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“A Defense of Religion”

A religious person (by definition) is a person who forms a relationship with God. The main difficulty with this, from a logical, philosophical, and psychological perspective, is that it seems irrational to form a relationship with a being that doesn’t, and apparently can’t possibly, exist in the natural, real world that we live in. From this point of view religious people seem to be living in some sort of crazy, fantasy world.

The psychological hurdles can be overcome. Indeed churches and other religious organizations seem designed to help people overcome these hurdles. It becomes much easier psychologically to believe in God when one is around other true believers. Singing hymns, listening to lectures on God and the benefits of belief in God, praying together to this God, etc. are behaviors that all encourage and reinforce a belief in God. Quite simply they make it psychologically and emotionally easier to believe in the existence of something that may seem incredible outside the church environment.

The logical and philosophical hurdles are not so easy to deal with. Virtually every argument for the existence of God you might conceivably hear in church has been extensively analyzed and refuted by the great philosophers, like David Hume.

But let’s take a look at this from a different angle. Imagine your wife or lover is away from you. In fact she (or he) has been away from you for several weeks. At first you are able to at least communicate with her on the phone or computer. As you speak with her you form a picture of her in your mind. After you break communication with her you retain that image in your mind for some time. After a while you even find yourself internally conversing with her. You imagine saying something to her and you imagine her responding. She is real to you in your mind.

There is nothing psychologically unhealthy about keeping your wife’s image in your mind and engaging in this kind of internal dialogue with her. In fact it can be psychologically quite beneficial. You feel less lonely. She also helps you solve problems. You ask her what you should do to solve this problem and she answers (in your mind). Of course she doesn’t physically answer through some kind of telepathy. But it helps you to think through problems to engage in that kind of internal dialogue. (This is one reason why writing fiction can actually be psychologically beneficial. You are able to solve problems you wouldn’t otherwise be able to think through.)

My wife has a kind of being or existence in my mind, apart from her physical existence. This existence doesn’t depend on the physical existence of my wife. If sadly my wife dies suddenly I still have her in my mind and I can still communicate internally with her.

You see where I’m going with this. God can exist for me in my mind in the same way my wife does. He is real in that sense and there is nothing psychologically unhealthy or crazy in praying or in carrying on an internal dialogue with him (or her or it if you prefer). Of course it would be crazy to think that God physically exists somewhere in the universe. There is no evidence of that. God exists for us internally as a kind of “life-problem solver”. Internally communicating with him helps us in dealing with issues that arise for us. Even more useful is the fact that He exists for many other people as well and that there are many stories about Him and his followers. This provides us with even more information to help us solve our problems.

“Summary of Skillful Living Theory”

In this essay I will summarize the Skillful Living Theory. I will in this summary make no attempt to defend the theory in detail. My aim here is just present the theory and some of the main reasons for it.

The Fundamental Question of Human Existence

The fundamental question of human existence is: How should we live our lives? This question invites a further question: To what end? If the question is “How should we live our lives if we want to make a lot of money?” the answer will be different than if we take the question to be “How should we live our lives if we want to live morally?” So the question “How should we live our lives?” raises another question: What is the fundamental end/purpose/goal of human existence? If we knew what that was then we would know the direction in which to guide our lives.

Historically, philosophers have most commonly taken the ultimate goal of human existence to be happiness. This is intuitively plausible. If you are happy, then what else do you need? What use would there be for more money or power if you are already happy and the money or power wouldn’t add to your happiness? In this sense then, happiness seems more “ultimate” than other things that humans strive for. Once you have it, there’s nothing else you need to strive for. Other ends that humans strive for, such as money or power, are not “ultimate” in this way. Suppose I have all the money I could ever possibly spend, but I’m paralyzed in a wheel chair. I might be willing to give up all or most of the money if I could just get rid of my paralysis, thereby establishing that there are things more important than money.

There is however a problem with taking happiness as the ultimate end of human existence. Notice that this way of defining happiness says nothing about its character. It doesn’t say what the feeling or state of happiness is like. It simply says that it is the ultimate goal of human existence. There is nothing wrong with this, but this way of defining happiness can conflict with the way people ordinarily think about or understand happiness. Ordinarily, people think of happiness as having a particular character or feel about it. Put simply, you feel good when you’re happy. And if you’re feeling really, really good, it doesn’t really matter why you’re feeling that way or how the feeling came about; you’re happy. The problem is that happiness in this ordinary sense cannot plausibly be taken as the ultimate goal of human existence. To see this, imagine that this feeling of happiness can be produced by a drug like heroin. Imagine a man spending his life doing nothing but getting high (happy) on this drug. This person accomplishes next to nothing with his life. He doesn’t experience or have any desire to experience any of the wonderful experiences that life has to offer (other than this one happy state). He has no desire to learn anything about the world or to travel anywhere around the world. Such a life seems pretty meaningless and pointless.

When I say that his life seems pretty meaningless and pointless, I mean this in a descriptive sense, not a judgmental sense. I’ll acknowledge that the man who spends his life injecting heroin might be happy and might choose that life for himself. And I’m in no position to say that he is wrong to make that choice. He has, I would argue, chosen a life empty of much meaning, one which I would not personally go for, but it is his right to do so. And I’m glad if it makes him happy. But even if it didn’t make him happy, it would still be his right to choose that life.

Let me now discuss in a little more detail why I think the heroin addict’s life is devoid of much meaning. The heroin addict lives for pretty much a single experience, the euphoria of heroin intoxication. There is nothing wrong with this experience. I agree that it has some value and to that extent the experience itself has meaning. I haven’t personally experienced it but would in theory love to experience it. (I am frankly afraid to, worrying that I might become addicted to it.) I have no moral objections to taking heroin. To me the “problem” with this life from the standpoint of meaning is that it prioritizes a single experience over almost all others. OK, this experience has some meaning, perhaps even a lot of meaning, but after taking heroin 10 times how much more meaning can you extract from it? (I have read that heroin addicts become less satisfied by the experience after taking it a few times and to compensate begin to inject more and more in order to try to recapture the initial experience.) Moreover, it is just ONE experience. There are an infinite number of value-filled experiences to be had in this world which the heroin addict, by choice, cuts himself off from. Indeed his skill in living generally will suffer over his preoccupation with this one experience. It seems clear to me that happiness in this sense is not the ultimate end that we should strive for.

According to the Skillful Living theory, the answer to the question “How should human beings live their lives?” is: We should strive to live as skillfully as we can. What do we achieve by living skillfully? According to the Skillful Living theory we will achieve a “meaningful” life. The ultimate end of human existence is a meaningful existence. If I achieve a meaningful life, will I necessary be happy? I think people with meaningful lives are likely to be happy at least during much of their lives, but maybe not in every case.

According to the Skill Living theory, skillful living leads to a meaningful life. And that is why we should all strive to be skillful in all the various spheres of living. But what is the meaning we get out of skillful living and how does living skillfully achieve it? These are two fundamental questions that we will now attempt to answer.

Skillful Living and Meaning

Meaning is connected with value. If an action I take yields something of value, then to that extent it is a meaningful action. My action is not pointless. The more skillful a person is in a particular field of action or sphere of living, the more value they can extract from it. Their lives become to that extent more meaningful. A few examples will make this clearer.

Most mornings I watch the sun come up outside my office window as I sip my coffee. During this time I experience a number of beautiful scenes as the sunlight is filtered through the trees into the field behind our house. Another beautiful scene is when the sparrows fly into our yard like a fleet of jet planes landing on an aircraft carrier, landing in a rose bush as they wait to begin feeding. Seeing such beautiful scenes, experiencing in this way the beauty of the world, is extracting value from the world. This makes our lives richer and more meaningful. We are like miners extracting the precious metals of value from the world.

Of course, experiencing such beauty does not require any great skill. All I need to do is look out my window and observe what’s happening. But it does require some skill. I need to have the patience to sit and observe. I need to empty my mind of distracting thoughts or worries to focus for a time on what I’m seeing. But now imagine an artist experiencing the very same thing. The artist would notice things I totally miss. They would see all the various shades of greens, yellows, browns, and whites mingled together in exquisite patterns. They would notice the changing shadows and perspectives as the light increases. In short they would see a lot more and they would be able to extract more of the precious metals of value from the experience. How are they able to do this? Because of their skill as an artist.

Or consider a skill such as playing a musical instrument. As you get more and more skillful at your instrument, you become capable of playing a greater number of interesting pieces of music and of playing pieces that are of greater interest. In other words, you become more and more capable of extracting value from the world of music. Your life as a musician thereby becomes richer and more meaningful.

Both of the previous examples take place in what we might call the Individual Sphere of living. But the same carries over to other skills and ways of living. The more skillful you are at living within any sphere of living, the more capable you become of extracting value from it. Your life becomes richer and more meaningful within those spheres of living. Let’s now consider an example within the Marital and Social Spheres of living. Suppose an issue arises. Maybe there is a barking dog next door that is driving me crazy. How do I get my next door neighbor to manage his dog more thoughtfully? Solving this problem is clearly of value and by solving it I am extracting value from the world. My life will become more pleasant as a result. There are more and less skillful ways of dealing with such an issue. More skillful ways will solve the problem without alienating my neighbor. Attempting to talk to my neighbor might be preferable to immediately calling the police or sending threatening letters. Attempting to work out a solution by discussing the matter with my spouse is probably better than dealing with it all on my own. (Two heads are better than one.) We could go on and on with such examples. All of this all seems somewhat obvious. The more skillful you are at living the more value you can extract from the world and the more meaningful your life will become. Nevertheless the importance of this is big. We have just solved the fundamental question of human existence: How should we live our lives? The answer is to strive for greater skill in living within all the various spheres of living.

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“The Many Worlds of Skillful Living”

This is a very large topic, probably of book length if I am ever to develop it all out. This also will contain a lot of material that I haven’t previously thought about, so I’m not sure where it will all go. For me this is an exploration. I’m going to try to keep the chapters short and somewhat undeveloped so that I can cover I broader set of discussions.

“Ch. 1 – Introduction”

In previous discussions I defended the view that Happiness is Skillful Living. In this series of discussions I will discuss in more detail what it is to live skillfully.

There are different spheres of living. All of these spheres to varying degrees are important to our happiness. Our level of skill varies from sphere to sphere. Just because a person is highly skillful in one sphere doesn’t mean they are as skilled in other areas.

Here are some of the main life spheres: Social, Marriage, Individual, Spiritual, and Moral. This is not an exhaustive list, and there are areas of overlap between many of these spheres.

Social skills involve how well we interact with other people and with all the various social institutions. Here’s an example involving a social institution. Suppose a person believes they were overcharged in a recent transaction. They decide to go to the store that overcharged them and get some money back. Clearly this can be handled more or less skillfully. In one case the person goes into the store screaming that they have been cheated and the store is nothing but a den of thieves. Another person doesn’t go at all because they are afraid to. Still another person goes into the store but doesn’t express themselves in a clear enough fashion. Here’s an example involving how skillfully a person interacts with other people. Consider a person who is generally highly distrustful of other people. If another person is nice to them they start thinking that person wants something from them. They rarely smile or say hello to others because they think it will only open them up to some sort of abuse or exploitation. This is not a skillful way of interacting with other people.

I’ll treat marriage as a separate sphere even though it obviously involves at least one other person. I mean ‘marriage’ in a broad sense that doesn’t require sanctioning by the State. Just living together is enough. How is the marriage relationship distinguished from a casual friendship? One major difference is that marriage usually involves some sort of commitment and trust.

The Individual sphere involves skills in activities that don’t essentially involve other people. Here I mean such activities as writing, playing a music instrument, swimming, running, etc. Some sports involve both individual skills and social skills. Tennis might be an example. How well I hit a forehand or serve is an Individual skill. How well I work with my tennis partner is a social skill. Constantly advising my partner how he can improve his tennis game while we are in the middle of a match is not a skillful way of working with my partner. Poker is another sport that involves both individual skills and social skills. A good poker player knows all the odds for different poker hands, but also knows how to read and manipulate his opponents.

The Moral sphere has to do with how skillful we are at determining what’s right and wrong and acting in accordance with what we think is right. People often make mistakes in determining what’s right because of personal biases. For example, a person might believe that there is nothing wrong with not paying the rent he agreed to pay when he moved in because his landlord must be a wealthy oppressor if he owns a second house to rent out. And there are also cases of moral weakness. I know what the right thing is, but I’m weak. I know I shouldn’t drink another glass of wine because I need to be at my best tomorrow, but I do so anyway.

The Spiritual sphere has to do with activities that nourish the soul. These include such things as spending time watching a beautiful sunset, meditating to lose one’s self, praying to one’s God, etc.

There are two main points I want to make here. First, it’s important to recognize that the amount of time and energy a person spends in these different spheres varies for the same person and among different people. Buddhist monks devote themselves to the Spiritual sphere and spend most of their time and energy in the Spiritual sphere. They neglect the Social sphere in order to spend more time in the Spiritual sphere. Secondly, our skill level varies among these different spheres and among different people. Given Buddhist monks’ devotion to the Spiritual, it’s not surprising that they are much more highly skilled in the Spiritual sphere than in the social sphere. It would not be surprising if they were awkward around other people.

