Tuesday, June 1, 2010

This house believes happiness can be bought - report card

The following observations constitute one person's evaluation of the debate which has just closed. Let's call him (or her) the adjudicator. According to his (or her: we'll drop this now) perspective, each of the speakers made some good, telling remarks, as well as others that were less successful. However in any evaluation such as the one below there is no infallible objectivity to be had. Our adjudicator may well be completely off his rocker. So, let the debate on the debate commence, and may none be shy of offering his (or her!) own comments, whether to express wholehearted agreement or unforgiving disgust with those made after the jump, hop!

First Prop starts by defining happiness as fulfilment of desires, but then goes on to speak exclusively of needs. The argument is not helped by the clear confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions for happiness. The fact (if it is one) that there are no poor people in this class doesn't mean that it is sufficient not to be poor to be here! The speaker seems to realise the invalidity of his argument by saying “You might argue that this argument only establishes that you need money to be happy, but doesn't prove that money can buy happiness.” However, he tries to meet this objection via a rather implausible concept of “basic happiness”: he cannot explain how it is possible to feel “I want for nothing [or, at least, nothing “basic”] and yet I feel unhappy”. The Proposition side needs to show in what way this is not a coherent statement of reality.

First Opp starts with an equally debateable definition of happiness as something permanent, which seems undermined by our intuition that happiness can be fleeting: “I was happy when I was young”. She then argues that happiness cannot consist in material possessions, as there “will come up a moment when we will start feeling unfulfilled, sad and solitary”. But why should this be? We need a deep explanation here, but what we get is “It's because they only lead to a momentary and fleeting sensation of satisfaction.” Thus we return to the contestable definition given before, and even if we allow the definition, this explanation doesn't really explain anything: why are such feelings only fleeting? If the deepest source of my pleasure is literature for example, it's doubtful that I'll be able to exhaust my pleasure by reading all the great books ever written. (Mallarmé was able to write “La chair est triste, hélas, et j'ai lu tous les livres”, but he was surely the only one!) The speaker seems to be on the wrong track in placing such emphasis on the notion of time. The final argument concerns “real feelings”. We're told that we “can't buy a real relationship, a family” and the “proof” is “the enormous number of wealthy old men married with young and beautiful women and feeling still lonely and unhappy”. But if that is true, why doesn't it simply prove that these men made the wrong choice? People often spend their money unwisely. Perhaps a different woman, one who felt real gratitude and affection for having been offered all these riches, could have brought such happiness? Are we sure that this never happens?

Second Prop cleverly exposes the Opposers' questionable fixation with permanence by offering a definition of happiness which emphasises brevity over duration. However, the only evidence given in favour of this redefinition is a bare argument from authority: without the weight of Schopenhauer's name, many might find more natural to term the brief and intense feeling “pleasure” and the longer, less strong one “happiness”. The point that “you can't assume that what makes you feel happy will have the same effect on everybody else” seems a fair one, but is it right to use it as justification for the claim that “happiness is very subjective”? So it's not an objective fact that someone is happy or not? Finally, to say that “I won't try to show that you can directly buy love because it's something you have to gain” sounds dangerously like conceding the whole debate to the opponents, at least on the assumption that love is an essential constituent of happiness, something which I suppose might be contested. The final point about buying the possibility to find love appears to suffer from the same necessary/sufficient condition confusion First Prop committed. To say that x can be bought is stronger than saying that spending money is necessary for possessing x. It is necessary to spend money to win the lottery, but hardly sufficient.

The danger in Second Prop's concession on buying love can be seen in Second Opp's observations on the social nature of happiness. This speech starts a little weakly by simply asserting the superiority of First Opp's definition of happiness to First Prop's. But First Prop's definition at least has the virtue of clarity, whereas First Opp's is rather vague and permissive. A genuine argument is needed here, not a simple affirmation. The speech proceeds from here to its main contention: “the social aspect is very central in the pursuit of happiness. In addition, everyone agrees on the fact that real important relationships can only be established without a connection to money. Thus, it's quite simple to reason that you can't buy happiness.” This argument does seem to be at least potentially valid, but is it true that “everyone” really agrees with the second proposition? I would have called this begging the question, except that Second Prop's concession does seem to make it legitimate. If you can't buy love, does the same point not apply to all other “real” social relations, like friendship and family ties? The Proposition's case is in trouble here, and later speakers will have to react. One strategy would be to attack the first premise. Has Second Opp really established the strong claim that “happiness has to be shared in order to exist”, or just the less powerful one that “people may find happiness in social contexts”, which doesn't prove that this is the only possible source. The motion is that happiness can be bought, not that it must be.

