Rationality is the way to happiness: The theory and practice of rational living

John Vespasian

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Laypersons often have neither sort of question in mind, but are really asking about the sources of happiness. It leaves unanswered, or takes for granted, the question of just what happiness is , such that friends are a good source of it. Such failures have generated much confusion, sometimes yielding bogus disagreements that prove to be merely verbal.

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Such researchers employ the term in the psychological sense. The objectors are confused: Even later writers such as Mill may have used the term in its well-being sense, though it is often difficult to tell since well-being itself is often taken to consist in mental states like pleasure. To be happy, it seems, is just to be in a certain sort of psychological state or condition. This psychological usage, arguably, predominates in the current vernacular.

Nor, when asserting that a life satisfaction study shows Utahans to be happier than New Yorkers, are they committing themselves to the tendentious claim that Utahans are better off. If they are, then the psychology journals that are publishing this research may need to revise their peer-review protocols to include ethicists among their referees. And the many recent popular books on happiness, as well as innumerable media accounts of research on happiness, nearly all appear to take it for granted that they are talking about nothing more than a psychological condition.

Books of this sort appear to include Almeder , Annas , , McMahon , Noddings , White , though again it is not always clear how a given author uses the term. For discussion of the well-being notion, see the entry on well-being. Philosophers have most commonly distinguished two accounts of happiness: Hedonists identify happiness with the individual's balance of pleasant over unpleasant experience, in the same way that welfare hedonists do. Such arguments tend to grant the identification of happiness with pleasure, but challenge the idea that this should be our primary or sole concern, and often as well the idea that happiness is all that matters for well-being.

Life satisfaction theories identify happiness with having a favorable attitude toward one's life as a whole. This basic schema can be filled out in a variety of ways, but typically involves some sort of global judgment: This judgment may be more or less explicit, and may involve or accompany some form of affect.

It may also involve or accompany some aggregate of judgments about particular items or domains within one's life. A third theory, the emotional state view, departs from hedonism in a different way: It might also include a person's propensity for experiencing various moods, which can vary over time. Happiness on such a view is more nearly the opposite of depression or anxiety—a broad psychological condition—whereas hedonistic happiness is simply opposed to unpleasantness. For example, a deeply distressed individual might distract herself enough with constant activity to maintain a mostly pleasant existence—broken only by tearful breakdowns during the odd quiet moment—thus perhaps counting has happy on a hedonistic but not emotional state view.

The states involved in happiness, on an emotional state view, can range widely, far more so that the ordinary notion of mood or emotion. A fourth family of views, hybrid theories , attempts an irenic solution to our diverse intuitions about happiness: The most obvious candidate here is subjective well-being , which is typically defined as a compound of life satisfaction, domain satisfactions, and positive and negative affect.

Researchers often seem to identify happiness with subjective well-being, sometimes with life satisfaction, and perhaps most commonly with emotional or hedonic state. The chief appeal of hybrid theories is their inclusiveness: How do we determine which theory is correct? Traditional philosophical methods of conceptual or linguistic analysis can give us some guidance, indicating that some accounts offer a better fit with the ordinary concept of happiness.

Thus it has been argued that hedonism is false to the concept of happiness as we know it; the intuitions taken to support hedonism point instead to an emotional state view Haybron , , c. And some have argued that life satisfaction is compatible with profoundly negative emotional states like depression—a suffering artist might not value emotional matters much, and wholeheartedly affirm her life Carson , Davis b, Haybron , c, Feldman Yet it might seem counterintuitive to deem such a person happy.

We use the term to denote different things in different contexts, and often have no clear notion of what we are referring to. One candidate is practical utility: We talk about happiness because we care about it. The question is why we care about it, and which psychological states within the extension of the ordinary term make the most sense of this concern. Even if there is no simple answer to the question what happiness is, it may well turn out that our interests in happiness cluster so strongly around a particular psychological kind that happiness can best, or most profitably, be understood in terms of that type of state Haybron , c.

Alternatively, we may choose to distinguish different varieties of happiness. It will be less important how we use the word, however, than that we be clear about the nature and significance of the states that interest us. The debate over theories of happiness falls along a couple of lines. The most interesting questions concern the choice between life satisfaction and affect-based views like hedonism and the emotional state theory. First, life satisfaction is holistic , ranging over the whole of one's life, or the totality of one's life over a certain period of time.