But this is just an extreme example. What’s true of the Buddhist monk is true of us all. We are more devoted to some spheres than others and our skill level differs among them. So here’s your first homework assignment. What is your level of devotion for each of these spheres and how would you assess your skill level? I’ll start. I tend to rank my level of devotion among these spheres in the following order: Individual, Marriage, Social, Moral, and Spiritual. I put the Individual sphere at the top because I spend most of my time working on my various personal hobbies: Music, Writing, Fitness, Tennis, Politics, and Electronics. I don’t tend to spend a lot of time socializing and hanging out with friends. When I do I often try to combine it with one of my individual pursuits such as tennis. I put the individual sphere above the Marriage sphere because my wife and I hardly even see each other during the day until cocktail time arrives!

So how would I rank my skill level in these different spheres? Certainly my skill level is probably highest in the individual sphere simply because it’s where I spend most of my time. How the other spheres’ compare is more debatable. But the ranking is not really that important. What’s important is to recognize that skills in one sphere do not necessarily carry over to the other spheres. Just because a woman is skillful at making money doesn’t mean she’s a good wife. Just because a man is a great athlete doesn’t mean he is skilled in the Moral sphere or the Spiritual sphere.

On the other hand, lack of skill in one sphere can impact other spheres. Lack of social skills is known to strongly impact other spheres. If a person can’t get along with other people it will impact their ability to learn anything that requires a teacher or trainer or partner or working with other people.

I’ll finish this chapter with an observation I’ll come back to later in more detail. In terms of human happiness all of these spheres can be important. Human happiness is skillful living generally in one’s life, with emphasis on the word ‘generally’. Being highly skilled in one or two areas is not good enough. Van Gough was as highly skilled an artist as one can be, but he was not a happy man. Devoting yourself fully to one sphere (say the Individual sphere) to the exclusion to every other sphere (social, marriage) is not a way to happiness.

The second observation I’ll make and come back to later is that some spheres are more important to happiness than others although this varies somewhat from one person to another and to the same person at different times of their life. I think the Social sphere is very important, maybe the most important sphere. Human beings are social animals. The Individual sphere is also very important. One reason for this is individual skills are essential to generally functioning in all spheres. To give one example, the ability to think, read, and write (Individual skills) are helpful in every sphere.

“Ch. 2 – Rejection in the Social Sphere”

I’m going to start with the Social sphere because of its importance and complexity. I’ll start with an examination of one important concept that plays a pervasive role in this sphere, namely, the concept of rejection. It’s important because it’s related to the question of how success is measured in the Social sphere.

When we think of rejection we often think of the more extreme, interesting cases. A man proposes marriage to a woman he is madly in love with. She says, “No, I like you, but I’m not interested in anything serious.” He’s been rejected. OK, that hurts and we could discuss the most skillful way for him to deal with that rejection. (I discussed a case like this, but not quite the same, in an earlier discussion of “forgiveness”.)

But rejection is common and pervasive in the Social sphere. It’s kind of like losing in tennis. I remember some commentator talking about how professional tennis players have to quickly learn how to deal with losing, because they are frequently losing matches, no matter how good they are. It’s the same thing with rejection in the Social sphere. We are constantly being rejected every day. Let’s consider an example.

Suppose I run into a person I know casually. I make a friendly gesture. I smile and say hello. They look at me briefly and nod and then keep walking. That’s a kind of rejection: My gesture of friendliness wasn’t returned or wasn’t fully returned. Now you may ask, “Why call this a ‘rejection’?” Maybe they were just distracted and would have responded in a friendlier manner had they not been so distracted? Well, of course. That may very well be true. Maybe it wasn’t really a rejection. To call it a rejection is to make a judgement call, one which could be mistaken for any number of reasons.

Through this example we have discovered one feature of skillful living in the Social sphere, namely the ability to judge the meaning of actions of other people you deal with in one way or another. A person who is constantly misjudging the actions of others is not living skillfully in the Social sphere.

But let’s suppose I am not misjudging the actions of this other person. They did reject my gesture of friendliness. It was a rejection. Does this indicate a lack of social skill on my part, albeit a small one? I think not. If it did indicate a lack of skill it would amount to a failure, albeit a small one, on my part. But I did nothing wrong in this case. I didn’t confront them with an overly friendly gesture. I didn’t hound them by running over to them and making a big deal of saying hello. Nothing like that. It was (we assume here) a completely natural hello.

The point I’m trying to make here is this. I was rejected. The rejection does not indicate a lack of social skill on my part. This is what life is like in the Social sphere. We are dealing with other people and they have their own likes and dislikes, their own agendas, their own levels of social skill, and so on. Even if we are skillful in our dealings with other people, they have a say in the matter. (It’s like they say about fighting a war: “The enemy has a say in the matter.”)

We can’t measure our skill in the Social sphere by our popularity or lack of popularity. A lack of skill might lead to a lack of popularity, but not necessarily. A beautiful man or woman might be popular because of their beauty and having nothing to do with their social skill. A man or woman of the wrong race or sex given the prejudices of the society might be shunned without this having anything to do with their social skill.

The fact that this person rejected my gesture does not indicate a lack of skill on my part, but how I respond to the rejection might. Here are a few less than skillful ways of responding: “What’s wrong with that person? I’m never saying hello to them again.” “That was rude. I’m going to tell everyone just how rude they are.” “What’s the matter with me?” Or I could bemoan the fact that this person doesn’t seem to like me much. Well, sure it would be wonderful to be friends with them, but there are a lot of people in the world. The loss of one potential friend (who may not turn out to be anything special if I got to know them) needs to be kept in perspective.

“Ch. 3 – Value in the Social Sphere”

In the previous chapter I discussed an example of a minor rejection of one person by another. In the example a man I made a friendly gesture of hello to didn’t return the gesture. I rightly judged that this person shunned me. One main point I made was that this does not imply a lack of skill on my part. In this chapter I want to discuss in more detail how success is to be measured in the Social sphere.

Being rejected by this man (in this small way) only matters if I care about being friends with this man. Suppose I don’t care or even that I don’t really want to be friends with this person. I waved to him just to be polite, but I actually think he’s a jerk. In that case his rejection is of no importance to me. Rejection only matters to the extent that his friendship or the possibility of such is something of value to me.

Success in a sphere is measured in terms of its value to us. Roughly speaking the goal is to maximize value. Let’s suppose in our example that I do value this person’s possible friendship, say because I’ve heard he’s a good tennis player and I’d like to get a game with him. Then his rejection might be a loss of something of value to me. However it is important to keep perspective. Even if he is a good tennis player he might not be any fun to play with. And there are plenty of other good tennis players around. At the most it’s really only a small loss. It’s nothing to get upset about.

Yet sometimes we do get upset by such slights and I want to discuss for a moment why that might be. I’ve already alluded to one reason: We think of it as a kind of failure on our part. We start analyzing it from that point of view. “Maybe if I had done my ‘Hello’ in a different way? Maybe there is something wrong with me?” This kind of thinking is clearly irrational since his rejection does not imply any lack of skill on my part.

Here’s a second possible reason why this rejection may upset us. This person’s rejection implies that he doesn’t value having a friendship with me. I think of this as demeaning, and that’s what upsets me. This kind of thinking too seems irrational. The fact (if it is a fact) that he doesn’t value me says nothing about my intrinsic value or worth. He likes to hang out with the kind of people he likes to hang out with. That’s fine; there is nothing wrong with that.

But, you say, “He should have said hello back to me. He was rude. And that’s upsetting.” This case deserves a more detailed discussion. In order to explain what’s going on here I need to digress for a moment. Then I’ll come back to the case.

We discussed in earlier chapters some of the different spheres of living, including the Social, the Individual, the Marriage, and the Moral spheres. How can we tell what sphere or spheres we are living in at any given moment? Well, it’s easy to tell when I’m in the Social sphere: I’m interacting with other people. It’s also easy to tell when I’m in the Marriage sphere: I’m interacting with my wife. When I’m engaged in a private activity, like I’m doing now in writing this, I’m in the Individual sphere. But what is it to be living in the Moral sphere? At first this may be puzzling, but the answer is pretty simple. I enter the Moral sphere by making, publically or in my head, a moral judgement.

To return to our example, the moment I start judging that he should have said hello or that he was rude not to, I’m making a moral judgement and thereby entering the Moral sphere of living. The words ‘should’ and ‘rude’ indicate that I’m making a moral judgement. So in this case, the moment I make the moral judgement I’m in both the Social sphere and the Moral sphere. I’m in the former because I’m interacting with other people. I’m in the latter because I’m making a moral judgement.

As I discussed in an earlier chapter, it is notoriously difficult to establish whether a moral judgement is true or false. Was this man rude to me? Who knows? He may just have been distracted. But let’s just assume that we are right in thinking this man was rude. The interesting question is whether this is a reason for me to be upset. What am I upset about? “I’m upset that he was rude!” Ah, such righteous anger! But it doesn’t really answer the question.

The point I want to make here is that although my judgement is a Moral judgement my response to it is outside the Moral sphere. It needs to be evaluated in the Social sphere and also probably the Individual and Spiritual spheres. Is responding with righteous anger or indignation a socially skillful way of responding? Probably it isn’t. What good does it do for me? Does it help me in the Individual sphere? That’s doubtful. When I’m upset I can’t fully concentrate on the individual activities I’m pursuing. Being upset is distracting. It certainly doesn’t help me in the Spiritual sphere since it distracts from my overall peace of mind. Forgiveness is a much healthier, more skillful way of responding to perceived slights, as I’ve discussed in previous essays.

As I’ve been thinking through these issues, I’m realizing just how important it is to keep our eyes on the ball. The “ball” here is skillful living. If we do this the rest will fall into place. Moralizing over the behavior of others is just another distraction over what’s truly important to our happiness and well-being.

“Ch. 4 – Social Approval and Disapproval”

Social approval and disapproval take many forms. In extreme cases it can result in rewards or punishment by the State. People who steal are jailed. Medals are handed out as rewards. Less extreme cases are expressed by the verbal and non-verbal behavior of other people.

The extent to which we are approved or disapproved by others around us is important to our success in the Social sphere. Its primary value is as a means to success in the Social sphere. It’s easier to acquire the good things that the Social sphere has to offer if you are generally approved. It’s more difficult if you are not.

But it’s important to keep perspective on this. Society’s approval or disapproval of something does not determine its value to you overall, that is taking into account all your spheres of living. People often pursue careers that they are not really suited for because the careers are esteemed by their peers. A person might become, say, a doctor because they think people generally admire doctors even though it’s not a career they would get much enjoyment from. Or they might avoid a career that would be personally rewarding to them just because it isn’t esteemed by their peers.

Society’s approval or disapproval does not even always determine its value to you overall within the Social sphere. For example, a scientist who only pursues scientific discoveries in areas currently favored by the public may miss important discovers in less publically recognized areas.

A key point that I will return in my discussions of each of the different spheres of living is that a person’s happiness is connected with his skillful living and success in all the multiple spheres of living, not just one; not just the Social sphere, for instance. If a person’s life is a wreck in the Marriage sphere, the Individual sphere, or the Spiritual sphere, his success in the Social sphere is not going to fix that. This is a common delusion we all succumb to at times. We ask, “Why aren’t I happy? I have a nice house, I’ve planned well for my retirement, I have a beautiful and well-liked spouse, but I’m not happy? What’s wrong with me that I don’t appreciate all the things that I have?” The mistake I’m making here is not that I don’t appreciate enough what I have in the Social sphere. It’s that I don’t appreciate what’s going wrong in my other spheres of living. Perhaps I’ve neglected my Individual sphere. Through laziness, neglect, addiction, or stupidity I’ve haven’t put effort into my own individual growth, physically and/or mentally. I’ve grown fat eating too much and not exercising. I’m getting dumber and dumber because all I do is vegetate in front of the TV. “But look what I have! A nice house….” Well, I need to look at what I don’t have, a decent body and a decent brain.

Even within a single sphere of living success in one area doesn’t fix failings in other areas. One classic example of this is the entrepreneur who makes tons of money, which is of course one very important measure of success in the Social sphere, but has lost all their friends in the process. Maybe they neglected their friends because they were too busy making money or ditched them when they were no longer useful to them financially. Maybe they will never need the friends they’ve lost or ditched, but friendship is an important value in and of itself in the Social sphere. It would be difficult to consider a person’s life in the Social sphere as successful if they were never able to make and keeps friends, no matter how much money they made.

“Ch. 5 – Social Approval and Self Worth”

This is more a less a continuation of the previous chapter. In the previous chapter I discussed social approval and how it’s connected to success in the Social sphere. In this chapter I will discuss how social approval in connected with self-worth and self-esteem.

Self-esteem is just the feeling of self-worth. A person who has low self-esteem doesn’t feel like they are worth much. But they might feel this way whether or not they actually have self-worth. So we first need to figure out what that is.

Society expresses its approval of objects, activities, and people through its actions and expressions of approval. Objects, such as an Apple iPhone, they approve of, they’ll buy. If they like someone’s singing they’ll buy tickets to their shows. If they approve of a person they’ll show it through expressions of respect and admiration. This leads to the idea of “social worth”. An object, activity, or person has social worth to the extent that Society expresses its approval of it.

