Hedonism, one of the happiness theories, states that happiness composes of felt pleasures

and absence of pain. From that baseline, there are a few types of Hedonism: Bentham’s
Quantitative Theory, Kahneman’s Modified Quantitative Theory, and Mill’s Qualitative Theory.

Bentham’s Quantitative Hedonism

Bentham’s Quantitative Hedonism theory states that people are dominated by pleasure
and pain. He writes, “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to
determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the
chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we
say, in all we think…” (TOH p. 22). In other words, pleasure and pain tell us what we should do
and are going to do. They affect our behavior, words, and thinking even in cases of morality.

In general, Bentham measures a happy life by first calculating every moment of one’s life
in pleasure (positive value) subtracted by pain (negative value), then adding every moment’s
pleasure/pain amount. If that sum is positive, then the person lived a happy life; if the sum is
negative, then the person lived an unhappy life. He writes, “Sum up all the values of all the
pleasures on the one side, and those of all the pains on the other. The balance, if it be on the side
of pleasure, will give the good tendency of the act upon the whole, with respect to the interests of
that individual person” (TOH p. 25). Though this describes a single act as good or bad, it also
applies to overall life happiness since all these single acts add up to a life of actions. It might be
easier to think of a classic graph in math which has two axes, a horizontal x and a vertical y.
Bentham measures happiness with only the y-axis, giving his Hedonism theory a one-
dimensional property. And to chart a person’s happiness in life, the x-axis comes into play as
time with each pleasure as a positive value on the y-axis and each pain as a negative value on the
y-axis. After connecting the dots, the area between the line and the zero point is all the pleasure
and pain one experienced. The sum of the two numbers is how much pleasure one had and
therefore how happy one is up to the moment in time counted in the calculations.

More specifically, Bentham calculates how much value each pleasure and pain receives
with six factors. The first four are “the circumstances which are to be considered in estimating a
pleasure or a pain considered each of them by itself”: intensity, duration, certainty, and
propinquity (TOH p. 24). Intensity measures the degree and strength of the pleasure and pain,
e.g. kissing your partner is stronger than kissing a complete stranger. Duration measures the
increment in time, e.g. bleeding out is a longer type of pain than a swift bullet to the head.
Certainty measures how sure one is of the feeling they will get when they do something, e.g.
people tend to go to the same restaurant and order the same meal because they know that what
they’re getting will give them pleasure. Propinquity measures how far away in time you will
have the feeling, e.g. when I first got my bunny, she was peeing everywhere and running away
from me. But I know that if I kept spending time with her and being patient, she would
eventually love me. These four factors are used to calculate how much value each pleasure or
pain has. The last two factors are used “for the purpose of estimating the tendency of any act by
which it is produced” (TOH p. 24). They are fecundity and purity. Fecundity measures how
likely one sensation will be followed by the same, e.g. it is likely that a second bite of the same
piece of Kobe steak will give you the same pleasure as it did the first bite. Meanwhile, purity
measures how likely a sensation will not be followed by the opposite, e.g. when Monty Python
fans watch Holy Grail, they know that the entire experience will be pure because they know that
the next scene won’t make them feel pain. From these measurements, it seems that the best type
of pleasure is one that is the most intense, the longest, the most certain, the least far away in
time, and the most likely to be followed by more pleasure and not pain. But if our lives are filled
with this type of pleasure and no pain, we would actually not be the happiest, and Kahneman
shows us why.

Objections to Quantitative Hedonism

There are several problems with Bentham’s Quantitative Hedonism theory. For one,
we’re not good at wanting and doing things that give us the most pleasure and the least pain,
because we are bad at recalling what gives us the most pleasure and least pain. Kahneman proves
this with the Peak-End Rule, concluded by his colonoscopy studies. In addition, we are not good
at calculating future pleasures and planning happy lives, because we often miswant, a theory
produced by Gilbert and Wilson through various studies.