It reflects not just the aggregate of moments in one's life, but also the global quality of one's life taken as a whole but see Raibley And we seem to care not just about the total quantity of good in our lives, but about its distribution—a happy ending, say, counts for more than a happy middle Slote , Velleman Second, life satisfaction seems more closely linked to our priorities than affect is, as the suffering artist case illustrates.

by John Vespasian

While a focus on affect makes sense insofar as we care about such matters, most people care about other things as well, and how their lives are going relative to their priorities may not be fully mirrored in their affective states. Life satisfaction theories thus seem to fit more closely with liberal ideals of individual sovereignty, on which how well my life is going for me is for me to decide. My satisfaction with my life seems to embody that judgment.

Of course a theory of happiness need not capture everything that matters for well-being; the point is that a life satisfaction view might explain why we should care so much about happiness, and so enjoy substantive as well as intuitive support. But several objections have been raised against life satisfaction views. The most common complaint has already been noted, namely that a person could apparently be satisfied with her life even while leading a highly unpleasant or emotionally distressed existence, and it can seem counterintuitive to regard such a person as happy see section 2.

Some life satisfaction theorists deny that such cases are possible Benditt , but it could also be argued that such possibilities are part and parcel of life satisfaction's appeal: Two other objections are more substantive, raising questions about whether life satisfaction has the right sort of importance. One concern is whether people often enough have well-grounded attitudes of life satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Evaluating one's life as a whole can be a complicated business, and there is some question whether people typically have well-defined attitudes toward their lives that accurately reflect how well their lives measure up relative to their priorities.

Some research, for instance, suggests that life satisfaction reports tend to reflect judgments made on the spot, drawing on whatever information comes readily to mind, with substantial influences by transient contextual factors like the weather, finding a dime, etc. Schwarz and Strack Debate persists over whether this work undermines the significance of life satisfaction judgments, but it does raise a question whether life satisfaction attitudes tend to be well-enough grounded to have the kind of importance that people normally ascribe to happiness.

The third objection is somewhat intricate, so it will require some explaining. The claim is that a wide range of life satisfaction attitudes might be consistent with individuals' perceptions of how well their lives are going relative to what they care about, raising doubts about the importance of life satisfaction Haybron , b, c.

You might reasonably be satisfied when getting very little of what you want, or dissatisfied when getting most of what you want. One reason for this is that people tend to have many incommensurable values, leaving it open how to add them up. Looking at the various ups and downs of your life, it may be arbitrary whether to rate your life a four out of ten, or a seven.

A second reason is that life satisfaction attitudes are not merely assessments of subjective success or personal welfare: Given your values, you might reasonably be satisfied with a two, or require a nine to be satisfied. While it may seem important how well people see their lives going relative to what they care about, it is not obviously so important whether people see their lives going well enough that they are willing to judge them satisfactory.

If life satisfaction attitudes are substantially arbitrary relative to subjective success, then people might reasonably base those attitudes on other factors, such as ethical ideals e. Shifts in perspective might also reasonably alter life satisfaction attitudes. After the funeral, you might be highly satisfied with your life, whereas the high school reunion leaves you dissatisfied; yet neither judgment need be mistaken, or less authoritative.

As a result, life satisfaction attitudes may be poor indicators of well-being, even from the individual's own point of view. That people in a given country register high levels of life satisfaction may reflect nothing more than that they set the bar extremely low; they might be satisfied with anything short of pure agony. Another country's citizens might be dissatisfied with their lives, but only because they set the bar much higher. Relative to what they care about, people in the dissatisfied nation could be better off than those in the satisfied nation.

To take another example, a cancer patient might be more satisfied with his life than he was before the diagnosis, for he now looks at his life from a different perspective and emphasizes different virtues like fortitude and gratitude as opposed to say humility and non-complacency. Yet he need not think himself better off at all: Neither judgment need seem to him or us to be mistaken: Indeed, he might think he's doing badly, even as he is satisfied with his life: For present purposes, the worry is that life satisfaction may not have the kind of significance happiness is normally thought to have.

This may pose a difficulty for the identification of life satisfaction with happiness: Given the discovery that someone is happy, we might infer that he is doing well; if we learn that someone is unhappy, we may conclude that she is doing poorly. Such inferences are defeasible: So long as happiness tracks well-being well enough in most cases, this sort of practice is perfectly respectable.

But if we identify happiness with life satisfaction, then we may have a problem: This sort of case may not be merely a theoretical possibility: It is not implausible that most people, even those enduring great hardship, can readily find grounds for satisfaction with their lives. Life may have to be pretty hard for a person to be incapable of affirming it. These criticisms of life satisfaction theories are for the most part fairly recent, so it remains to be seen how the debate will play out.