Keep in mind, however, that Society is a very complex system. There are many possible ways of measuring social approval. We can, for instance, measure it in terms of popularity. The more people, in raw numbers, that express approval of something or someone, the more social worth it has. We might call this “crowd approval”. A more sophisticated measurement might be weighted, giving more weight to certain groups of people than others. There would of course be a lot of disagreement over which groups should be favored and how much they should be favored.

Let’s focus on the social worth of people, because they are the most interesting cases. Measuring social worth in terms of raw popularity doesn’t seem too plausible. But what groups’ opinions matter most and should be weighted more? This will probably vary from person to person. For some people the opinions of business leaders in their community count more than others. For other people, the opinions of their friends count more than others. For still other people, the opinions of those who they consider “Cool” or “With it” or “Hip” (or whatever the current designation is) counts more than others. For a person in love or infatuated with someone else, the opinion of that other person might be the only one that counts.

I think I’ve said enough to demonstrate that the concept of social worth is pretty nebulous. It’s so nebulous in fact that I don’t see how it could plausibly be taken to determine an individual’s self-worth. Not only is the whole notion of social worth nebulous and difficult to pin down in any meaningful way, but Society is very fickle in its opinions of what’s valuable and what isn’t. Suppose a very liberal/progressive individual from the Bay Area of California moves to a small town in Texas. In California his political views are the norm and highly-respected. In this small town in Texas, his views are rare and generally considered idiotic. Did this person lose their self-worth just by moving to Texas?

In short, I don’t think that a person’s individual self-worth is determined by their social worth. A person might have high social worth but low self-worth and vice versa. When these are in conflict, it can be very difficult emotionally for the individual. In extreme cases a person might come to believe their life has no value because they are out of favor with Society or their favored social group and commit suicide.

So if self-worth is not determined by social worth, what is it and how do we measure it? A common view historically is the view that a person’s individual self-worth is determined by their moral worth. This is sometimes expressed as the view that all people have value in the eyes of God. If this is true, then what matters is how good of a person I am. It doesn’t matter what Society thinks of me. This view elevates the Moral sphere (and perhaps the Spiritual sphere) above the other spheres: In particular above the Individual and Social spheres.

The problem I have with this view of self-worth is its emphasis of the Moral sphere at the expense of the other spheres. I will concede that being a good person is a necessary condition to skillful living and happiness, but I don’t think it’s sufficient. A morally good person can fail at skillful living. Tragically, just being good is not enough. And the fact that God will give me happiness in the next life doesn’t help me in this life. Here, of course, I’m assuming that self-worth is connected to happiness and skillful living, but I think this is very plausible. It’s hard to see how I can be successful at living and have no self-worth.

So if self-worth is not determined by social worth and not determined by moral worth, what is it and how do we measure it? How do we determine the self-worth of any object? Take a knife. A knife is built for the purpose of cutting. If it can’t do that it’s not worth much. Possibly it might have some worth for another purpose, for example, as a paper weight. But even if it works as a paper weight, it has limited “self-worth”. Value as a paper weight is a value “external” to its function (its “self-worth”).

How about a bird such as a Scrub Jay (commonly, but mistakenly called a “Blue Jay”)? Does it have a function? Well, not exactly, but we can speak of a Scrub Jay as functioning well or poorly. A Scrub Jay with a broken leg will not function as well as one without a broken leg, and sadly will probably die. Similarly, we can speak of human beings as functioning well or poorly. When do they function well? When they are living skillfully. So self-worth is connected with skillful living. And as we’ve said earlier, skillful living is based on how we live in all the spheres of living, not just the Social sphere or the Moral sphere.

“Ch. 6 – Friends”

One thing we value most in the Social Sphere are friends. But what is a friend? And what is it that makes friendship so valuable? Clarifying this will help us to see the kind of relationships with others that we should cultivate and maintain and why this is part of skillful living in the Social sphere.

There are four primary characteristics to a genuine friendship. First, there is a set of shared activities that define the friendship. This varies from one friendship to another. Two people might be tennis buddies or enjoy eating out together or enjoy conversations with each other. Secondly, there is a kind of bond that develops between friends that encourages them to continue engaging in the shared activities that define their friendship. Thirdly, there is some significant amount of caring and concern for the other friend’s interests and welfare, more than the amount one has for other people in general. Fourthly, the two individuals are familiar with and know each other to some significant degree.

These characteristics are not independent of one another. The bond that develops between friends is at least partially derived from the familiarity that develops from spending time with the other person and getting to know them. And it’s no doubt also partially based on the mutual concern the friends have for each other.

The bond of friendship is not the only kind of bond that exists between people. Another important type of bond is the bond of family. Even more so than friendship, this type of bond is probably derived to a large extent from the familiarity of spending years together. Siblings may or may not also be friends. That is, the bond of friendship can coexist with the bond of family, but not necessarily. For example, a teenage boy may have nothing in common with his young sister. He cares about her and he knows her well, but there is no set of shared activities that define a friendship.

Bonds based on sexual attraction are another example. People sometimes bond sexually before they’ve even had time to get to know each other well enough to be considered friends. And they may not care all that much about each other’s interests and welfare. But their sexual attraction may encourage them to continue to seek each other’s company for at least one shared activity.

How do we measure one person’s bond to another? First consider the activities that the two individuals do together. Maybe they play tennis together or chat regularly over drinks or go out to dinner together. How well will their relationship hold up under stress? Suppose I weekly get together with another guy for a game of tennis. One day he makes a very bad line call or so I believe. I complain about the call and he apologizes for the call and suggests we take the point over. But this is not enough for me. I storm off the court and refuse to play tennis with him ever again. Clearly, the bond between us is very weak, at least from my point of view. Regardless of what I may have thought, I did not really consider that person a friend. If I did, I would made at least some effort to fix the problem.

One interesting feature of friendship, shown by this example, is that friendship is not a necessarily reciprocal. Perhaps the guy who made the bad line call considered me a friend. After all, he was willing to apologize and take the point over. But he just made an important discovery. The person he considered to be a friend (me) didn’t really consider him a friend or much of a friend. It was a one-sided friendship.

Here’s another example. Consider two friends who have engaged in a number of shared activities for some time. But as they get to know each other better friction develops. Maybe they begin discussing their views of some major political or world event and it turns out their views are very different and opposite one another. Or maybe one of them engages in a kind of behavior that the other finds morally objectionable. Maybe one of them tends to brag about his or her accomplishments and often (in the eyes of the other) stretches the truth.

None of these things are problems that can’t be overcome in theory. In the case of political differences the two could just decide to not talk about politics around each other. Or they could go in the opposite direction and spend more time discussing their individual political views in an effort to get a better understanding of where the other person is coming from. Or maybe they can’t overcome these issues. In that case they have what we might call “irreconcilable differences”. They don’t “work as friends”. Unlike other kinds of bonds (marriage, family) there is no moral or legal obligation to remain friends. A friendship is a relationship of mutual perceived advantage and interest.

The value of a friendship comes from these qualities that we have discussed. Obviously a major part of the value of a friendship has to do with the shared activities that define it. My tennis buddies are valuable to me in part because they play tennis with me and it’s fairly easy for me to get a game with them. But beyond the value of these shared activities the bond provides for trust and dependability. I can trust my friend because I know him well and he sticks with me. I can presume he will help me out if and when I need it.

In terms of skillful living, it’s important to cultivate and maintain the right friendships. Without going into detail on this I’ll make a few observations. First, we should choose friends that actually have something to offer us. Second, we should put some effort into maintaining those friendships that are beneficial to us. Storming off the court because my friend makes what I think is a bad line call shows a lack of skill on my part. Losing someone I can play an enjoyable game of tennis with over what I think is a bad line call is clearly misguided. I lose the benefits of the friendship for no good reason. Third, we need to put some effort into strengthening the bond between us by acting in ways that the other person will appreciate. If I go out to dinner with a friend I should try to make it enjoyable for my friend. Being sour, not listening to my friend, or dominating the conversation creates some amount of friction and annoyance and to that extent weakens the bond. On the other hand, helping my friend out when they need it strengthens the bond. Fourth, when issues develop in the friendship, as they always do, either fix things or abandon the friendship. A “friendship” with irreconcilable differences is of little value to either participant. If you do decide to abandon the friendship, keep in mind that there are more and less skillful ways of ending it. It doesn’t, for example, need to end in anger or a fight.

“Ch. 7 – Value in the Individual Sphere”

I want to turn now to the Individual sphere. We are living in the Individual sphere when we are doing activities that don’t essentially involve other people. Consider, for example, the activity of playing a musical instrument solo. Playing my instrument in a band does of course essentially involve other people, but playing it solo does not. What if I’m doing a solo performance before an audience? Is that an individual activity or a social activity? I think it’s both. Succeeding as an individual performance primarily involves how well the performance sounds. This is also important to its success as a performance before a live audience. But playing before a live audience adds another layer. I may play the piece perfectly as a solo performance but it may still fail before an audience. For example, suppose I make all kinds of weird faces as I’m playing that distract the audience from listening to what I’m playing. Or suppose I kind of sneer at my audience and look unhappy as I play. Or suppose I play the wrong kind of music for my particular audience. My audience is primarily there to dance, but my music is not dance music. It was a less than perfect performance before the audience even though I played the piece (viewed as an individual performance) perfectly. On the other hand I don’t need to play the piece perfectly in order to succeed before an audience. If my audience is unsophisticated enough or drunk enough, maybe all I need to do is play a couple of dance-able songs that they know.

This shows that the requirements of success differ depending on whether we are viewing the activity as an individual activity or a social activity. If I am practicing to play before a live audience I need to learn to play my piece without making weird faces, which actually can be more difficult for some people than you might think. If I’m never going to play before an audience, it doesn’t matter.

Skillful living in the Individual sphere means getting more skillful at the individual activities we pursue, tennis, music, writing, or whatever individual activities we happen to perform. But does this even matter? Why does it matter how skillful of a tennis player I am? I can have just as much fun playing a less skillful form of tennis. Indeed, becoming more skillful at tennis, like becoming more skillful as just about anything, is difficult and hard work. Why work that hard?

It’s true I can have fun playing a mediocre level of tennis, but that’s because tennis is a social activity as well as an individual activity. The question is whether becoming more skillful at tennis and other individual activities contributes to a successful life once we strip away the social benefits if any?

I think of it this way. Performing individual activities is a kind of exploration of the world we live in. These explorations lead to discoveries, and the more skillful we are at these activities the more discoveries we will make. The intrinsic value in these activities is in the discoveries we make as we pursue them.

Here’s an example that may help clarify this. Reading is an individual activity, in fact one of the most basic individual activities. Consider a person who is a poor reader although they happen to love science fiction. They can explore the world of science fiction to some degree through movies and television, but there is a tremendous amount of science fiction that only exists in books, and frequently the movie versions of science fiction are inferior to the book versions. Of course now there are audio books, but keep in mind that listening and comprehending also requires skill. The reason we learn to read is fundamentally to explore the world of literature. The better we are able to read the more discoveries we can make.

Why learn to play a musical instrument? And why keep trying to get better at it? Fundamentally, the reason is so that you can explore the world of music. You may not have the talent or the years left in your life to get good enough to benefit socially from it (make money, impress your friends), but as you get better you will make more and more musical discoveries.

“Ch. 8 – The Moral Sphere”

In an earlier chapter I briefly discussed the Moral sphere. We enter the Moral sphere by making moral judgements. For example, suppose I watch a man at a party load up his plate with the Tri Tip barbecue beef. To myself I say, “That’s way too much Tri Tip. There won’t be enough for all the other people.” This is a moral judgement. I’m saying that this action was something he should not have done. It was wrong. I use this example to illustrate that moral judgements are commonplace. They are not restricted just to serious cases, like those involving theft or violence or serious charges of racism, sexism or abuse. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out? I had no idea where you were.” This is another example of a moral judgement. I’m telling you that you did something wrong by not telling me that you were leaving. You ought to tell me next time.

In these examples we are entering the Moral sphere from the Social sphere (or possibly the Family or Marriage spheres). And we don’t really leave the Social sphere as we make these moral judgements since the judgements apply to people we are interacting with. This is one distinctive feature of the Moral sphere.

It’s also important to note that morality isn’t just applicable in the Social sphere. It applies to actions and activities in all spheres. For example it applies to actions and activities in the Individual sphere as well as the Social sphere. Practicing playing my guitar is an Individual activity. Suppose I say to myself, “I’m spending too much time practicing. I’m neglecting other activities it would be good for me to be doing, like spending more time with my friends and family, and pursuing certain other individual activities, like working out in the gym.” This is a moral judgement. I judge that I shouldn’t be doing this.

This is another important, distinctive feature of the Moral sphere: It applies across all spheres, both in the sense that moral judgements are applicable within every sphere and in the sense that the moral judgements themselves can cross spheres. When I judge that I should spend less time practicing the guitar and more time interacting with family and friends, I’m judging that I need more balance between my activities in one sphere versus another.

