first traces of the idea.

John Stuart Mill1873Autobiography, ch. V: at twenty, in 1826, Mill falls into depression after asking himself whether the success of all his projects would make him happy. He draws a theory of life from it: happiness remains the goal, but it is reached only by aiming at something else.

Henry Sidgwick1874The Methods of Ethics: he gives the idea its name, "the fundamental paradox of Hedonism" (passage read in the 7th edition, 1907). He limits it to "active" pleasures (games, study, art): a player too busy with his own pleasure loses the ardour that produces it.

Viktor Frankl1946Man's Search for Meaning: happiness is not pursued for itself: it comes as a side effect when we give ourselves to a cause greater than ourselves. For Frankl, what we must aim at is meaning.

In short

"The paradox of hedonism: to be happy, do not aim at happiness" is an argument by John Stuart Mill (Mill, Autobiography (1873), ch. V, the crisis of 1826, 1873) on the question "What is happiness?" (answer: no lasting happiness). Its claim: Happiness, the end of life, is reached only by aiming at something other than itself: the happiness of others, the improvement of mankind, an art or pursuit followed for its own sake. We then find happiness "by the way". According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Mill, Autobiography (1873), ch. V, the crisis of 1826

Valid with an implicit premise

You want to be happy. So why not think about it all day? John Stuart Mill, the great utilitarian philosopher, tried. At twenty, in 1826, he asks himself: "Suppose all your objects in life were realized: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" An inner voice answers: "No!" He collapses and goes through months of depression. He comes out with a strange idea he will keep all his life: happiness is not found by looking for it. It comes as a bonus, when you are busy with something else: the happiness of others, progress, an art. Today the idea is called the paradox of hedonism. It does not say that happiness is worthless, but that the direct road is a dead end.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where we do not aim at happiness directly, aim at nothing else either, and are happy anyway: for example thanks to free time, good health and luck. Mill thinks happiness does not come like that, without an aim, but he does not prove it: it is his idea of a life with an object.

Valid with P3. P2 says that aiming directly at happiness makes you fail. P3 adds that whoever does not aim at it directly aims at something else. So, if we are happy, we aimed at something else. The debate is about P2: is it true of all pleasures (bodily ones, for example)? And can deliberate exercises or habits increase our happiness? Mill himself does not say happiness is a bad goal. He says it is a goal we reach by a detour.

Analogy. Try to fall asleep by repeating: "I must sleep, I must sleep." The more you watch your sleep, the more it runs away. Mill says the same of happiness: we lose it by watching it, and find it by being busy with something else, as we fall asleep thinking of a book.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 1789 · attacks premise 2

This is the position Mill learned as a teenager from his father and Bentham: pleasure and pain are our "two sovereign masters" and they alone tell us what to do. We can therefore aim at pleasure head-on, measure it, compare it, calculate it. If that were impossible, the whole programme of utilitarianism would collapse. (Bentham died in 1832, before Mill wrote: his answer is unknown.)

Mill replies

John Stuart Mill Mill's reply: the diagnosis of 1826

Mill says he understood, after his crisis, that the habit of analysis tends to wear away the feelings, when no other habit of mind is cultivated to correct it. His education, made of early calculations of pleasures and pains, had given him analysis without the desires that make us want to act.

John Stuart Mill What Mill keeps of the principle

Mill says he never wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct and the end of life. He does not reject Bentham's principle: he changes the way to reach it.

The debate goes on (our summary) Bentham's heirs can answer that the calculation remains valid for judging a country's laws or actions, even if a person does not make himself happy by calculating his own happiness. Mill's paradox concerns private life, not politics.

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics 1874 · attacks premise 2

Sidgwick, who names the paradox, limits its scope. He says the effect is hardly visible for passive pleasures of the senses, such as eating. Someone who loves good food can aim at his pleasure without losing it. The paradox holds for active pleasures, which require us to forget ourselves in what we do.

no reply

No reply possible: objection raised in 1874, after the author's death (1873).

The debate goes on (our summary) Mill had already foreseen a limit: his theory holds, he writes, for the great majority of people, those with moderate sensibility. He does not say it is true of all pleasures.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon and David Schkade 2005 · attacks the conclusion

Psychology has studied the question head-on: can we raise our happiness lastingly? According to these three researchers, yes, by deliberately choosing activities and habits that make people happy. Aiming at happiness can therefore work, provided we do not merely ask ourselves whether we are happy.

no reply

No reply possible: objection raised in 2005, after the author's death (1873).

The debate goes on (our summary) Mill could answer that these activities (helping others, being grateful, pursuing a project) are precisely "other ends": the study would take nothing away from his paradox, it would specify which detours work. Both readings are possible.