Perhaps a different way of conceiving life satisfaction, for instance dispensing with the global judgment and aggregating particular satisfactions and dissatisfactions, would lessen the force of these objections. Alternatively, it is possible that idealized or qualified forms of life satisfaction would mitigate these concerns for some purposes, such as a theory of well-being. A second set of issues concerns the differences between the two affect-based views, hedonism and emotional state. The appeal of hedonism is fairly obvious: What, by contrast, motivates the emotional state account, which bears obvious similarities to hedonism yet excludes many pleasures from happiness?

The question of motivation appears to be the chief worry facing the emotional state theory: One argument for taking such a view is intuitive: The intuitive distinction seems akin to distinctions made by some ancient philosophers; consider, for instance, the following passage from Epictetus's Discourses: The Stoics did not expect us never to feel unpleasant sensations, which would plainly be impossible; rather, the idea was not to let such things get to us , to impact our emotional conditions.

Why should anyone care to press such a distinction in characterizing happiness? For most people, the hedonic difference between happiness on an emotional state versus a hedonistic view is probably minimal. But while little will be lost, what will be gained? Since well-being is commonly linked to ideas of self-fulfillment, this sort of distinction might signal a difference in the importance of these states. Another reason to focus on emotional condition rather than experience alone may be the greater psychological depth of the former: This enhances the explanatory and predictive significance of happiness, and more importantly its desirability: Compare health on this score: As well, emotional state views may capture the idea that happiness concerns the individual's psychological orientation or disposition: This reflects a point of similarity with life satisfaction views of happiness: But life satisfaction views tend to emphasize reflective or rational endorsement, whereas emotional state views emphasize the verdicts of our emotional natures.

Since emotional state theories have only recently received explicit defense, it is not clear how the debate with hedonism will proceed, though the latter view certainly remains a major contender in the literature Feldman , Morris And all affect-based theories confront the worries, noted earlier, that motivate life satisfaction views—notably, their looser connection with people's priorities, as well as their limited ability to reflect the quality of people's lives taken as a whole.

Given the limitations of narrower theories of happiness, a hybrid account such as a subjective well-being theory may seem an attractive solution. In any event, a hybrid approach draws objections of its own. If we arrive at a hybrid theory by this route, it could seem like either the marriage of two unpromising accounts, or of a promising account with an unpromising one. Such a union may not yield wholesome results. Second, people have different intuitions about what counts as happiness, so that no theory can accommodate all of them. Any theory that tries to thus risks pleasing no one.

A third concern is that the various components of any hybrid are liable to matter for quite different reasons, so that happiness, thus understood, might fail to answer to any coherent set of concerns. Ascriptions of happiness could be relatively uninformative if they cast their net too widely. With the explosive rise of empirical research on happiness, a central question is how far, and how, happiness might be measured.

Indeed, such a device might be impossible even in principle, since happiness might involve multiple dimensions that either cannot be precisely quantified or summed together. If so, it could still be feasible to develop approximate measures of happiness, or at least its various dimensions. Similarly, depression may not admit of precise quantification in a single number, yet many useful if imprecise measures of depression exist.

In the case of happiness, it is plausible that even current measures provide information about how anxious, cheerful, satisfied, etc. Even the simplest self-report measures used in the literature have been found to correlate well with many intuitively relevant variables, such as friends' reports, smiling, physiological measures, health, longevity, and so forth Pavot Importantly, most scientific research needs only to discern patterns across large numbers of individuals—to take an easy case, determining whether widows tend to be less happy than newlyweds—and this is compatible with substantial unreliability in assessing individual happiness.

Similarly, an inaccurate thermometer may be a poor guide to the temperature, but readings from many such thermometers could correlate fairly well with actual temperatures—telling us, for instance, that Minnesota is colder than Florida. This point reveals an important caveat: Self-reports of happiness, for instance, might correctly indicate that unemployed people are considerably less happy than those with jobs.

But every one of those reports could be wrong, say if everyone is unhappy yet claims to be happy, or vice-versa, so long as the unemployed report lower happiness than the employed.

A New Guide to Rational Living

Similarly, bad thermometers may show that Minnesota is colder than Florida without giving the correct temperature. Two morals emerge from these reflections. First, self-report measures of happiness could be reliable guides to relative happiness, though telling us little about how happy, in absolute terms, people are.

We may know who is happier, that is, but not whether people are in fact happy. Second, even comparisons of relative happiness will be inaccurate if the groups being compared systematically bias their reports in different ways. This worry is particularly acute for cross-cultural comparisons of happiness, where differing norms about happiness may undermine the comparability of self-reports. The French might report lower happiness than Americans, for instance, not because their lives are less satisfying or pleasant, but because they tend to put a less positive spin on things.