The Moral sphere is what we use to monitor our activities across all spheres. That’s its function and purpose. Our ultimate goal is Happiness and we achieve it through skillful living. So we need to constantly monitor how we are doing: What can I do to become more successful within any given sphere and across all spheres? Am I spending too much time or not enough time doing such-and-such? If not, then, well, I need to make an adjustment.

What about my judgement that the man who loaded his plate with Tri Tip was not being fair to the other people at the party? How does that connect with my success in the Social sphere? Well, of course, if I haven’t served Tri Tip to myself yet, there may not be as much or any meat left for me by the time I do. But leave that reason aside. The assumption here is that living in a generally fair, just society is preferable to living in an unjust society, for example one in which it is everyone only considers themselves. Everyone’s success in the Social sphere depends to a large extent on the nature of the society they live in. Living in a fair, just society promotes everyone’s success in the Social sphere.

“Ch. 9 – Value and Happiness”

In previous chapters I have discussed value in the context of a couple of different spheres of living. In particular I discussed value in the Social sphere and value in the Individual sphere. Value is important to discuss in connection with the theory that happiness is living successfully because value is related to success. Roughly the idea is that the more value a person extracts in their living in a particular sphere the more successful they are in that sphere. For example, friendship is a value in the Social sphere. All else being equal, the more and better the friendships you are able to develop in the Social sphere, the more successful you are in the Social sphere.

So what exactly is happiness? Roughly, according to this view, happiness is the extraction and appreciation of value within the various spheres of living. The more and better the value you can extract from living, the happier you are. Living is like mining for gold and other precious metals. As you discover and extract more value from living you become happier. Or perhaps a better analogy is that living is like traveling to a foreign country. What’s the point of traveling to a foreign country? We see sights unlike anything we have seen before. We see people unlike any we have seen before. We learn some of the history of the place. These are some of the values we find in our travels. Similarly, we are travelers in life.

More precisely, it is not the value itself that is the happiness; it is our extraction and appreciation of the value that contributes to our happiness. For example, we hear a new wonderful song or we hear someone playing guitar with a degree of facility we’ve never experienced before or we experience a period of intimacy with a loved one. These experiences all contribute to our happiness.

I added the word “appreciation” because if you extract the value but fail to appreciate what you’ve extracted, it’s pretty much the same as not extracting it at all. The extraction is performed but it’s not satisfying. For example, eating a potato chip with onion dip is an experience of value but if I eat it so quickly that I can’t appreciate the experience, then the experience loses its value.

Of course we are not extracting value at every waking moment of our lives. And there are times when we are working towards the extraction of value but haven’t yet gotten to the point where we can actually extract it. For example, suppose I’m cooking a wonderful new meal, but right now I’m busy cutting up the onions called for in the recipe. My eyes are burning and my fingers are tired from all my cutting. Am I happy during these times leading up to the wonderful meal?

The way I would describe this is to say that we are happy at these times, but we are not able to fully experience or feel the happiness at those moments. We probably have some of the feelings of happiness, for example a sense of well-being and optimism about what’s in store but the full feeling of the happiness doesn’t come until we are able to extract, with appreciation, the thing of value.

“Ch. 10 – Life Strategies”

In the previous chapter we discussed what it is to be successful in life, that is, happy. A “life strategy” is then simply a strategy a person employs to find or become successful in life, that is, happy. In this chapter we will examine a couple of life strategies and ways in which we might determine whether they are effective.

Life strategies can be explicit or implicit. Explicitly claiming to accept a certain religion is an example of explicitly claiming to adopt a certain life strategy. Some of you think it’s odd to call religions examples of life strategies. But isn’t that just what they are? They describe a set of practices that practitioners follow. If practitioners do follow the prescribed practices they are told they will become happy in this life or at least the next.

Of course, claiming to adopt a particular life strategy and actually adopting that life strategy are two different things. In order to tell whether a person has actually adopted the life strategy we need to look at their behavior. If they are not acting in accordance with the particular strategy they claim to have adopted, then they haven’t really adopted it. For example, the mafia crime bosses who go to church every Sunday and who generally give large sums of money to the church claim to have adopted a certain life strategy (Christianity) but they have not really adopted it as we can see by their chosen profession.

On the other hand, a person might implicitly adopt a particular life strategy without even realizing they have done so. Practicing hedonists are an example. Consider the life of a practicing sex addict such as the one depicted in the movie “Auto Focus” (2002), which depicted the life of “Hogan’s Heroes” star Bob Crane. As depicted in the movie Crane spends all of his spare time searching for and filming sexually stimulating scenes of young women he pays to pose for him. Or consider the life of a practicing drug addict who spends all of his time searching for new drug sensations and states. These people may not realize it but they have adopted a life strategy. They have decided that a certain pleasure or set of pleasures is what will make them happy in life and they are doing what they can to achieve that.

Many people have no life strategy, either explicit or implicit. They kind of bounce around from one thing to another without much purpose or thought. Other people adopt lots of life strategies but don’t stick with any for very long.

A life strategy is a method or approach to living. The method or approach can be defined in terms of its goal or purpose or it can be defined in terms of its process. Strategies that have a goal of pleasure, regardless of the kind of pleasure (food, nicotine, sex, wine, heroin, Adrenalin, etc.), are called “hedonistic” strategies.

Let’s take a closer look at the hedonistic strategy. It certainly has a degree of plausibility and has had many advocates from the time of the early Roman and Greek philosophers. There is no doubt that physical pleasure is a valuable feature of our world. A life without any physical pleasure would be a barren life indeed. Moreover physical pleasure has a powerful direct effect on a person’s thinking and emotions. While undergoing an intense physical pleasure one’s life may feel wonderful, perfect, and beautiful. These are similar to many of the feelings people have when they are happy, so in this way pleasure at least mimics happiness.

There is, of course, nothing wrong in seeking out pleasure, as long as the pleasure is not harmful in the long run. For example, the pleasure one gets from ingesting heroin is no doubt wonderful, but it’s extremely risky behavior in the long run. If you become addicted to it your life will basically become Hell in the long run. But even if the pleasures one is seeking are not particularly harmful, the adoption of the hedonism as a life strategy is a dubious road to happiness. Why?

Hedonism becomes a life strategy when physical pleasure becomes a predominant or the predominant goal in one’s life. When the hedonist is not actually experiencing some physical pleasure they are planning on how to acquire future pleasures. One major problem with this view is that the hedonist stops pursuing other non-physical pleasures and values. When hedonists go out on a date they neglect many of the wonderful things a romantic relationship has to offer because they are only after “one thing”. More generally they lose interest in activities like music, fitness, sports, literature, history, and travel, except to the extent that they view them as a means to physical pleasure. For example, if hedonists go to the gym because they believe it makes them more attractive and will help get them more sex, then they are going to the gym as part of their hedonistic life strategy. In extreme cases hedonists begin to neglect their mental and physical health in order to spend more time on their pursuit of physical pleasure.

The problem with the hedonistic strategy is that the more seriously one pursues it the narrower one’s life becomes. There is nothing wrong with physical pleasure and no doubt some measure of physical pleasure is an essential part of the good life (whatever that is), but the pursuit of just physical pleasure seems to me a pretty obviously, ridiculously, false strategy. And it would be just as ridiculous to pursue any other single value that life has to offer at the expense of everything else. There is nothing wrong with exploring and reaping the benefits of the world of music, but if that’s all you do, you’re not living the good life.

Of course, hedonists will claim their narrowly focused lives are happy lives, but how could they possibly know that? They haven’t even given themselves the chance to explore all the many other wonderful things that the world has to offer. They are fixated on only one value of the many that exist.

I’m sure someone will ask, “If physical pleasure isn’t the ultimate goal, then what is? If there is something better, then tell me what it is? If not, leave me alone and let me pursue my own conception of happiness.” Well, the first thing to say is that you of course have the right (within limits) to live your life any way you want to. But just because you have the right to live a certain way doesn’t mean that it is the wise, skillful way to live. You have the right to live stupidly, but it’s foolish to do so. Besides, why should anyone think that there is some ultimate goal or value? It seems more reasonable to suppose that there are many wonderful things of value in life. We just need to find and experience them. And as we experience them we will be in a better position to decide which ones are more important to us. In this sense we are all travelers in this world. As we explore our various spheres of living we uncover things of value that we may have had no idea even existed. As we discover them we can make adjustments in how we live so as to better incorporate these new values into our lives.

Sometimes the goal of a proposed life strategy is left vague or undefined. For example, suppose the strategy involves practicing a 12-step series of meditations. There is the promise of enlightenment or bliss at the end, but just what is meant by “enlightenment” or “bliss” and how they are achieved through the process is left vague. One difficulty with this is how we could ever be sure that the advocates of the process are sincere (that is, that it’s not just a scam). And even if they are sincere, how can we be sure they are not just delusional? If we actually do try out the process but don’t feel enlightened at the end, they’ll probably just tell us that we haven’t practiced the process correctly. But the most basic objection to this theory is that it is really just another variation of hedonism and subject to the same objections. The state of mind achieved by the process, however it is described, as a feeling of bliss, as a feeling of connectedness with the world, or as a feeling of well-being is just one thing of value in this enormous, complex world. Why focus on it as ultimate value to be pursued over all the other things of value in this world? It is like the traveler who only travels to Europe and ignores the rest of the world.

Sometimes the goal of a proposed life strategy is characterized not at an end (happiness) but as a means to an end. In the previous chapter I characterized the goal of skillful living as the extraction and appreciation of values in the various spheres of living. We are like travelers exploring the world and what it has to offer. But consider a traveler who travels all over the world experiencing the many wonderful things it has to offer, but the traveler is not able to appreciate what they experience. Maybe the traveler is too distracted, troubled, or impatient to do so, but whatever the reasons they may as well have stayed home; they have gotten very little from their travels. Appreciation of the good things you experience in the world is an important part of living skillfully, as important as the discovery of the good things in the first place. According to this way of looking at things, the goal of say the 12-step series of meditations is not some ultimate experience of bliss but an ability to appreciate what the world has to offer, which might be characterized as a kind of “enlightenment”. This is one way of interpreting Zen Buddhism. The enlightened person (the “sage”) experiences the same world as the unenlightened person. The world and the way they live in it is the same for both the enlightened and unenlightened. The unenlightened are as it were “blind” to what’s valuable in the life; the enlightened fully appreciate the world.

I think this kind of view is plausible. I’m dubious whether there is any method or technique for achieving some sort of permanent, all-encompassing enlightenment, but I think there are techniques (meditation, relaxation techniques, types of physical exercise, praying, chanting, etc.) that can help us become more relaxed, less mentally distracted, more perceptive about what we see and experience, etc. and thereby help us to appreciate the things of value in the various spheres of living. When we engage in such activities we are living in the Spiritual sphere. I will discuss this in more detail in a later chapter.

Finally in this chapter I will discuss one other way of looking at life strategies. Actually these might be more accurately described as “approaches to living” rather than as “strategies for living”. I’ll explain this by way of analogy. In a tennis match the ultimate goal is of course to win. There are many different general strategies or approaches you could employ towards this end. One approach might be called the “Play it safe” strategy. Basically the idea is to make only high percentage shots until you see an opportunity to go for a winning shot. This strategy has advantages and disadvantages and may work well against certain opponents but not others. Against an opponent who makes a lot of mistakes this may be a winning strategy. Against a very steady opponent, it may not work as well. Another strategy might be called the “Controlled aggression” strategy. The basic idea here is to continually try to put pressure on your opponent by moving to positions on the tennis court that will put your opponents in less favorable positions, for example, moving quickly to the net to force an opponent to try to lob or hit around you. This strategy too has advantages and disadvantages and it works against certain players better than others. Against an opponent who gets wild or panics under pressure it works well. Against a player with a good lob, it may not work so well.

Similar strategies apply to living. Some people tend to use the “Play it safe strategy”; others are willing to take more risks. Which strategy is more effective depends to some extent on the temperament of the person and on their circumstances. The only way to really tell what works and what doesn’t is through experience. It is very unlikely that there is some such strategy or approach to living that is all encompassing and works for people of all different kinds of talents and temperaments in all circumstances. But they are certainly worth trying. Professionals of all kinds of sports play purposefully and mindfully. They think about what they are doing. They develop plans and approaches. They see what works and doesn’t work and they adjust accordingly. I think the same probably applies to living. It’s better to be purposeful rather than going with whatever happens to strike you at the moment.

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“Difference between Human Beings and Computers”

When Alan Turing (mathematician, logician) was famously asked whether computers can think (reason), he responded that that was the wrong question. Of course they can think, they just do so differently than human beings. So the real question is not whether they can think, but how they think and whether they will ever be able to think as well as a human being?

This assumes what might be called a “functional” theory of thinking (reasoning). Thinking (reasoning) is just a process (any process) which yields certain kinds of results. For example, consider winning a chess game. That requires thinking. Since computers can do a good job at winning chess games they can, to that extent, think.