In addition, when we give people the option of choosing between two lives—same
amount of overall pleasure, but one has more pleasure near birth and the other near death—
people tend to choose the latter life where they would experience more pleasure near the end of
their life. However, if Bentham’s theory were correct, then there should not be a preference since
people get the same amount of pleasure and therefore the same amount of happiness no matter
what. Moreover, people prefer some pleasures over others, even if they get the same amount of
pleasure from both sources. For example, people prefer cold ice cream over a warm chocolatey
cookie on a hot day, even though they love both equally. Furthermore, some people even prefer
less intense pleasures over more intense pleasures. For instance, when someone has had a rough
day, they would rather have a hug from their partner than sex, even though sex gives more
intense pleasure. Bentham’s theory cannot solve these mysteries, but Mill’s Qualitative
Hedonism can.

Kahneman’s Modified Quantitative Hedonism

Kahneman has a major objection to Bentham’s Quantitative Hedonism. He found it too

one-dimensional in its calculations. He writes, “Reporting the sign and intensity of current
hedonic and affective experience is not essentially different from the standard psychophysical
tasks of reporting color or smell” (TOH p. 32). In other words, perhaps Bentham’s way of
measuring experiences is too shallow, because Kahneman likens his way to the simplicity of
reports on how things make people feel.
 Therefore, Kahneman suggests measuring pleasure and pain with two dimensions called
valence and arousal. Valence’s scale goes from good to neutral to bad while arousal’s scale goes
from frenetic to lethargic. Kahneman states that his way of measuring “permits a distinction
between two forms of positive affect (exuberant joy or serene bliss) and two forms of negative
affect (agitated distress or apathetic depression)” (TOH p. 32). Previously, Bentham would say
that riding rollercoasters and admiring sunsets are the same type of pleasures as long as they
produce the same number of hedons (even though you get more intense but shorter pleasure from
rollercoasters and less intense but longer pleasure from looking at sunsets). But now, Kahneman
allowed the separation of powerful and peaceful pleasures with his two-dimensional way of
measuring experiences.

Moreover, Kahneman found that people are bad at recalling activities that give them the
most pleasure and the least pain. In his colonoscopy studies, patients had to record moment
utility, i.e. how much pain they experience in the moment. After the procedure, they had to recall
how much pain they experienced. Kahneman discovered that even though Patient A had more
intense and shorter pain while Patient B had less intense and longer pain, Patient B recalls having
a less painful experience than Patient A. But that shouldn’t be the case since Patient B spent
more time in pain than Patient A.

To resolve the inconsistency, Kahneman found that patients tend to subconsciously

average their felt pain between the most intense and the end, so he coined this effect the “Peak-
End Rule” (TOH p. 31). He also found that Patient B, during recall, ignores the length of time
they were in pain, so he called this “Duration Neglect.” He writes, “However, memory-based
assessments do not generally conform to [the principle that the duration of an activity is relevant
to its overall utility. A hypothesis of ‘evaluating by moments’… asserts that the remembered
utility of an episode is determined by constructing a composite representative moment and
assessing the utility of that moment” (TOH p. 30). In other words, when people recall events,
they have trouble remembering how long the event was; instead, they pick a significance
moment during the event to represent the entire event. Furthermore, Kahneman identified “the
experiencing self” as the version of people to more accurately feel pleasures and pains whereas
the “remembering self” is often wrong, because once a current moment is over, people’s memory
of that moment is already distorted.

Because people have this tendency to recall their past felt experiences, they don’t get the
most pleasure and least pain they could in the present time and when they plan for future
activities. Kahneman’s discovery defeats Bentham’s Quantitative Hedonism, because he said that
people are dominated by pleasure and pain, and that happy lives mean having the most pleasure
and the least pain. But according to Kahneman’s findings, people don’t accurately recall what
gives them the most pleasure and least pain, so they are bad at living happy lives.

In addition, Kahneman’s Treadmill Effect also defeats Bentham’s Quantitative

Hedonism. The Treadmill Effect explains that because people adapt to things that produce
pleasure or pain, eventually they would need more of the thing to make them feel the same
amount of pleasure or pain. He gives the example of Helen the student eating food. When Helen
was a poor college student, she ate poor-quality food and therefore was unhappy. But then, when
Helen began making salary pay, she ate good-quality food and became very happy. After a
while, however, she got used to eating good-quality food, so it no longer makes her as happy as
she did when she was first able to (TOH p. 38). On the pain side, as a one-year glassblower, I am
used to standing in front of a 2000-degree furnace from glassblowing whereas beginners would
find the heat unbearable. Both examples illustrate the Treadmill Effect; people can get used to
pleasures and pains after a lengthy exposure, therefore they need more to be able to feel the same
pleasure and pain. This defeats Bentham’s theory because he believes that pleasure and pain will
always give you the same number of hedons and dolors, respectively, no matter how many times
they experience the pleasure or pain. And according to Bentham’s theory, the best pleasures are
the most intense, the longest, the most certain, and least far away in time. However, in both
cases, he failed to account the fact that people can adapt to sensory experiences and therefore
would not always receive the same number of hedons and dolors.

