HAPPINESS, John Paul Vemo S.

HAPPINESS: "The end of man is happiness" is an age-old saying of no
very certain origin. 'Happy' comes from the noun 'hap': what just
happens, chance, lucky. In a very common use now, to be 'happy' is to
be satisfied or contented with having a good measure of what one
regards as important in life. In this use of the word, 'happy' has to
do with one's situation; one is fortunate. It also has to do with
one's state of mind.
Happiness is an act, not a state, that is to say that the happiness
of man does not lie in his or her having something done to him or her,
nor in his or her being habitually able to do something, but in his
actually doing something.
Happiness is an act in discharge of the function proper to man, as
man. Man is happy by doing what man alone can do in this world, that
is, acting by reason and understanding
As an object of philosophical inquiry, the concept of happiness is
as old as philosophy itself. It was central to the ethical thought of
the Greeks, especially Aristotle, which was restored to prominence by
the 19th century Utilitarians. We often speak of being happy with or
about something, where this means roughly regarding it favourably or
having a positive attitude toward it. We also speak about feeling
happy, where this is an occurrent state of mind characteristically
accompanied by energy, vitality, and buoyancy of spirit.
Happiness can be subjective or objective. An analysis is subjective if
it makes a person's happiness depend, at least in part, an attitudes
or feelings. It is objective if happiness is taken to be entirely
independent of these subjective stages so that someone could be happy
even if neither feeling happy nor having a positive attitude toward
the conditions of life.
Aristotle spoke of 'eudaimonia' which literally means 'good divine
power' or 'good fortune'. It is normally translated in English as
'happiness'. For him it is the central term in ethics. For him
happiness means living well and faring well. The most prominent use of
the term 'happiness', in modern philosophy, is found in
utilitarianism. They hold that acts are right in virtue of the value
of their consequences and what makes consequences valuable is the
presence of pleasure or happiness.