Of course, computers win at chess using a different kind of reasoning than humans do. Their thinking involves quickly looking at all possible positions 50 (or 100 or whatever) moves ahead. They look at which of these possible moves will yield the best result and then choose it. The best human chess players can’t do this. They can only look at a relatively small number of moves ahead (e.g., 5). So computers can’t think like a human being, maybe, but neither can human beings think like a computer.

So is there any essential difference between a human being and a computer? They seem to be able to do the same things. Of course they do them a little differently, but that’s not an essential difference; it’s a difference without a difference, as they say.

Ah, but you say, computers can’t feel emotions (like sadness). To this we can respond as Turing would: Of course, computers can feel sad. They just will do so in a different way (“the computer way”). A crude, low-level computer might feel sad in something like the following way. It is hooked to a “tearing mechanism”. When the computer is “shown” a picture, it evaluates the picture, e.g. a picture of an injured baby. If the picture is of something sad it triggers the tearing mechanism to drop some tears.

So you can see how this is going. You can’t point to anything that humans can do that computers can’t. Whatever you suggest we’ll just build a computer that can do that. It won’t be able to do it as a human does, but you’re just being provincial.

So is there any difference between a human being and a computer? I think there is.

Take any skill: playing tennis, playing guitar, programming in the ancient computer language of C++, being happy (I had to throw that in, remember my “skillful living theory of happiness”). These are skills a human being can acquire. Computers can too. But can a human being acquire any skill instantaneously? No, it is the human condition that learning any skill takes some amount of time and practice. I know. You’ve seen books in the bookstore: “Learn piano in 10 days.” But trust me, you can’t learn piano in 10 days. And even if you could, that’s still 10 days, not even close to “instantaneously.” Even geniuses like you need some time to learn something.

But computers acquire skills instantaneously. Once the computer program is written, we just drop it into the computer and now the computer has that skill. The computer doesn’t need to learn or practice the skill. The skill is just given to it.

This is not a trivial difference. As I said earlier, this is the human condition and humans have struggled with it from the beginning. Con men (salesmen) promise miracles: Learning piano in 10 days, take this pill, believe in the one true prophet, etc. And human beings are fooled over and over again.

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“Forgiveness”

The following (fictitious) story describes an act of betrayal perpetrated by Bob on Rollin.

——— Start of story

Rollin has been feeling bored and trapped for some time. He wants to get away from it all for a few days. He had just gotten a thousand dollars bonus from his boss and he would love to take that money to Vegas and enjoy some shows and gamble a little. But he knows his wife wouldn’t want him spending that money on entertainment and she doesn’t approve of wasting money on gambling and silly shows. He decides to go by himself. He makes up a story to tell his wife. He and his friend Bob are going camping for a couple of days in Big Sur. His wife wouldn’t mind that.

Rollin calls Bob: “I’m going to Vegas for a couple of days. I’m telling Linda that I’m going camping with you because I know she wouldn’t want me to go to Vegas. But I just have to get out of here. I’m sure she’ll have no reason to talk to you but, if she calls you for some reason, just don’t answer the phone. I’m not going to answer my phone. I’ll tell her we couldn’t get cell service where we were.”

On the second night of Rollin’s outing in Las Vegas, Linda calls Rollin. He doesn’t answer, so she calls Bob. The first time Bob doesn’t answer, but she calls again, and this time Bob answers. Linda says, “Rollin isn’t answering his phone, can I talk to him?”

Bob says, “Rollin isn’t here. Last time I talked to him he said he was thinking about going to Vegas. He came into some money and said he wanted to do some gambling and see some shows.”

“He told me that he was going camping with you!”

“What! I don’t know why he said that. That’s a lie! Maybe he has a gambling problem.”

After hanging up with Bob, Linda calls Rollin and leaves a devastating message. When Rollin listens to it he immediately calls Bob, but Bob doesn’t answer. Rollin calls several more times but Bob let’s all the calls go to voice mail.

———– End of story

We can look at this story from a moral point of view. Clearly Rollin messed up royally and probably deserves the Hell he’s going to pay. Did Bob do anything wrong? Who knows? He never agreed to go along with Rollin’s story. Probably Rollin shouldn’t have put him in that position to begin with. He blew things up out of proportion when he suggested Rollin might have a gambling problem, but he didn’t have a lot of time to think about what to say when Rollin’s wife called. He should be returning Rollin’s calls, but maybe he’s just very embarrassed. But it doesn’t really matter who’s right or wrong. Rollin feels betrayed by someone who he thought was his friend.

The question I want to discuss here is how Rollin should respond to this act of betrayal, as he sees it? An act of betrayal of any significance will be an emotional blow to the victim. There are various ways in which people respond to such blows. One way is to just wallow in the pain, but this is clearly not a very healthy approach. It leads to a kind of paralysis.

A second way is to respond with anger, perhaps even to seek revenge. Rollin could perhaps try to retaliate by spreading stories about Bob or try to shame him. From a psychological point of view this is probably preferable to just wallowing in the pain, because it at least gets Rollin out of his paralysis, but it doesn’t solve anything and only escalates the situation. In the long run it will probably only lead to greater distress. (I explored a little how anger can help get the victim out of his paralysis in my short story “What Doesn’t Kill You” and my poem “Fueled by Anger”.)

A third way to respond to betrayal is to try to put it behind you, to try to “move on,” as they say. This is the stoical approach. (I discussed this approach a bit in my poem “Time to Move On” and some time ago when I discussed my theory of happiness.) There are two difficulties with this approach. The first is that it may not be so easy to move on. If Bob was someone Rollin thought of as a good friend it would be difficult for him to just forget what Bob had done to him. The second difficulty is that it seems to involve a kind of brainwashing. Rollin has to somehow convince himself that Bob is no more important to him than the mailman or the butcher, which is certainly not true.

A fourth way of responding to betrayal is with forgiveness, and this is the approach I want to discuss here.

First we need to clarify what forgiveness is. What does it mean for Rollin to forgive Bob? I think it starts with the Christian idea that “we are all sinners”. But the word ‘sin’ carries too much religious baggage. Stripped of the religious connotations the idea is that humans are by nature fallible and limited. We are all capable of screwing up. Bob screwed up here, but Rollin is just as capable of screwing up. Indeed in our story, Rollin is just as culpable as Bob. He didn’t betray Bob, but he did betray his wife. So there is a sense in which we are all guilty. Maybe we’re not guilty of something at this moment, but we have been many times in the past and will no doubt be guilty many times in the future.

This recognition that we are all limited and fallible (“we are all sinners”) is the basis of forgiveness.

“Part II”

In our previous discussion I put forth the theory that forgiveness is based on the idea that “we are all sinners”, or to strip this of its religious connotations, we are all limited and fallible. But what is forgiveness and how does one do it? Suppose Rollin decides to forgive Bob. What does this mean? What action does Rollin take that amounts for “forgiving Bob”? The second question I want to consider is whether “forgiving Bob” contributes to Rollin’s own happiness? You may recall my theory that happiness is skillful living. Is “forgiving Bob” the skillful action for Rollin to take?

I take forgiveness to be the opposite of blame. As long as Rollin blames Bob for his “betrayal” he hasn’t forgiven Bob. Indeed, as long as Rollin views Bob’s actions as a “betrayal” he hasn’t forgiven Bob, because the word “betrayal” implies that he thinks that Bob did something to him that was a violation of their friendship.

To forgive is, in a nutshell, to stop blaming the person you forgive for whatever they did. Bob did what he did. He answered the phone call from Rollin’s wife even though Rollin had told him not to take her calls. He told Rollin’s wife where Rollin had gone to. He blew things out of proportion by suggesting that Rollin may have a gambling problem. OK, all of that is true. But Rollin must stop blaming Bob for doing those things. He doesn’t go around publically blaming Bob. He doesn’t try to take any kind of revenge on Bob. He doesn’t try to demean Bob to other people, etc. And more importantly he commits to not blaming Bob in his own mind. He doesn’t let himself fantasize taking revenge on Bob. He doesn’t allow himself to diminish Bob in his thinking. Etc. He has to stop blaming Bob both externally (publically) and internally (in his own mind). To the extent Rollin can do this and does do this, he has forgiven Bob.

Certainly Christians would applaud Rollin’s (very un-Trump-ion) forgiveness of Bob. But forgiving Bob also seems the healthier more skillful way of dealing with the situation. As long as Rollin is blaming Bob he is focusing his attention on what Bob did. This is neither helpful to Bob nor to Rollin himself. It doesn’t help to recover their friendship if that is to happen. And it focuses Rollin’s attention away from what he should really be focusing on, namely, repairing his relationship with his wife. And it focuses Rollin’s attention away from considering why he felt such a strong powerful feeling to get out of town and gamble, even to the extent that it involved violating his wife’s trust.

————————————————————–

“Skillful Living Theory of Happiness”

I: What is Happiness?

A few years ago I discovered what happiness is. I had thought about writing a book about it when I retired, but once I retired I gave up on the idea, because I’m retired and that would be too much work.

Many people want to know what happiness is, because they think that by knowing what it is they can become happy. Unfortunately, that is not enough. More astute people will also want to know how to become happy. I am not only going to tell you what happiness is, but also how you can get it.

Some of you will be surprised to learn that I can tell you what happiness is in a single sentence: “Happiness is skillful living.”

I’m sure many of you are disappointed with my answer. Maybe you have the same reaction as Bonnie’s and my travelling companion on our Brazil trip, a New York psychologist. She said that that was just an “abstraction.” She wanted a more concrete answer.

Although my answer may not be concrete, it has the advantage of being true.

In fact, it’s easy to demonstrate that happiness is not something concrete. Perhaps the New York psychologist was looking for an answer like this: “Happiness is watching a Jaguar sunning itself on a log on a clear sunny day.” Others might answer “Happiness is spending time with family.” Less cultured people might answer, “Happiness is making a LOT of money.” Or “Happiness is having sex anytime, anywhere.” But it’s easy to demonstrate these answers, and thousands of other similar answers, are false.

Happiness is not making a LOT of money because a lot of people with a LOT of money are not happy. And there are a lot of unhappy people who spend lots of time with their families.

Happiness is not watching a Jaguar sunning itself. The New York psychologist proves that (her being an obviously very unhappy person).

And as far as sex goes, being happy isn’t just being happy for 30 seconds.

So happiness is skillful living. But now you want to know how to become skillful at living? Not to worry, I will tell you how.

How do you become skillful at tennis? How do you become skillful with the guitar? “Practice.”

And don’t say you don’t have time to practice. You are engaged in the activity of living every waking moment of every day. So you have the opportunity to practice every waking moment of every day.

It’s important to keep in mind that practicing at living does not mean that I must become skillful at every activity I happen to be doing. If I am playing tennis, it doesn’t mean that I must become a better tennis player in order to be happy or that I won’t be happy unless I become a better tennis player. Actually, becoming more skillful at living involves accepting the fact that you will never become a (much) better tennis player.

The following objection might also be raised: If we are living 24/7, at least when we are awake, then aren’t we practicing 24/7? Aren’t we constantly practicing! It seems that even a very unhappy person is constantly practicing, just by living. So why aren’t we all happy?

Anyone who has attempted to become skillful at anything, and has diligently and regularly practiced in order to do so, quickly learns that there is no obviously correct way of practicing that activity. If you keep at it, over time you become better (that is, more skillful) at practicing. In other words, just practicing isn’t enough; you need to practice skillfully.

So there you go. You now know what happiness is and how to get it.

II: Skillful Living

Previously I outlined the, for some, somewhat disappointing truth that Happiness is Skillful Living. I say disappointing because many people (myself included) at times believe that happiness is some goal X, whether X is having a permanent loving relationship, having children, or having sex with a 20 year old. These are all wonderful goals (well, maybe not the latter, which for me might actually be a nightmare, especially if she is Serena Williams), but of course none of these goals are happiness. Again, this is easy to prove just by noting that many people who finally get these things are still not happy.

Ah, but you say that at least for some people X, let’s say having children, does make them happy or at least happier. Well, of course. For some this goal, which they finally achieve, is a good choice. But that is just to say, in terms of our theory that happiness is skillful living, that they chose skillfully. A person who lives skillfully makes good choices and avoids bad choices. That’s true.

There’s very little that can be said in general as to the goals people should pursue in their lives. We can say that they should make good choices, but this begs the question: What’s a good choice? We can also say that people should avoid bad choices. And we can say a little bit about what’s a bad choice. In line with our theory, a bad choice is a choice that results in fewer good choices in the future. Addictions are like this. For example, I inject Heroin into my vein. It gives me an incredible, very pleasurable experience (even better than sex with a 20 year old). Nothing particularly wrong with that, except that now I want to repeat the experience again and again. The rest of my life suffers as a result. My skill in living diminishes as a result of the addiction.

So how does a person become more skillful at living? One place to start in answering this is to look at other, more common skills. For example, how does a person become a more skillful tennis player? There are a couple of obvious suggestions here: Practice, take some lessons, play more tennis. Let’s look at each of these suggestions.

What about playing more tennis? Well, that does seem t to help to an extent. But we all know people who play all the time (tennis junkies) but don’t seem to get any better. In fact they seem to get worse, because they seem to lose interest. But even if this were true, it wouldn’t help us in understanding how to become more skillful at living. We are living all the time, whether we want to or not. We can’t live any more than we already do.