Gilbert and Wilson’s Theory of Miswanting

Gilbert and Wilson preface their theory by defining wanting as “statements about those
things that we believe will influence our sense of well-being, satisfaction, happiness, and
contentment. Hence, when we say we want something, we are more or less promising that we
will like it when we get it” (TOH p. 82). However, they found out that we often want things that
we don’t end up liking. In a heroin experiment, three groups of heroin addicts had to press a level
about once every second for 45 minutes straight in order to receive an injection: the first group
got a shot of morphine, the second group got a shot of saline, and the third group got a diluted or
mild shot of morphine. The first group reported that they liked the shot and wanted to repeat the
process, the second group did not like the shot and does not want to repeat it, and the third group
did not enjoy the shot but wanted to repeat the process again. This experiment showed that the
wanting system and the liking system are separate, which destroys Bentham’s theory that the two
systems are one and the same. Gilbert and Wilson call this weird phenomenon “miswanting,” in
which people fail to align pleasures with desires.

Miswanting happens when people do the three following things: misinterpret feelings and
moods, imagine the wrong effect, and use the wrong theory. Gilbert and Wilson write about
misinterpreting feelings, “When we imagine a future event, we normally have an affective
reaction to its mental representation, and we normally take this affective reaction to the mental
representation of the event as a proxy for the affective reaction we might have to the event itself.
Our views of our affective reactions to imaginary events are, in a sense, experiential previews of
our affective reactions to the events themselves, and they figure prominently in our predictions
of future liking” (TOH p. 85). They gave an example of going to the circus. Normally, this
person would not go to the circus because clowns freak them out. But they just heard about
Uncle Frank’s remission and their excitement caused them to think positively about going to the
circus with a friend on Sunday (TOH p. 86). The day comes, and they realize that they regret
tagging along with their friend because they confused the feeling of excitement and enthusiasm
about their uncle’s health with going to the circus.

Not only do people misinterpret feelings, they also imagine the wrong effect. Gilbert and
Wilson explain, “Research suggests that people are not always so prudent, and that when asked
to make predictions about future events, they tend to imagine a particular event while making
little provision for the possibility that the particular event they are imagining may not necessarily
be the particular event they will be experiencing” (TOH p. 83-4). Just like Kahneman’s
Treadmill Effect, studies have shown that, after a period of adjustment, lottery winners are not
happier and paraplegics are not unhappier than control groups (TOH p. 36). Moreover, people
often think that living the celebrity life would be amazing, especially when they can attend red
carpet events and have thousands of adoring fans. However, they forget that people often Tweet
negative insults at you and paparazzi stalk you.

The last cause of miswanting is using the wrong theory. In a study, subjects ordered
snacks that they will have every Monday for three consecutive weeks. They tended to choose
their favorite for the first two Monday’s and their second favorite for the last Monday. After
consuming the snack, they had to rate their happiness. The first two weeks, their happiness level
was high, but the last week was not as high as the first two because they consumed their second
favorite snack instead of their favorite (TOH p. 84). Gilbert and Wilson realized that these
subjects used “variety is the spice of life” theory when choosing their snacks, even though it was
the wrong theory to choose since it didn’t make them as happy as they could have been.

Because we are prone to miswant, we are bad at measuring purity and fecundity. For
example, even though we feel pretty full at Thanksgiving dinner, we still want another bite of
turkey because we don’t have it often and it is delicious. Little did we know, our stomachs are so
distended, we cannot eat anymore, so we really should not have wanted more turkey. After
dinner, we spend hours in pain, wishing we hadn’t eat all that turkey. This experience was
neither fecund nor pure because we thought more turkey would make us feel pleasure, but
instead of giving us more pleasure and happiness, it ended up making us feel pain and miserable.
This example shows that we are bad at wanting things that make us feel pleasure and happy.
Perhaps, pleasure and pain are not our masters, as Bentham suggested, or maybe we are just bad
at obeying them. Either way, this disproves Bentham’s Quantitative Hedonism, for we don’t
always want and do things that give us pleasure instead of pain.

