The Direction of Happiness - Case Study Example

Thought Experiments “the Direction of Happiness” and “Experience Machine Ways to Be Happy The thought experiments, “the direction of happiness” and “experience machine” provide a man with a great insight into the nature of happiness. But neither of the lines in the following graph is self-sufficient. In the first place, these two lines are obsessed with excluded ends of the nature of happiness. But one can easily add several criteria to make these experiments adaptable to his or her own perspective happiness. Indeed the graph of the “direction of happiness” experiment including the two axes “the amount of happiness” and “time” considered as an objective mechanism to express the interrelation between “time” and “amount of happiness”. In the following graph, the line A and line B refers to the subjective perception of happiness, of a man, that can be faulty also. From a very subjective perspective, each of the modes of happiness, indicated by the lines A and B can be true for particular individuals. But they cannot be considered as modes of happiness that are commonly perceived by all or most of the people, since both of them are the excluded ends of the nature of happiness. Also though Nozich’s proposition about the nature of happiness is true to a great extent, his supposition of the excluded ends of happiness is, to a certain extent, faulty also, because the line “B” does not truly represent the subjective portions of happiness in its true sense. After all, his proposition about “the more” in perception of happiness is fundamental in the nature, because his proposition about the subjective fills on the objective structure of happiness renders a sense of completeness to the nature of happiness. In the abovementioned graph, the lines A and B refer to the same amount of pleasure in opposite directions. While along line A, happiness increases, it decreases along line B. Now Nozich argues that people will not choose both of them though they are equal. Indeed the fact why people do not choose them equally is, according to Nozich, the “narrative direction”. Nozich assumes that most people will prefer A to B because the first line infers a positive “narrative direction” about the prospect of happiness and they will decline from B, because it infers a negative prospect of happiness. In fact, though Nozich endeavors to assign any objective structure to happiness, both of the lines A and B are subjective because of this narrative direction. This mode of preference essentially shows that people want that experience or perception of happiness should come upon a person in a certain patterned way. If happiness is the outcome of the pleasures of body and mind, then the way of being pleased is also an important factor. As a man, I also have a desire to be happy increasingly. Since the line A promises a certain future of happiness, I will choose the life A. But since life B does not any have prospect of future happiness, I will not choose it. In fact, the difference between life A and life B is that whereas the hope of a better future increases the feeling of happiness at any given in life A, the anxiety of increasing unhappiness decreases a person’s unhappiness at any given point on the line B. One of the two possible means that can make a man happy in life B is to roam through his past memory of happiness in retrospect. Another means is that in life B, a man can be happy, to a certain extent, through his endeavor to shift in the mode of life A. Now even if he is not successful to do so, he will be happy to perceive that he is survivor. But this option is applicable to those who are intellectually capable to do so. Except these two possibilities of happiness in life B, there is only happiness. The life in the “Experience Machine”, at a first glance, may seem to be heavenly or Utopian and therefore the most desirable. But indeed the life in the “experience machine” is boring because it does not diversity. It can only provide physical pleasure and mental pleasure, to the extent to which physical pleasure are related to it. Indeed life A in the “Direction of Happiness” and life in the “experience machine” are closely similar to each other, because both of them ensure a future happiness. Yet life A is preferable to the life in the Experience machine, because the first one is more diverse than the second. Insurance of happiness in real life should be diverse in nature. Unless pleasure comes from diverse sources, true happiness cannot be achieved. Nozich describes man’s preference for reality-connection as the reality principles of happiness. According him, man wants to be happy in a particular way because man does not want to just feel it passively; reality principles of happiness attract human mind more than the fancy world of happiness. In this regard, Robert Nozich says, “We want to do certain things … we want to be a certain way … plugging into an experience machine limits us to a man-made reality” (Nozick 43). Since the life in the “experience machine” does not have the first two happiness emotions of life, according to Nozich the life in the experience machine will not be overall good. In the “experience machine” one will not be able to be happy to see others’ happiness and the great moments of happiness will be available because the life in the machine is continuously happy. I will not prefer the life in the ‘experience life’ because it does not have any diversity. Since it does not have any diversity, it ceases the meaning of life as well as the meaning of happiness. Thus life in the ‘experience machine’ turns into boring. As the meaning of happiness lies in unhappiness also, the happiness in the machine is different from the happiness in the natural world. Indeed neither of Life A in the Direction of Happiness and the life in the experience machine is ideally perfect happiness. The line A does not refer to a ideally perfect happiness because the increasing rate of the amount of happiness along the line A is even and equal at any given moment. For example, if ‘t’ refers to time and ‘happiness’, then ‘h/t’ that is the rate of increase of happiness is the same at any moment. Therefore it does not represent the happiness in real life. According to Nozich, the first happiness emotion of seeing other happy gives a sudden rise in the rate of happiness along the line A (Nozich 23). Also the critical or odd moments, will decrease the rate while making the direction of the line downward and the great moments of feeling happiness will make the line go upward. Therefore if the total happiness is greater than the total unhappiness in a man’s life, then the line A should go upward in a fluctuating or wavering way. It is evident from the following graphs: So from this discussion it is clear, -also my opinion of true happiness is- that in order to be happy, a man must have the scope to happen to be unhappy. But the average happiness should be greater than the average unhappiness. If there is no unhappiness in a man’s life, then continuous happiness, as it is shown in life A, will become meaningless and boring. Necessarily proposition indicates that even though a man is continuously happy in his life, he must try to make other happy in order to be happier or to render a meaning to his happiness. He should come close to the unhappy people such as poor people, diseased people etc; he should give money to the poor and try to help them to be happy. Such altruistic actions will allow them to be unhappy temporarily affected by other unhappiness but in return it will add a meaning to his happiness. Works Cited Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974. Read More