What about taking lessons? Well lessons definitely help. The Pro shows us how to hit a forehand groundstroke. We then try to imitate the form. OK, so with respect to skillful living, what we need to do is find some “teachers of happiness” and take some lessons from them. In the “Meno” the Greek Philosopher Plato (who was probably describing Socrates’ view) argued that there are no teachers of happiness. (Actually, he argued that there are no teachers of virtue, but he equated happiness with virtue, and vice versa.) I tend to agree with this.

There are people in the world who advocate a certain way of living or a particular method or approach to living. For example, there are people who advocate some sort of spiritual or religious life. And no doubt many of them might be well qualified (pros) as teaching others how to live that way. But they are not teaching happiness, because happiness cannot be equated with any particular way of living. Again, this is easy to prove. People can adopt that particular way of living but still not be happy.

The question for you, when considering whether to adopt a particular way of living, and following the teachings of the advocate of that way of living, is whether it’s good choice for you. Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t? So what you really need is a teacher who can teach you whether you should adopt this way of living or not.

What about practice? People who practice their tennis regularly tend to get better. Not everyone, but most. But how does this apply to skillful living? How does a person practice living? What is it to practice living? I’ll discuss this in my next philosophical reflection.

III: Ordinary Views of Happiness

My last conversation started discussing the question of how to become happy, if I am right that happiness is skillful living. Before continuing that discussion I want to talk a little more about the character of this conception of happiness and to contrast it a bit with some common conceptions of happiness. I’ll do this by considering some examples.

(By the way, be advised that when I use examples I often try to add some humor. I’ve been told that many people, my wife included, have a hard time detecting when I’m (trying) to be humorous. So if something seems a little strange or extreme in one of my examples, I’m probably trying to be humorous. Examples include: “Sex with Serena Williams,” “more cultured folks,” “God made me sick”, etc. I’ve thought of adding smiley faces when I’m being funny, but they would clutter things up. And I would probably be tempted to put a smiley face at some odd or inappropriate place, just to be humorous. What would I do in that case? Add 2 smiley faces?)

Commonly people think of happiness when they are faced with major decisions regarding their lives. For most Americans this happens when they are considering a career. Bigger decisions happen with respect to the adoption of some way of life. For example, consider someone’s decision whether to become a Priest. Being a priest would have a much bigger impact on their lives than a typical career decision. Most people have already decided that they want a fairly standard American life and are just debating careers within that standard.

Consider the following example: Julie is asked, “What do you want to do with your life?” She answers, “I’m trying to decide between getting a job in organic pot farming or becoming a ballet dancer. ” Let’s suppose that she finally decides to become a ballet dancer and it’s everything she imagined. It’s everything she’s wanted and she’s very happy in her new career.

Ordinary people (that is, people who are not philosophers) might say: “Julie’s new job makes her very happy.” The word “makes” here implies a causal connection between getting the new job and Julie’s happiness. The new job gives her happiness or at least adds to her happiness.

The theory of happiness I’m defending (happiness is skillful living) looks at happiness differently. Whether Julie is happy or not has very little to do with whether she gets the job. If she was a happy person before she took the job, she would continue to be happy after she gets the job. If she was an unhappy person, she would continue to be an unhappy person after she got the job. Happiness (and unhappiness too, unfortunately) are fairly durable states of a person. They are not greatly impacted by whether over the short term one gets a particular job or not.

Actually, the important thing is how one responds to the situation that occurs, whether this is getting the job or failing to get the job. Happy people respond differently than unhappy people. Happy people reap the rewards of their new job, getting all that they can get from it. They seem to flourish in their new jobs. Unhappy people continue to be unhappy even in a new wonderful job.

So actually the causal connection goes in the opposite direction. Julie is flourishing in her new job because she is happy; it is not the case that she is happy because she’s gotten a wonderful new job.

This may seem counter intuitive. We commonly ask ourselves what we should be doing with our lives? And we think that what we end up doing will decide whether we are happy or not. But actually it doesn’t matter all that much what we end up doing with our lives. There are endless happy paths one can take in life. What matters is whether you are happy to begin with. Then you will reap the benefits of whatever it is you end up doing or whatever path you happen to take.

To sum this up: The focus should be on becoming happy, that is, becoming more skillful in living. The rest will take care of itself.

There is a natural objection to what I’ve been arguing. Even if it is true that people flourish only if they are happy people, isn’t it the case that a person can flourish only if they are (somewhat) lucky in life? Suppose I’m stuck in a lousy job. How can I be happy in such a lousy job? I’ll discuss this example in my next conversation.

IV. Can a person be happy in a tedious, dead-end job?

Most people at one time or other during their lives have to take a boring, tedious job that doesn’t seem to offer much beyond its pay. How can a person be happy working in such a job?

Let’s first look at a few theories of happiness that do maintain that a person can be happy in such a job. We might call these “transcendental” theories because they maintain that happiness is a state that people can acquire which enables them to experience the world differently than those who have not acquired that state of happiness. A person who is happy in this sense can be happy even in a boring, tedious job.

How so? Well, there are a number of ways to understand this. (1) The Ecstasy theory imagines that the happy person is sort of like a person who has taken amphetamines. The drug itself provides so much pleasure that the user can enjoy doing anything. Here, of course, the happy person is not really enjoying the boring, tedious job per se, but rather enjoying the happiness that exists while they are doing the job. (2) The Stoner theory imagines that happiness is sort of like a person who has smoked marijuana or taken LSD. The boring, tedious job is no longer boring and tedious because the happy person can see things in the activities that are interesting. We can imagine two versions of the Stoner theory. In one version the state of happiness in the person adds something to the world that doesn’t exist intrinsically in the world. The Stoner creates or alters reality. (3) The other version is that happiness reveals features that already exist in the world but are invisible to people who are not happy. My happiness doesn’t alter the world but rather reveals what’s already in the world. We might call this Revelation theory of happiness. (4) The Heaven theory of happiness holds that happiness is not possible in this life, but if you live ethically you will be rewarded with eternal happiness after you (physically) die.

In contrast, the Skillful Living theory of happiness is non-transcendental. On this theory happiness does not change a boring, tedious job into an interesting, rewarding job. The world is the same for both happy and unhappy people.

Before I continue I want to briefly discuss theories of happiness in religion. Most religions highlight transcendental theories of happiness. This is often a major selling point to followers of the religion. But it is important to keep in mind that just because a religion advocates some transcendental theory of happiness doesn’t mean that it can’t also have a non-transcendental theory as well. I believe this to be the case for most religions I’ve looked at. To take just one example, some Christian religions claim that if you “accept Christ into your heart” your life will be better, that is, you will be rewarded with happiness in this life (as well as the next, which is when things really get good). Basically this is claiming that the adoption of a Christian way of life leads to (non-transcendental) happiness in this world.

I think that the Christian way of life can be a happy life (although not necessarily). However, as I argued in the previous conversation, the adoption a way of living doesn’t create happiness. A person can be perfectly happy in many, many different ways of living. What matters is whether they are living skillfully.

Now let’s see how the Skillful Living theory of happiness deals with the boring, tedious job example. This is the most difficult type of example for the theory to defend against. A more extreme version of this example is the case of being tortured. Suppose Julian is a happy man. But then one day he is kidnapped and tortured for days. Surely he is not happy while this is going on. What would the Skillful Living theory of happiness say about this example?

I’ll come back to the torture example at another time. Here I will just say that, yes, this theory does maintain that Julian is happy, even while he is being tortured, unless and until the torture “breaks him down” as a person to the point where he is no longer able to function. Ask yourself this question: Who is most likely to recover from this horrible experience, somewhat intact mentally, Julian who is a happy, well-adjusted person or some other person is already a basket case? Happiness doesn’t change the world; it doesn’t make the world a suddenly better place. Rather it makes it easier to deal for the happy person to deal with what the world brings to the table.

You can probably then guess at my response to the boring, tedious job example. Yes, you can be happy in a boring, tedious job, if you are happy going into it and you don’t let it break you down. It may not be easy, but if you approach the boring, tedious job in the right way, you may even become happier during that period of time.

It might be objected that if this were true it wouldn’t matter whether you have an interesting job or a boring job, since you can be just as happy in either job. That doesn’t follow from anything I’ve said. Of course it does matter. You would enjoy the interesting job more than the boring job. But which job you have doesn’t determine your happiness in life.

I’ll also consider one other objection. Doesn’t my happiness depend on whether my desires in life are satisfied? If I get the boring job fewer of my desires will be satisfied. Therefore my happiness does depend on which job I get.

V. Wrap-up: What’s the payoff for the Skillful Living Theory of Happiness

I’m going to wrap up this series of discussions on the Skillful Living Theory of Happiness by placing it in the spectrum of other theories of happiness.

There are many theories of happiness that have been defended historically. One way of categorizing the different theories is to see how they would answer some basic questions. As I mentioned in a previous discussion, many theories of happiness advocate a way of living. So let’s first look at how some theories of happiness would answer the question, “How should I live if I want to be happy?” A second question we can ask is, “What’s the payoff for following way of living the theory advocates?” The third question we can ask is, “Is it a transcendental theory of happiness or non-transcendental (worldly)?”

Hedonism advocates the pursuit of pleasure. Usually this is taken to mean physical pleasure, but there are some forms of Hedonism that take pleasure to include non-physical pleasures as well. (I believe J. S. Mill wanted to include “intellectual pleasures.”) If we ask the Hedonist what the payoff is for following this way of life the Hedonism would probably answer: “The payoff is the pleasure.” Here pleasure is taken to be an intrinsic good. People desire pleasure for its own sake.

Hedonism is a non-transcendental (worldly) form of happiness. Pleasure is something that exists in this world. We don’t have to look outside our ordinary, worldly experience for pleasure.

Stoicism is in some ways the opposite of Hedonism. It advocates a life of “no attachment” or “no desire”. Since physical pleasure is something intrinsically desirable, it presumably would advocate a life of minimal pleasure. Epictetus, who was one of the first to describe and defend Stoicism, made a distinction between what is under our control and what is not under our control. The weather, for example, is not under our control, but our attitude towards the weather is (he believed). If then I take the attitude that very hot weather is fine, then I’m OK (won’t be unhappy) during very hot days. He characterizes this view as “no desire.” If I don’t desire moderately cool days, then I’m not unhappy when I don’t get them. In one example, he says something like “It’s OK to take a pretty young wife as long as you don’t become attached to having her with you.” Then you won’t be unhappy if she dies or leaves you for another man.

So what’s the payoff for the person who practices Stoicism? One way of expressing it is to say that the Stoical attitude protects and insolates the Stoic from the world and what goes on in the world, so that he is not negatively impacted by it.

Is Stoicism transcendental? This is perhaps a little debatable since the Stoical attitude is something that exists in the world, but I think it’s best considered a transcendental view. The Stoic in a sense lives outside the world of everyday activity. There is a real sense in which the Stoic lives apart from the world.

Hedonism and Stoicism are almost opposites. The Hedonist would deny that the Stoic is really happy, since the Stoic’s life is barren of pleasure. The Stoic would deny that the Hedonist is happy because the Hedonist is not protected from the ills of the world. The Hedonist is going to pursue pleasure, but let’s be realistic, most of the time the Hedonist is going to fail to get enough of it.

Existentialism advocates that a person should (try to) live as if they might die at any moment. The Existentialist will live each moment fully and will put everything they can into everything they do. Does Existentialism advocate a particular way of life? I don’t think so. You can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you do it authentically. What’s the payoff? Well, it’s a kind of authentic existence that the Existentialist would call happiness. I would say that this is a non-transcendental theory. The Existentialist fully participates in the world and whatever it gives him.

The main problem with Existentialism is its vagueness. What is it to live authentically? How can I determine whether or not I’m doing that? And the connection between the knowledge that I might die at any moment and authenticity is also unclear. People can spend a lifetime reading Jean-Paul Sartre and Nietzsche to try to figure this out, but if I might die at any moment I’m not sure this is the best use of my time.

Now let’s consider Mysticism. There are several different forms of Mysticism. They are all transcendental. Mystics acquire an attitude or state of mind that protects them from the negative impacts of the world and ordinary living. They differ as to the nature and character of this state of mind. According to what might be called the Blissful Theory of Happiness, the Mystic lives in a state of bliss. In this state of bliss none of the ordinary problems in life are bothersome. This theory has similarities to both Hedonism and Stoicism. Like the Stoic, the Blissful Mystic is not negatively impacted by the world. Like the Hedonist, the Blissful Mystic experiences pleasure, which is equated with happiness, but it’s a far superior, non-worldly pleasure, which does not come and go as worldly pleasures do.

According to what might be called the Stoner Theory of Happiness, the Stoner Mystic lives in a state in which ordinary worldly experience becomes interesting and wonderful. Things which are for most ordinary people boring and tedious are for the Stoner Mystic rewarding, interesting activities. For the Blissful Mystic the world is the same, but the Blissful Mystic doesn’t care, because of the bliss. For the Stoner Mystic the world experienced is different and wonderful.