Even though we tend to miswant, we have a psychological immune system that helps us
be happy. Gilbert and Wilson call this immune neglect and explain how it works:

Many shrewd observers of the human condition have remarked on people’s

extraordinary ability to change the way they feel simply by changing the way they
think. When circumstances threaten our psychological well-being, we execute an
assortment of cognitive strategies, tactics, and maneuvers that are designed to
 prevent, limit, or repair the damage. Taken together, the mechanisms that protect
the sources of our psychological well-being (e.g. our sense of competence,
integrity, and worth) in the face of assault constitute a psychological immune
system that seems to be both powerful and invisible to the person it serves. (TOH
p. 90)

In other words, at any sign of attack on our psychological well-being and happiness, our
psychological immune system kicks in and changes how we think, so we maintain
psychologically well and happy. In an ice cream interview study, our immune neglect proved its
existence (TOH p. 91). The subjects were two groups of students: one group had to answer
irrelevant questions while observed by a solo judge, the other group had to answer relevant
questions while observed by a panel of judges. If all judges voted to not hire the student, they
would get the job. Prior to the interview, all students had to predict their emotions if they get
rejected and ten minutes after the rejection. The results showed that immune neglect made
students happier: right after rejection, their predicted happiness was lower than their actual
happiness. And after 10 minutes, their actual happiness was higher than their predicted
happiness. Moreover, people who were rejected by one person was happier than people who
were rejected by a panel of judges, because it’s easier to rationalize why one guy doesn’t like
you than a panel of people who don’t like you.

We use our psychological immune system subconsciously and don’t even know that we
do it, which is unfortunate because we fight against our psychological immune system
sometimes. In another study, college students printed two black-and-white photos they took and
had to give one away: one group of students could change their minds within five days while the
other group had a chance to decide (TOH p. 93). The experimenters found that overall, the
students whose choice were reversible were unhappier than the students whose choice were not
reversible. They explained this with immune neglect: because some students had to finalize their
choice in less than a day, their psychological immune system made sure that they were going to
happy with their choice since they had to live with it forever. Meanwhile, the other students had
the choice to change their minds, so they ignore their psychological immune system and chose as
they wish since they could change their minds later. We have the power to make ourselves
happier than we think we do, but because we don’t know that we have psychological immune
system, we make choices that make us unhappy. So, while Bentham may be correct that
abundance of pleasures and absence of pains make us happy, he did not address the fact that we
are terrible at wanting and pursuing things that give us the most pleasure and the least amount of
pain.

Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism

 Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism fixes some problems that Bentham’s theory has. It agrees
with Bentham that happiness is the existence of pleasure and absence of pain and that we do
things for the pleasure in it or to get pleasure (TOH p. 45). But instead of quantity, Mill
emphasizes quality and separates pleasures and pains into higher- and lower-quality. He defines
happiness as:

If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is

evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only
moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the
occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of
this the philosopher who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully
aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of
rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory
pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active
over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more
from life than it is capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have
been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of
happiness. (TOH p. 49-50)

Against Bentham’s theory, Mill argues that happiness cannot be a continuous stream of
pleasures, because you wouldn’t know the difference between pleasure and not pleasure (again,
the Treadmill Effect). Instead, pleasure is more episodic, and even Bentham knew and meant that
that is what pleasure is, but his theory does not reflect that. Moreover, Mill differentiates
pleasures as active and passive—with active pleasures more important and preferential.
However, Bentham would say that active and passive pleasures are the same, just like how
quality does not matter. Mill also adds to happiness the foundation of not expecting more than
life can give you.

