The Pursuit of Happiness 

How can I achieve happiness? 

This is a crucial question in human life, but it can be a difficult one to answer. Thankfully, we can learn much from the great philosophers and theologians of the Western tradition when trying to understand how to be happy. 

For many of these figures, including the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and the medieval Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, happiness is intimately related to morality. 

For Aristotle and Aquinas, to understand morality one must understand the human person.  

Man is a rational creature, meaning that, unlike animals, he can reason about his goals and decide how he should act. That said, even though different people have different proximate goals—one wants to be a teacher while another wants to be a firefighter—all people have the same ultimate goal or “final end”: happiness.  

In order to achieve this end, human beings act, and actions are based on beliefs, especially beliefs concerning what is truly good. Therefore, it is crucial to sort out what is good in order to know what actions to take. 

Aristotle begins his “Nicomachean Ethics” by saying that “every action and choice is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”  

He argues that the good at which all action and choice aims is happiness. Whether you are choosing what to eat for dinner or what to major in at college, you make your choice because you believe that it will help make you happy. One may decide to pursue a multitude of actions, but behind every decision is the pursuit of happiness.  

This might all be common sense. Perhaps the issue regarding morality and happiness has more to do with what, precisely, happiness is.  

Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that “happiness is activity flowing from virtue.” If we want to be happy, we must be good. If we desire to be good, we act in accord with the truth. When we live as if there is no truth, we become unhappy. 

Today, the world is awash with moral relativism. This is the belief that one cannot actually know what is right or wrong because these ideas are merely relative.  

According to Lifeway Research, 57% of Americans wonder how they can live more meaningful lives at least once a month. We live in the most comfortable society in world history, but we are unhappy. We desire to be happy, but we have forgotten that to be happy, we must be good, which also means that we need truth.  

The pursuit of happiness is not some abstract moral theory, but a matter of fact. Each decision made by a human being is made in order to achieve some good that he or she believes will ultimately lead to happiness.  

A moral relativist would not necessarily disagree that people want to be happy, but the relativist would say that happiness can be determined by each individual to be whatever he or she wishes. Maybe virtue makes one person happy, but another person finds happiness in vice, the theory goes.  

However, our actions can be measured against whether or not they lead to genuine happiness, which Aristotle argues is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Virtue, then, is the true path to happiness.  

In order to defeat moral relativism, we must be willing to speak the truth, which also means that we must be ready to face rejection. We should not speak the truth because we want to annoy or demean people. Instead, we should speak the truth because we love others and the truth. In loving, we must be willing to sacrifice. If we do so, we will become good—and happy.  

For this reason, Jesus preached: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness” (Matthew 5:10).  

Perhaps much of our culture’s decline is the result of relativism—a mindset that champions tolerance and false love. In order to be truly happy, we must remain rooted in reality; we must cling to the truth even when others misunderstand or even hate us. For the human person was made for truth. Clinging to it will never leave us dissatisfied.  

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal. 

More from this network:
Domains for Sale · GOTPeople.org · TheDSAPlatform · The Truth About Socialism

Donate to GOTPeople.org