For this reason it may be useful to employ instruments, including narrower questions or physiological measures, that are less prone to cultural biasing. The discussion thus far has assumed that people can be wrong about how happy they are. Some have argued that sincerely self-reported happiness cannot, even in principle, be mistaken. If you think you're happy, goes a common sentiment, then you are happy. This claim is not plausible on a hedonistic or emotional state view of happiness, since those theories take judgments of happiness to encompass not just how one is feeling at the moment but also past states, and memories of those can obviously be spurious.

Further, it has been argued that even judgments of how one feels at the present moment may often be mistaken, particularly regarding moods like anxiety. The idea that sincere self-reports of happiness are incorrigible can only be correct, it seems, given a quite specific conception of happiness—a kind of life satisfaction theory of happiness on which people count as satisfied with their lives so long as they are disposed to judge explicitly that they are satisfied with their lives on the whole. Given these assumptions, we can plausibly conclude that self-reports of happiness are incorrigible.

One question is whether happiness, thus conceived, is very important. As well, it is unlikely that respondents invariably interpret happiness questions as being about life satisfaction. At any rate, even life satisfaction theorists might balk at this variant of the account, since life satisfaction is sometimes taken to involve, not just explicit global judgments of life satisfaction, but also our responses to the particular things or domains we care about.

Some will hesitate to deem satisfied people who hate many of the important things in their lives, however satisfied they claim to be with their lives as a whole. Glossary Some terminology that may be used in this description includes: New A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new Ask the seller a question. How to tell if a signature is genuine Author's signatures can undoubtedly increase the value of a rare book or first edition.

Collecting and Using City Directories Don't overlook that old city directory - it is priceless for authors, collectors who focus on specific cities, geneaology, and other niche interests. A special order item has limited availability and the seller may source this title from another supplier. In this event, there may be a slight delay in shipping and possible variation in description. Those of you who hate it could serve to take a good look at why they didn't like it. This is not meant to be an offensive judgment, just a comment. Is it honestly because you didn't understand or you weren't ready to hear?

The truth is difficult to face, but if you are ready to look at it, this is the book for you.

PHOTOGRAPHS CREDITS

Only improvements, is that some of this book for serious mental health disorders, or anxiety is black and white and overly rational. The authors, however, mention their acknowledgment of this. The best self-help book on psychotherapy I've ever read and also the one which I consider the most useful in my process. The central idea of REBT - as I've understood it - is to discover one's self-defeating Irrational Beliefs IBs , actively and forcefully challenge them and ultimately replace them with healthy Rational Philosophies.

The book outlines the most comm The best self-help book on psychotherapy I've ever read and also the one which I consider the most useful in my process. The book outlines the most common IBs and provides cognitive, emotive and behavioral methods to challenge them. The 3 major musts underlying a great deal of human emotional disturbance, according to the authors are " 1 I must be outstandingly achieving and lovable! The authors also refer to these kinds of absolutistic demands as "Musturbatory Beliefs".

Some of the cognitive, emotive and behavioral tools described in the book: The language of the book is simple but powerful, and the style reflects directness, honesty and assertiveness. The authors stress that the book, such as any human endeavor, has its own limitations and disadvantages so readers shouldn't take it as gospel but rather experimentally try some of the suggested treatment methods.

I highly recommend this book to anyone embarked or willing to embark on the difficult process of controlling, creating, and shaping one's emotional destiny.

Ellis' and Harper's classic book about the connection between thoughts and emotions - you got to credit those two professors of psychology for not serving their readers any "love yourself" or "attain enduring happiness" BS, because they chose to kick people's butts instead. I wouldn't claim that it's particularly well written, but it makes compelling arguments which is clearly the main point here that still prove to be highly influential in the scientific field.

Aug 08, Aaron rated it it was amazing. Especially if you are not familiar with cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches, this can be a very useful book for individuals wishing to experience more joy and happiness by experiencing less unnecessary upset feelings. Ellis' groundbreaking CBT psychology paved the way for most of the evidence-based techniques out there today.

A former president of the American Psychological Association, Albert Ellis created these techniques to help him with his own inadequacies. Interestingly enough, a Especially if you are not familiar with cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches, this can be a very useful book for individuals wishing to experience more joy and happiness by experiencing less unnecessary upset feelings.

Interestingly enough, at a time when psychology was still heavily influenced by the psychoanalytical tradition, Albert Ellis created his Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, in part, through the inspiration of Stoic philosophers and Buddhism. The REBT view begins with the idea that much, if not most, of our emotional suffering is not only needless, but that this suffering stems from our own Irrational Beliefs, which we must identify and challenge, then replace with Rational Beliefs in order to live less neurotic lives.

