Chapter 4 - Happiness, Eudemonia, and Well-Being

Summary

Happiness has been a major topic of philosophical and other forms of investigation throughout history. Happiness has often been held as an end and a means to good life. People have generally sought happiness, and happiness is related in common and academic discourse to progress, success, and value. However, not all traditions prize happiness, and the definition of happiness and its implications for social life and education are contested. How to measure it, whether one can measure it, and how to know it when you see it, are some puzzles psychologists and philosophers (among others) grapple with. This chapter gives a brief history of the concept of happiness alongside other concepts, of eudemonia and well-being, from philosophical orientations, in psychology, and from the perspective of the politics of emotions. It traces how these views have shaped educational aims and strategies. The analysis here emphasises the need for consideration of more critical approaches to happiness as an educational aim, despite the praise of happiness as a good in itself in much of western philosophy and psychology.