Mill argues that we would prefer higher-quality pleasures than lower-quality pleasures,
even if we get a little bit higher-quality pleasure compared to a lot of lower-quality pleasures. He
gives the analogy that we would prefer to be an unsatisfied Socrates than a satisfied pig, because
humans are capable of higher-quality pleasures whereas beasts can only obtain lower-quality
pleasures. He writes, “The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading,
precisely because a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness.
Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made
conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their
gratification” (TOH p. 46). So, while family dogs seem to be living the happiest and best lives,
we would not want to be them because they can only experience pleasure in eating, running
around outside, playing catch, and licking their humans’ faces. Meanwhile, we can experience
pleasures that animals can’t because we have faculties that animals don’t have, such as “moral
judgment, aesthetic appreciation, political engagement, and rational contemplation” (HLGL p.
86). Because we have these faculties, we require pleasures that allow us to use these faculties.
For example, we love kicking back on the couch and watching TV for a few hours to unwind.
But if we did that whenever we’re awake, we would be bored out of our minds because we’re
being fed everything in life instead of using our brains and aesthetic appreciation to consume
life.

In Bentham’s view, a satisfied pig’s life is better than an unsatisfied human’s life, for the
pig gets more pleasure than the human does. He would also argue that doing hallucinogenic
drugs is better than reading a book in peace, because the pleasure from doing drugs is more
intense and perhaps longer than reading a book. Yet, most people would advise to stay away
from drugs and to read books. In Mill’s view, on the other hand, reading books counts as a
higher-quality pleasure because it triggers our thinking and imagination, faculties that only
humans have.

Suppose you could choose between two lives: a life of freedom and being able to do
whatever you want and be whoever you want to be with the uncertainty of pleasures in life, i.e.
your life could be filled with pleasures or filled with pain or some ratio of the two; or a life of
slavery in which someone is your master and dictate everything that you do and say (you have no
freedom), but your master gives you all the worldly pleasures: a ton of sex, lots of drugs,
delicious food, stylish clothes, the latest technology, and a giant bedroom. Which life would you
choose? Most people would choose a life of freedom. And in fact, freedom is the American
dream, and democracy is what Americans and most other people prefer (think of all the
negativity surrounding communism and dictatorship). This example shows that even though
freedom is a less intense pleasure than sex, drugs, and other worldly pleasures, people would
prefer to have it because they value it more; it is higher in quality.

Objections to Qualitative (and Quantitative) Hedonism

While Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism solves some problems that Quantitative Hedonism
has, it is also not a flawless theory. It doesn’t address problems raised by Kahneman about the
Treadmill Effect and the discrepancy between the remembering and the experiencing self; nor
does it address the problems raised by Gilbert and Wilson about miswanting.

Recall earlier that Mill defined happiness as the pursuit of pleasures and avoidance of
pain. He also said that we pursue things for the pleasure within or with pleasure as the end goal.
However, according to Nozick, we often do things not because of pleasure. Nozick gives two
examples: one of “tennis played very forcefully; lunging for shots, scraping knees and elbows on
the ground, you enjoy playing, but it is not exactly – not precisely - pleasurable” (HLGL p. 90)
and the other of “[a poet] thinks it is valuable [to write poetry], or the activity of doing so is, with
no special focus upon any felt qualities” (HLGL p. 91). These examples show that Bentham and
Mill are both wrong in that people don’t always do things because of sensory pleasure, no matter
quality or quantity.
 Moreover, opposing Bentham’s and Mill’s belief that pleasures lead to happiness,
Feldman proves that they are separate and unrelated with three examples (TOH p. 63-4). The
first example is Wendell who purchased an orgasm enhancer in hopes that he will have more
intense orgasms. However, expectations fell short; even though he experienced pleasure, it
wasn’t up to his standards, so he was upset with the product when he should have been happy
(according to Bentham and Mill). The second example is Dolores who was prescribed new pain
management drugs, so now instead of experiencing 400 dolor pain, she only gets 12. Because she
is still experiencing pain, Bentham and Mill would say that she is unhappy. But actually, Dolores
is quite happy since she doesn’t suffer as much pain anymore. The third example is about a
woman giving birth. She is in the last stages of labor and refuses pain meds, so she is in severe
pain. However, she feels great happiness when the baby is born regardless of the pain she was
and is in. These three examples depict painful happiness and pleasurable unhappiness, showing
that pleasure is separate from happiness.