Finally, what might be called the Enlightenment Theory of Happiness, the Enlightened Mystic experiences something in the world that ordinary people don’t. Different Enlightenment theories have different views as to what this is. Some might describe it as a kind of connectedness between everything in the world, including us.

The payoff for all forms of Mysticism is huge. The Mystic is happy and can remain happy regardless of what happens in the world. The issue for all forms of Mysticism is how to acquire the mystical state. It is with respect to this that most of them advocate a particular way of living which gets people into the mystical state.

Where does the Skillful Living Theory of Happiness fit into this spectrum? First, it is non-transcendental. The world and our experience of the world doesn’t change. Boring, tedious activities don’t become less boring and tedious. Second, it doesn’t advocate any particular way of living. You can do pretty much whatever you want.

So what does the Skillful Living Theory of Happiness have to offer, if it doesn’t protect you from the problems of the world and it doesn’t tell you what you should be doing in it?

What I would say is that it (drum roll) offers perspective. In this it is like a scientific theory. If it’s true certain things about the world follow. When Einstein came up with the theory of relativity we acquired a new perspective of the world. If it was true then certain things were predicted. It turned out that the things the theory predicted were true.

Similarly, we can say that if the Skillful Theory of Happiness is true certain “lessons” follow. To see this, think of some skill you are attempting to develop. I think of tennis or guitar, but you can choose one you are familiar with. Here are just a few:

There are no shortcuts to happiness. Just as you can’t become a skillful tennis player in a few weeks, you can’t become happy in a few weeks just by reading someone’s book called “10 Steps to Happiness.” It takes years of practice.
Everything you do matters to your happiness. It either furthers your skill or diminishes it. Sitting around doing nothing doesn’t make you happier.
You don’t need to worry that you are choosing or have chosen the wrong path in life, as far as your happiness is concerned. E.g., failing to get that career you so much wanted is disappointing, but it’s not a failure of happiness.
Generally it’s better to stay calm in life.
Avoid destructive behaviors. Examples include addictions of any kind (alcohol, drugs, food, tobacco, sex).
Health and fitness are highly valuable.

VI: What are these discussions of happiness all about?

A few days ago one of my friends was trying to refer to one of my discussions of happiness he saw on Facebook. I could see he was struggling to come up with a word to describe what (the heck) I’m doing. After several seconds he finally came up with the word “proselytizing.” As this word is normally used, to proselytize is to advocate (and try to convince people to adopt) a particular way of life. It’s usually refers to a particular religion’s way of life, but it can be used more broadly. For example, Hugh Hefner can be said to have proselytized a certain secular way of living.

First, I want to be clear that my discussions of happiness are not religious in nature. It’s true that religions often discuss happiness and we don’t hear a lot of secular discussions of happiness. But secular discussions of happiness have a long history in Western civilization. Two major theories of happiness are Hedonism and Stoicism, which were discussed extensively in ancient Greece. Plato and Aristotle also discussed happiness extensively. For the record, I believe the Skillful Living Theory of Happiness, which I am defending, traces back to Plato, in his dialogue the “Meno.”

Secondly, and more importantly, my discussions of happiness differ from proselytizing in that they do not advocate any particular way of living. Quite the opposite, in fact. As long as you are skillfully living you can do pretty much whatever you want. There are some constraints, of course, which I will discuss at a later time in more detail. In general you shouldn’t, for example, do things that are “counter-productive” to being happy. An example of a counter-productive action might be “injecting Heroin into your arm.” Heroin is highly addictive. That would be a highly risky action that might lead to a terrible Heroin addiction, which of course would lead to great unhappiness. One rule of thumb about happiness is to avoid highly risky behaviors.

Actually, the fact that the Skillful Living theory of happiness does not advocate any particular way of living is one thing that distinguishes it from a number of alternative theories of happiness, including Hedonism and Stoicism, which I mentioned earlier. The Hedonist, perhaps Hugh Hefner is an example, advocates a life of physical pleasure. The Stoic advocates a life of “no attachment.” That is, a person should strive not to want anything. (You can’t be disappointed in not getting something if you don’t want it in the first place.)

So what am I doing in these discussions? Well, I call it “philosophizing.” I admit that “philosophizing” has no well-defined meaning. Why do I do this? Well you’re not going to trick me into contradicting my own theory by answering “Because it makes me happy.” No, I do it because I enjoy doing it, and according to the Skillful Living Theory of happiness, I can do pretty much whatever I want.

VII: Homework: Is there a Roger Federer of happiness?

I’ve wrapped up my discussions of happiness, so it’s only fitting that I give a homework assignment. It should be a fun one.

As an aside, it’s been an interesting experience for me writing these posts. More and more, as I’ve been doing these, they’ve felt like college classroom lectures. As many of you know I was at one time trying to become an academic college professor. You wouldn’t be surprised to know it was to teach Philosophy. I failed in that career. But, as you all know, failing in a career isn’t the same thing as failing in living (happiness), so at least there was hope for me. (Actually, in retrospect, failing to get a college teaching job was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. The teaching environment in colleges now days is to all appearances very difficult. Professors have to be very careful about what they say and do. I would constantly worry that some overzealous student would take one of my lectures or improvised examples in the wrong way and accuse me of being Sexist or Racist or Socialist or Republican. )

To give you a head start in this assignment, I’ll show you how I might approach this question. If happiness is skillful living, then happiness is a skill. We should then be able to learn about happiness by examining other skills, like tennis. So let’s see what we think of the tennis lives of a few major tennis players. And here, let’s not just look at the game itself, but the whole package of the life of a tennis player (as a tennis player).

Among the men, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federator are among the most skilled, but their approaches to tennis are different. Roger seems to effortlessly dance around the court. Rafa plays with amazing intensity, never losing concentration for even a moment. Both seem in their own way to love what they’re doing. Both are, metaphorically speaking, very happy in their tennis lives.

Contrast Rafa and Roger with a player such as Nick Kyrgios. Now here we want to look at Nick in terms of his “tennis happiness.” Of course he is also ethically challenged, but it’s dubious whether this has any bearing on his tennis skill. In terms of “tennis happiness” he definitely is struggling. If the Ref calls a time violation, he goes ballistic and his tennis slowly or quickly implodes. He is one of the most talented young players, but he plays mediocre tennis. He is not a happy tennis player.

Among the women, Serena and Venus Williams stand out. Although they are both incredible tennis players their approaches to tennis seem different. For me, Serena doesn’t seem to fully love the game for its own sake. She is a little bit like Agassi who was forced into playing by his father. Her problem is getting fully engaged in the match she is playing. Once she gets fully engaged she is unstoppable. And the thing that stands out to me is that she always is, by sheer force of will, able to become fully engaged in any important match. (In terms of living, my friend Ed Driscoll who passed away earlier this year, is someone who also had this incredible force of will.)

Venus who is probably about equally skilled in tennis as Serena (in the narrow sense of “skill” meaning ability to hit forehands, serves, etc.) doesn’t seem to have Serena’s sheer will power. And that may be the deciding difference between them.

So is there a Roger Federer (or Rafa or Serena or Venus) of happiness, someone who possesses great skill in living?

VIII_v1: A Happiness Puzzle

In science, scientists use models to explain the behavior of some aspect of the world. Often the model is a mathematical formula, but not always or not totally. For example in electronic circuit theory, scientists explain the behavior of a battery in a closed circuit in terms of an ideal model. The model contains an ideal battery whose behavior is described by a mathematical formula called Ohm’s law (Current = Voltage divided by Resistance) in series with an ideal resistor, whose behavior is also described by Ohm’s law.

Happiness is a real aspect of the world, so we might attempt to do the same thing. Use a model to try to explain how it functions in the world.

According to the theory I defended in earlier discussions: Happiness is Skillful Living. If this is true then we should be able to use other common human skills to model happiness. The models may not be perfect and may not explain everything but they help us to get a better idea of happiness and how it functions in the world.

One property of virtually every skill is that it’s a matter of degree. That is, you can be more or less skillful. It’s not like an on-off switch such that you either have the skill or you don’t.

And what’s true of ordinary skills like playing tennis and playing guitar is true of happiness. Of course we do say that some people are just plain happy or just plain unhappy, but here we mean that they are either above a certain threshold or below a certain threshold.

Another similar property of a skill is that you never reach the end. You can always become more skillful than you already are. Even Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer can become more skillful tennis players than they already are. In fact, even now they seem to have the desire to get even better than they already are. They are constantly trying to improve this or that about their games. Put another way, they are not fully satisfied with their games. Put still another way, they are not totally happy with their level of skill even as good as they already are. So we might ask, if they are never totally happy with their games why do they continue to try to improve? What’s the point?

In the case of ordinary skills it’s usually pretty easy to answer these questions. Why does Rafa want to get even better? Well, if he gets even better, he will win more matches, make more money, break more records, become more famous, get more girls, etc.

But what happens if we apply these observations about ordinary skills to skillful living, which according to the theory, is happiness? We can always become more skillful at living no matter how skillful we become.

VIII_v2: A Happiness Puzzle

According to the Skillful Living Theory of Happiness defended in previous discussions, happiness consists in living skillfully. It’s important just what this means. It is not merely asserting that if a person lives skillfully he or she will become happy, that happiness is a result or by-product of living skillfully. It is asserting that happiness is living skillfully. To put this another way, a person who is living skillfully cannot not be happy (to the extent that they are living skillfully). This may seem counter intuitive.

Consider the following question: Where is the happiness in skillful living? Before we attempt to answer this question let’s ask it about another type of skill, for instance, tennis. Playing tennis makes me happy, at least when I’m playing well. And the better I play the happier I am. But no one thinks that happiness consists of playing tennis skillfully. Nadal and Djokovic are both highly skilled tennis players, with about the same level of skill. But Nadal seems happy but Djokovic doesn’t (at the current time). If we were to explain why Nadal is happy playing tennis we might say something like: He enjoys the game, he wants to be the best, he (maybe) likes the notoriety, he feels like he has accomplished something great, etc. And these things (enjoying the game, being the best, etc.) make him happy.

In the case of tennis the happiness that results, if it does come, is clearly something external to the skill itself. But in the case of the skillful living theory of happiness, the happiness is supposed to be in the skill itself, not in something external to the skill.

The answer is that the happiness of the skillfully living person is in the living. The life experiences of the person who lives skillfully are better than the life experiences of the less skillful person. The experiences that make life worth living are available to the person who has the skill to acquire them.

Let’s look at a simple example. Consider someone who is shy around others. There is of course nothing morally objectionable in being shy, but shyness is a kind of fear that prevents one from interacting with others in ways that are worthwhile. The shy person misses out on experiences they would have if they were less shy. And to that extent they are a little less happy than they would otherwise be.

VIII_v3: Why skillful living?

Lately I’ve been thinking about a couple of questions regarding the skillful living theory of happiness. According to this theory skillful living is happiness. The more skillful a person is about living the happier he or she is. And less skillful people are less happy. This last statement seems plausible. What about the first statement? Is it really true that a person who is skillful at living is necessarily happy? This is the first question I want to discuss.

The second and possibly related question is this: Where is the happiness in skillful living? What does it consist in?

Let’s start with the first question. Is a person who is skillful at living necessarily happy? It may seem likely that such a person is happy, but is such a person necessarily happy? It’s important to be clear that this is what the skillful living theory of happiness claims. It is not merely claiming that skillful people are likely to be happy. It is claiming that they cannot not be happy, because happiness and skillful living are one and the same thing.

This may seem counter intuitive. A common theme in popular literature is a man who is extremely capable about everything he does. He’s very attractive; he’s a great conversationalist about all kinds of subjects; he’s a great lover; he’s a fantastic dancer; he’s courageous and fearless; etc. Everyone wants to be just like him. He is every man’s and woman’s dream of what a man should be and how he should live his life. But he isn’t happy. That is, so the story usually goes, he isn’t happy until a certain woman shows up, usually attractive, but kind of plain and not very sexy, and seemingly not very interested in him (because she doesn’t feel she’s good enough for a man like him).

So why can’t we imagine the same thing about a person who is very skillful at living? They are skillful, but they’re just missing something in their lives without which their lives aren’t happy.

Let’s start by asking what this something their lives are missing might be? It can’t be something that they can get through their skillful living. If they are highly skilled (as we are imagining they are) they would have gotten it. But, as the Stoics remind us, there are things outside our control. No matter how skillfully I live my life I may still not be lucky enough to find, for example, “true love.”

But this objection won’t work if happiness is in the skill the person has rather than something outside the skill that the person seeks to acquire by means of the skill.

Is happiness in the skill itself? If it is then where is it? It seems pretty obvious to me that the happiness has to be found in the experiences of the person who lives skillfully. Put simply, the skillfully living person has better life experiences than those who are less skillful.

Take any skill, e.g. tennis or music. Getting more skillful unlocks possibilities that are unavailable to the less skilled. There are tennis serves, forehand drives, etc. only the pros can his. Playing guitar solos like Jimmy Hendrix are not possible for less skilled guitar players no matter how hard they try. Similarly, becoming skillful at living unlocks experiences that are not possible for the less skilled. This is the primary motivation for becoming more skillful at living, to increase one’s stock of wonderful life experiences.

