psychological state, we can meaningfully ask: Is happiness a good thing? If so,
how does it compare with other goods? Is a happy life necessarily a good life?
Let me close this discussion by briefly addressing these questions from a
Buddhist perspective. If my account is correct, then Buddhism conceives of
happiness as a psychological state: the state of perfect mental health. Certainly,
mental health is a good thing, and so it follows that happiness is a good thing.
But it does not necessarily follow that a happy life is a good life, because
happiness might come into conflict with other things that matter in life. As
mentioned earlier, circumstances may arise in which we should be willing to
sacrifice our happiness for the sake of other goods—in particular, for moral
goods. I might be happier if I abandoned my family, but this would be the wrong
thing to do,14 and it is more important to do the right thing (or to be a good
person) than to be happy. If happiness is nothing more than “feeling good,” this
is a real conflict. But if feeling good is only one component of happiness, then
the conflict is more apparent than real. Shouldn’t a measure of mental health be
the extent to which one enjoys doing the right thing? If so, then one never has to
choose between happiness (understood as mental health) and virtue, because
virtue is a dimension or an expression of happiness. In situations of apparent
conflict, one is forced to choose between pseudo-happiness and virtue.
Finally, we might wonder whether a happy life is necessarily a good life.
Philosophers have variously equated happiness with pleasure, virtue, flourishing,
and authenticity, and there is some truth to each of these accounts. Assuming that
happiness is essential to the good life, then presumably one is happy because one
enjoys life, or is virtuous, or flourishes, or lives authentically. It makes sense,
though, to reverse this relation and to think of happiness as a state of being that
makes it possible to enjoy life, to be virtuous, to flourish, and to live authentically.
Depressed people find it impossible to enjoy anything. It’s not that people are
depressed because they do not enjoy life; rather, people do not enjoy life because
they are depressed. People are not depressed because they are unmotivated to
accomplish anything; rather, people lack motivation because they are depressed.
Happy people, on the other hand, enjoy life. They are motivated to achieve goals,
to flourish, because they embrace life enthusiastically. Yet, they see life for what