Haybron’s Emotional State Theory

In addition to other philosophers, Haybron has problems with general Hedonism. He

finds Bentham and Mill’s theories too shallow: surely our happiness cannot and is not easily
changed by obtaining one pleasure or getting rid of one pain. Because according to Bentham and
Mill, we are happy when we see and appreciate a beautiful sunset. Now imagine that we have
been depressed for more than 15 years and we have actually climbed the hill that overlooks a
beautiful sunset to commit suicide. Are we suddenly going to be taken by the beauty of Mother
Nature and not kill ourselves? Maybe, maybe not. And so Haybron addresses the problem that
Hedonism takes happiness not seriously enough:

The most obvious problem with existing hedonistic theories is that they are too
inclusive: all sorts of shallow, fleeting pleasures are made to count towards
happiness. Yet such pleasures manifestly play no constitutive role in determining
how happy a person is. … the trouble seems to be that such pleasures don’t reach
“deeply” enough, so to speak. They just don’t get to us; they flit through
consciousness and that’s the end of it (TOH p. 98-9)

Haybron argues that most pleasures and pains don’t impact our happiness the way Bentham and
Mill say they do, because they happen to us in the moment and then they are gone. Our
happiness is deeper than these surface-level pleasures and pains, so it maintains unchanged no
matter the pleasures and pains we experience. For example, while sex feels good, masturbation
does not always make one happier. In another instance, a shot in the arm hurts intensely, but we
don’t feel unhappier afterwards, especially when we have gone home and don’t feel the intense
pain anymore.

Another problem Haybron has with Hedonism is that it is “backward-looking,” because it

depends on how many or what kind of past experiences, pleasurable or pain, that one had. He
writes that happiness “is rather a deeper psychological condition incorporating the more or less
stable underlying mental states that determine, in part and among other things, the kinds of
experiences that will occur. It tells us not just about subjects’ histories, but also about their
current conditions and propensities for the near future” (TOH p. 101). He said that happiness is
“forward-looking,” because it’s about the mental states that people are and will be in (TOH p.
101).

Moreover, Haybron says that Hedonism makes it so that happiness lacks depth. He
describes happiness as having “deep, far-reaching, and typically lasting consequences for a
person’s state of mind and behavior” (TOH p. 101). In other words, happiness is deeply seated in
us while Bentham and Mill seem to suggest that happiness can fluctuate based on outside
pleasures and pains.

In response to Hedonism, Haybron creates his theory of happiness. He first differentiates

two affects: central and peripheral. Central affects relate to the soul in terms of depth and has
five main factors: disposition, productive, persistent, persuasive, and profound (TOH p. 104-6).
Central affects dispose us to be a certain type of person with a certain type of temperament, e.g.
when we are at peace, we are monk- or yogi-like, meditative, breathing deeply, tranquil,
accepting of things, etc. Moreover, central affects produce other emotions and causes us to
behave and act in certain ways. For example, depressed people tend to feel hopeless, miserable,
lonely, and sad and don’t want to get out of bed, go to work, hang out with friends, and even
watch their favorite movie or eat their favorite food. Central affects are also persistent; they last
for longer than a few moments, like some pleasures and pains would. For instance, when we are
anxious, we tend to be on edge all day, even after the event that made us anxious in the first
place. In addition, central affects persuasive in the sense that they impact everything else in our
lives in the meantime, e.g. joyful people tend to view everything as wonderful, even negative
events. They often describe themselves as “in a good mood” and that “nothing can phase them.”
Furthermore, central affects are profound in that they get to us and move us, e.g. monks feel
peaceful because they were trained and able to summon peace and tranquility. Central affects
seem to be the only affects that can impact our happiness, because both phenomenon are deep
and meaningful.

In fact, Haybron calls happiness “psychic flourishing,” because he sees happiness as an

important part of psychology, and it almost measures our well-being and growth (TOH p. 108).
He states that we often describe people as “happy people” because they “exhibit a highly
desirable kind of emotional resilience,” meaning that no matter what happens in their life—
negative or positive, they are still happy and have a good attitude about life. These people have
the skill or the immune system to maintain happy and positive through negative events in life.
This also suggests that happiness is something deeply intrinsic, and not extrinsic, as suggested by
Bentham’s and Mill’s theories.
 Works Cited

Mulnix, J. W., & Mulnix, M. J. (2015). Happy lives, good lives: A philosophical examination.
Canada: Broadview Press, 2015.

Mulnix, J. W., & Mulnix, M. J. (2015). Theories of happiness: An anthology. Canada:

Broadview Press, 2015.