Happiness As A Moral Duty

 

Dennis Prager is a good and wise man, but perhaps his finest moral contribution is to alert humans that being happy is a moral obligation. He released a short video on 1/20/2014, entitled Why Be Happy? I took notes on the video and will respond periodically.

 

Prager: “Happiness and the pursuit of happiness often and usually are regarded as being selfish: I want to be happy and I want to be happy for me. Happiness and the pursuit of happiness, I thought were about oneself, but it is not. It is about altruism not selfishness.

 

Happiness is a moral obligation.”

 

My response: Prager’s assumption here is that morality is about selfless, self-sacrificing, and downplaying one’s needs to serve the needs of others and the community first. Selfish motives are immoral and to be self-curbed.

 

Prager maintains happiness and the pursuit of happiness are about altruism, not selfishness, so happiness is a moral obligation.

 

I disagree a bit. Happiness is a moral obligation, but, I and Ayn Rand label selfishness or less crudely stated, rational self-interest, as good. Selflessness, altruism-collectivism is evil.

 

Prager obviously posits that selfishness is immorality per se, and selflessness and meeting the needs of others first is good and desirable.

 

I believe that the egoist must be happy for himself first and meeting that need must be paramount because a happy, fulfilled, self-realizing agent is happy, and loves himself; love is pervasive in his world view and gives him a positive attitude, so he then can love others, God and look upon the world with warm feelings.

 

Prager: “If we are unhappy, we hurt those around us, so happiness is a moral issue. If we are suffering from an unhappy parent, spouse, child or disgruntled coworker, then unhappiness and suffering for all involved occurs. Our happiness or unhappiness affects others profoundly.”

 

My response: Prager’s analysis of the problem of what unhappiness inflicts upon the community is brilliant and irrefutable. His solution is partially effective and partially unworkable.

 

His solution is that each agent must act happy until he becomes happier so that his positive attitude bolsters the enjoyment of life and reduces pointless suffering felt by others around him.

 

As an egoist, my solution is that acting happy, until one feels happy enough to exude a positive attitude, grows out of realistic, sensible high self-esteem and healthy self-love enjoyed by the adult hat maverizes. Such a first hander will feel and act happy overall, and his good will towards himself is then exported by him to others and towards God in all his transactions and interactions with others, making their day brighter and more enjoyable.

 

If the individual is non-individuating, group-living, altruistic solely, suffering from self-loathing and low self-esteem, his rage about his fate and lived condition will push him to lash out at others or allow them to abuse him as a set of poor coping mechanisms growing out of a lousy solution to the happiness challenge.

 

Prager: “So happiness is a moral obligation. We are morally obligated to act to act as happy as possible as often as possible as long as possible. Even if we do not feel happy.

 

People are not to be guided by their feelings but are to act as if they are happy for that affects the happiness and well-being of others. How we act affects others, not how we feel, so we are not to be guided by our feelings. If we are always in a bad mood, that hurts all.

 

We can choose to act happy even if we feel unhappy. We can still share our feelings with our friends and loved ones, but we do not inflict our bad mood on others; we can control how we express ourselves.

 

If we act happy over time, it will lead us gradually to feel happier. Happy people make the world better and unhappy make the world worse. Happiness is a huge issue.”

 

My response: There is great wisdom in what Prager offered just above. I have two general reactions to his take on happiness as a moral, altruistic obligation. I regard happiness as an egoistic moral, obligation.

 

First, note that Prager and most Christian and Jewish thinkers do not declare that moral reform is a collective effort. Guilt and blame are largely attributable to the sinning individual, not to the groups he affiliates with. If guilt is an individual property, then he as an individual must correct his own behavior. Therefore, if he has a moral obligation to be happy, then egoistic motives will enable him to act happy, become happy and thus of good will towards himself, God, and others. This is how he best meets the Prager injunction that happiness is his moral obligation.

 

On one hand, Prager accuses the individual of being to blame for other’s unhappiness by his selfish chasing after his own happiness-producing goals first, and then, it is the individual as an altruist-collectivist that learns to be happy and act happy in order to improve the lives of others, and his happiness is how he supports the collective need.

 

Prager is an ethical moderate (he does not claim this) but he is: he favors altruism as the individual’s primary moral motive and focus, with self—interest and self-care as secondary mortal motives and foci.

 

I am an ethical moderate that give pride of place to the egoistic motive and then of secondary emphasis is the altruistic motive.

 Ayn Rand is a black-and -white thinker on moral and other issues, so she only accepts rational egoism as the primary or sole moral motive..