Third Prop forgets that he's part of a team (which includes the first two Prop speakers) and states that the problem so far has been the definition, and so “I will try not to impose my own definition, but I will still try to prove you that whatever the definition, happiness can be bought”. However he then goes on to commit the same necessary/sufficient confusion as the two previous Proposers, by asking how children can be happy if you can't pay for their basic needs. “If you can buy them food, presents for their birthday, a week end in Disneyland or studies in Harvard, you will feel happiness in return.” Only if you thereby buy them happiness, but that is precisely what is in question. The rest of the speech reiterates the claim made earlier that some people can find happiness in material things. The debate isn't really advancing here.

Third Opp takes the debate to a new, deeper level, but also muddies the waters on the way. He starts by identifying the “contradiction” that “you can be happy for free whereas your entire speech is trying to prove that you can't be happy without money”. But, as we have seen, the burden of the Proposition's position is that money can buy happiness, not that it must. The elucidation of Schopenhauer is much stronger, with its conclusion that “Schopenhauer is against the motion”. However, it remains the case that in the current absence of a convincing definition of happiness from either side, the reader can only fall back on his or her intuitions, none of which seem strong enough to give the victory to either side for the moment. The contribution is very long, and not uniformly persuasive. The “spoiled child” example is well made and forceful whereas the “money generates boredom” argument is rather obscure. However the final section introduces a new perspective to the debate, and constitutes a real advance. The connection of happiness with “the meaning of life” appears to be a real insight, enlightening in the way that none of the preceding pieces has managed to be. It gives us an idea of how people can judge the success or failure of their life's endeavours, and come to a positive or negative evaluation of their previous choices, one which may differ from how they felt at the time: "What I thought was happiness was just waste of time." Confronted by the image of the individual confronting the reality of the life he or she has led “when comes the time to assesses your life”, the previous talk of Ferraris and young women seems somewhat shallow. The point however is complicated by the additional claim that “therefore studying, learning, trying to arouse your spirit is the path toward real happiness”. The speech seems to confuse the notions of wisdom and knowledge, whilst placing too great a faith in the latter. Wisdom may well be necessary for happiness, but knowledge? To mention another 19th century German thinker, did not Nietzsche name his philosophy “gay science” in counterpoint to all the doleful, life-denying forms of “knowledge” he saw around him? Is knowledge in itself capable of providing happiness, irrespective of the nature of its objects? Despite these caveats, the point remains that the debate has been significantly deepened by this contribution.

Fourth Prop starts off with some successful attacks on “particular cases that are not appropriate regarding the motion”, and warns about “dangerous generalisations”. These warnings are well made. One feels intuitively that there must be something to the connexion between money, possessions and happiness, else why would so many people spend so much of their lives in the pursuit of the former. However, it is not clear that the link has been really explained. Fourth Opp summarises his side's general position quite accurately, and adds some insightful observations of his own: “the real act here is love”. The unsupported bias against the ephemeral remains however, and one wonders what is really being described in a phrase such as “a momentary feeling always followed by sadness”…

All in all, the debate has progressed quite well, offering several good insights, but also various unsupported assertions and uncertain distinctions (e.g. between happiness and pleasure). Given the massive role of “things” in many people's lives, their ability to excite emotion and passion – desire, jealousy, pleasure and pride – the suspicion remains that a case can be made in favour of the motion. As Fourth Prop writes: “there are many people whose definition of "happiness" takes into account the fact of having enough money to buy what they truly long for (and not what the consumer society wants them to want)”. The suspicion also remains, however, that such a case has not really been made. But perhaps this suspicion is misconceived? You, dear readers, are the final arbiters, via the way you cast your votes…

Mark P

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