Much of the philosophy in this book is pretty simple, often to the point of being repetitive, but for good reason. I purchased this book after already being familiar with REBT and seeing where, in some heavy aspects of my life, I was setting myself up for unnecessary hurts, both in the short and long terms, mainly through dogmatic and overly idealistic thinking. As simple as REBT can be, it is not necessarily easy to restructure ways of thinking and thus feeling as a result after a lifetime of conditioning and reconditioning.

In fact, a lot of our Irrational Beliefs are paralleled with somewhat Rational Beliefs, but if we look deeper we can often see where, although cognitively we may express some logical discernment about a given situation or relationship, we likely have more deeply ingrained and subconscious Irrational Beliefs that lead to our suffering regardless.

This book is not some sort of New Agey spiritual psychology. I found this method to be almost immediately helpful; however, it is not a quick and easy fix to emotional disturbances, it requires work And as the authors co written by CBT psychologist Robert Harper note, we likely will never get to a place where we experience no upset feelings, a key point is to distinguish between what is healthy regret and feeling of loss and what is Irrational and even neurotic, prolonged depression, anxiety, anger, etc.

A Guide to Rational Living is not for people looking for a book to solve their problems for them. It is not a philosophy aimed at helping us rationalize our misery by blaming our pasts. It is pro active, and it begins and ends with our own personal responsibility for our feelings, regardless of how bad we believe we've had it or have it. No sugarcoating here, folks. This is blunt reading with the Rational intention of helping its readers become more healthy, happy and loving and rational beings.

Jan 26, Derick rated it it was amazing. This book will teach you how to be nicer to yourself. Books like these are designed to help people overcome difficult emotions like sadness, depression, anger, and anxiety. Personally, this book helped me reconcile my anger with my family. Before this book, I had a strained relationship with my mother, but after reading the essay titled, "Overcoming the Influences of the Past," I realized that I was holding my mother to standards that were impractical, and living with pain that would have only eve This book will teach you how to be nicer to yourself.

Before this book, I had a strained relationship with my mother, but after reading the essay titled, "Overcoming the Influences of the Past," I realized that I was holding my mother to standards that were impractical, and living with pain that would have only ever healed if reality somehow managed to redesign the past. It was lucky to encounter this essay, because now my own standards for family dynamics are more in line with reality. Another helpful essay was, "Conquering Anxiety and Panic. I was able to learn that Anxiety is the tool that tries to help you survive, but when it gets out of hand it often prolongs the individual's suffering.

In an entirely basic summary, Anxiety is its own pain invented by the mind of the sufferer who imagines great horrors when supposing what might happen. Anxiety's second pain is its ability to shackle an individual into a life that is filled with reduced satisfaction due to an inability to challenge these beliefs and test these horrors. They rarely achieve moderate happiness because they're so terrified of imagined "horrors" becoming reality, when in most cases these "horrible" possibilities are just mildly unpleasant.

Many of the other essays are incredible and helpful. I simply point to these two as they offered the most personally profound advice for my own unique troubles. No, life isn't magically perfect from my new shift in philosophy. No, my life isn't leaps and bounds better. I still have much work to do to become satisfied with my own actions and my own destiny, but I'm far less hard on myself thanks to the tools of this book.

Things are in a perspective slightly more manageable. A person who has delusional, self destructive thoughts should think rationally to resolve his emotional issues. Is this not a chicken and egg problem? The person was having trouble thinking rationally and I believe therefore he visited the therapist, now the therapist says, in order to resolve your problem think rationally.

It's like a person with weight issue going to the gym and instructor says, "You know what, in order to be thin, you will have to lose fat. This how is nev A person who has delusional, self destructive thoughts should think rationally to resolve his emotional issues. This how is never fully answered in the book. So, it didn't work for me. Hasya Kavi Can you recommend some other book s? Apr 08, Nik Thank you for the review, but I must say that what I see here is a disagreement of psychological philosophies. Because the authors themselves admit tha Thank you for the review, but I must say that what I see here is a disagreement of psychological philosophies.

Because the authors themselves admit that they'd disagree with Freud and other prominent psychologists that man is an irrational being and behaves irrationally at all times. And they do indeed point out how one thinks in irrational sentences and then provide ways to counter them, via rational arguments. Their examples are helpful in putting their ideas in context. And as you seem to be a psychologist yourself, it may also be a conflict of philosophies. Thank you again, have a great day. Apr 03, Hepe rated it really liked it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This is an important book on cognitive behavioral psychology. The tone and attitude of the author can be quite off putting which I'm guessing is a reason that, although he was one of the pioneers in the field, Albert Ellis never achieved the mainstream popularity of other cognitive behavioralists.

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