There are two facts that prevent us from having wonderful life experiences: First, no matter how skillful we become we can always become even more skillful. And to the extent that we aren’t more skillful than we already are there will be life experiences that will forever elude us. Nevertheless, those skillful at living will have a greater number of wonderful experiences than the less skillful, so they are better off. No matter how happy you are, you can always become even more happy.

Second, the world does not always cooperate with us. It would be nice to experience “true love,” but finding it is not just a matter of skill. The right person might never come around. This is true, but it doesn’t negate the happiness one already has. I’ve never had a child, so I’ve missed out on many wonderful experiences I might have had. But this doesn’t diminish the other wonderful experiences I’ve had in life.

Conclusion: Becoming more skillful at living is our only rational road to happiness. Like any skill it takes effort and work, but the reward is in the skill. And there is no other option. Dysfunctional people, in a very broad missing of “dysfunctional,” can never be fully happy, because they are not capable of having the wonderful life experiences that functional people can have. And it doesn’t matter if they are extremely lucky, winning the lottery, writing a popular song, whatever. They won’t be able to take advantage of their luck, because they won’t have to the skill to do so.

IX: Reply to readers comments

One person suggested that my definition of happiness as skillful living is contrary to ordinary conceptions of happiness. And another person suggested that self-discovery or self-knowledge are essential to happiness and that I haven’t made any mention of that.

This theory that happiness equals skillful living does I think differ from ordinary ways of thinking about happiness. So I agree on that score. But this is one reason why I want to present this theory. I believe it is a better way to think about happiness than many of the common theories. I think many (not all) common theories are actually harmful; to the extent that people take the theory seriously they will actually become less happy.

I also agree that self-discovery can contribute to one’s happiness, but I don’t believe it can be equated with happiness. Let me explain by means of an analogy. Consider the skill of playing tennis. (I think that any skill can be used as an analogy for understanding happiness, since happiness is a kind of skill, the skill of living.)

Suppose I go to the tennis pro and ask him to help me with my tennis game. I want to improve my tennis skill. Our tennis pro watches me doing various things and finally says, “I think you need to work on your serve.” He says we should film me serving and then he can show me what I’m doing in slow motion. So we do that and take a look. He points out a certain motion in my serve and suggests that I work on changing that into a different type of motion.

In this analogy, filming my serve is analogous to self-discovery. I discover something about my tennis game. Now there is no question that this might be helpful to my game. I might be able to advance my skill as a tennis player based on this self-discovery about my tennis self.

In this sense I believe, at least for many people, self-discovery might contribute to one’s happiness. Based on my self-discoveries I might be able to improve my skill at living, that is, according to this theory, become happier. Self-discovery is a tool that can be used to improve one’s skill at living. But it shouldn’t be equated with happiness. It’s entirely possible for a person to become more skillful at living (happier) without using this tool.

X: How do I define “skillful living”?

According to the theory of happiness I described some time ago in earlier posts, happiness is skillful living.

A friend of mine after reading my discussions of happiness asks: “What do you mean by “skillful living”? It seems, he says, that you do not anywhere actually define it. And he asks for some examples.

I’m a little surprised that no one has asked me this question until now.

I think it’s pretty easy to come up with examples and I’ll give some in a moment. But first I would like to point out that the meaning of the phrase “skillful living” is clearer than the meaning of the of the word “happiness.” We are all familiar with many and various skills. Playing tennis is a skill; playing guitar is a skill; playing poker is a skill. So if I ask you what being skillful at (e.g.) tennis involves, you could probably make a start at an answer without much trouble. We are also familiar with the word “living”. We all know what living is. We do it all the time. Skillful living is just being skillful at living.

But it is not easy to define “skillful living” without begging the question by defining it in terms of happiness. This is because skills are generally defined in terms of their goal or objective. (Roughly) the goal of tennis is to win tennis matches against opponents. Players who consistently win more matches are more skillful. What’s the goal or objective of living? Plausibly the goal is to be happy. But I can’t define happiness as skillful living and then define skillful living as living that consistently brings happiness. That begs the question.

But maybe I can give a better idea of what I have in mind using some examples. Health scares are (unfortunately) common events in peoples’ lives. Consider two different individuals confronting a health scare. One of them confronts the situation calmly without panicking. The other goes crazy with worry and begins behaving weirdly. Which of these two people handles the health scare more skillfully? Suppose the health scare lasts a month and then it turns out to be a false alarm. The calm person continued living more or less normally during that time. The other person made some hasty, poorly thought out decisions. He couldn’t enjoy life because of the worry and his life was basically on-hold during that time. All things being equal, which of these two people has the greater happiness?

And life’s challenges are not just unfortunate events. Consider two people who both win the lottery. One of them goes crazy spending the money because he just can’t help himself. The other uses the money more responsibly. The first person is handling this good fortune less skillfully than the second.

Although I think it’s true that the happy person gets more out of life than the unhappy person, happiness is not directly tied to achievement. If I become highly skilled at a particular activity (writing novels, tennis, whatever), this does not make me more skilled at living or more happy. Living involves ones whole life, not just one activity in it.

As you can see by these examples, according to my view, there is nothing magical about happiness. It is something very much in this world. And it is something within everyone’s power to attain. And it is also within everyone’s power to fail at getting it or to lose it. And like all skills it requires work and effort to acquire and maintain it.

XI: Can I list some rules for skillful living?

My friend asks me whether I can come up with 12 rules for skillful living. (I don’t know why he said 12 rather than 11.) I think I probably could, but I don’t think such rules are either necessary or helpful.

One obvious rule is to avoid addictions of any kind (food, drugs, sex, tennis, etc.) where an addiction is (by definition) something that drives you to do some action even if you know it’s not good for you. Someone addicted to eating knows they are eating more than what’s unhealthy, but can’t help themselves.

But we don’t really need to be told this. We know addictions are not good for us. So listing the rule is unnecessary. It’s also unhelpful, because the difficulty is not not knowing that we should avoid them, but avoiding them knowing we should avoid them. What we really need are rules for avoiding becoming addicted in the first place or getting off the addiction. (One obvious rule for avoiding Heroin addiction is to not take it in the first place, but that rule doesn’t work so well with food and sex addictions.)

Rather than rely on rules I think the better approach is to continually monitor your life and how it is going for you. Look for indications that something is not right or that something is going right. Fix the problems and put more energy into the things that are working well.

It’s the same thing with trying to become better at any skill. If you want to become a better tennis player notice what isn’t working for you (your serve sucks, your backhand has no pace) and try to improve these by consulting with people who know how to hit those shots and practicing them.

Same thing with becoming better at living, if I notice that I’m bored most days, I should solve that problem by finding something to do that interests me. If I find that I can barely climb stairs without breathing hard, I should get fitter. Skillful living is not rocket science (except for small children and the mentally ill).

The major human dilemma with respect to human happiness is that there are no teachers (experts) that can take us very far. Sure, many parents can teach their kids to make better choices. But who teaches the parents? We all have to ultimately rely on our experience and wisdom. This includes consulting with others when specific problems arise, but that’s about the best we can do. As Plato said, there are no teachers of virtue (or happiness).

What Does Happiness Feel Like?

There are obviously times when we don’t feel happy. Maybe a tragedy has befallen us: Perhaps someone close to us has died. Or maybe we’ve done something very stupid that has created a mess in our lives that we need to deal with. We don’t feel happy at times like these. There are two possible ways of understanding this: We aren’t happy at times like these and therefore don’t feel happy. Or we are happy, but just don’t feel it at times like these.

So which is it? If happiness is a feeling, then the first is true. I have a feeling, but I don’t feel it, is nonsensical. But if the theory of happiness I defended in earlier discussions is true, then happiness is not a feeling. A person is happy to the extent that they are skillful at living. And a person can be skillful at living at a certain time without feeling happy. Suppose the person above who has suffered the tragedy or did something stupid was skillful at living before these events happened. Then they will be just as skillful when these events occur. These events don’t necessarily destroy this person’s happiness, although this person will need to deal with these events skillfully to maintain their level of happiness.

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“A Philosophical Look at Racism”

In this discussion I’ll take a philosophical look at Racism. There are 3 questions I’ll discuss: (1) What is Racism? (2) Why is it harmful? (3) How do we determine whether an action is racist?

With respect to (1): First, we need to distinguish between what might be called “institutional racism” and “personal racism.” Institutional racism has to do with government policies and their effects on one race or another. My focus in this discussion will be on personal racism. Personal racism has to do with an individual’s beliefs and actions.

What is a racist action or belief? I think that at least one type consists of having a generalized, false belief about a certain race of people that is non-evidentially based. For example, consider the belief that white men can’t jump. This belief is false. There are many white men who can jump. And anyone who believes this believes it without having any evidence to support it.

By the way, I know this is not a particularly realistic example of racism. I’ll let you substitute your own more realistic example. I want to avoid here using an example that might evoke some emotional response.

So white men can’t jump is an example of a racist belief. A “racist action” can be defined as an action based on a racist belief.

So why are racist beliefs and actions harmful? Before we examine this question, we first need to distinguish between what might be called “conscious racism” and “unconscious racism.” Conscious racism is when a person recognizes that his or her (racist) belief and/or action is racist (false).

Now consider this example: Smith and Jones are both trying out for a position on the basketball team. Jones, who is non-white, shows what he can do on the court and then says to the coach. “No need to look at Smith. He’s white and we all know white men can’t jump.” It’s easy to see how this is harmful or intended to be harmful to white man Smith. He or she doesn’t get on the basketball team.

First point, it doesn’t matter whether the coach buys this or not. Jones intent is there. Second point, it doesn’t matter whether Jones’ racism is conscious or unconscious. It’s equally harmful in either case. Of course it does matter from a moral point of view. If Jones’s racism is conscious his action is worse from an ethical point of view. He’s now shown to be a person who is willing to lie and deceive and to exploit racist thinking for his or hers own ends.

In the above example, the harmfulness of the racism directly impacted a member of the targeted group (white people in this case). But now consider a different example. Suppose Jones is just sitting around with his or her friends having a fun conversation. At one point they’re gossiping about a man named Art and Jones says “Of course he fell on his face. White men can’t jump.”

What’s the harm? Well, maybe this could harm Art’s reputation in some way, but even if it didn’t the racist belief is being promoted or supported. To some extent the racist belief becomes easier for other people to believe and act upon. Again, this is true whether or not the racism is conscious or unconscious.

Racist beliefs are harmful because they are false. Racist beliefs are harmful to the targeted group and the greater the number of people in society who hold the racist belief, the greater the amount of harm. It’s also important to note that racist beliefs are not just harmful to the targeted group; they are also harmful to the people who believe them. That is racism is harmful to the racists as well as the targeted group. To consider just one example: Suppose that Mary enjoys the company of Stanley, who is Asian, but she believes that Asians are (pick your example) say lazy. Stanley asks her out, but, even though she likes him, she refuses because of her prejudice. She has just harmed herself. What you believe affects your actions. If your beliefs are false, the actions based on them are to some extent harmful.

How do we determine whether an action is racist? In many cases this is easy, but there are cases where it might not be so easy to decide. Based on our earlier discussion, I think the key consideration is whether the action promotes a racial stereotype. For example, suppose Lilly is watching Art trying get to a tennis ball stuck up on the fence. He can’t jump high enough to reach it. Lilly says, “Look at Art. It’s pathetic that he can’t get to that ball.” Now this might be in good fun or it might be mean-spirited. Either way, I don’t think we can consider it racist. Why not? Because it’s focused on the individual. On the other hand, suppose Lilly says, “Look at Art. But what do you expect? He’s white.” Here Lilly is using this action by a white man to promote a racial stereotype about white people.

So there are two considerations when judging an action (by yourself or others) to be racist: What is the racial stereotype (false racial generalization)? And is the action promoting the stereotype?

I think we all need to, as much as we can, avoid racist beliefs and actions. Why? Because they are harmful to others and also harmful to ourselves. I think we also need to avoid making false judgments about (alleged) racist actions by others. Why? For pretty much the same reasons. Because of our false belief, we may treat that person differently and that can be harmful to that person and to ourselves.

Contents

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“A Defense of Religion”

“Summary of Skillful Living Theory”

The Fundamental Question of Human Existence

Skillful Living and Meaning

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“The Many Worlds of Skillful Living”

“Ch. 1 – Introduction”

“Ch. 2 – Rejection in the Social Sphere”

“Ch. 3 – Value in the Social Sphere”

“Ch. 4 – Social Approval and Disapproval”

“Ch. 5 – Social Approval and Self Worth”

“Ch. 6 – Friends”

“Ch. 7 – Value in the Individual Sphere”

“Ch. 8 – The Moral Sphere”

“Ch. 9 – Value and Happiness”

“Ch. 10 – Life Strategies”

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“Difference between Human Beings and Computers”

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“Forgiveness”

“Part II”

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“Skillful Living Theory of Happiness”

I: What is Happiness?

II: Skillful Living

III: Ordinary Views of Happiness

IV. Can a person be happy in a tedious, dead-end job?

V. Wrap-up: What’s the payoff for the Skillful Living Theory of Happiness

VI: What are these discussions of happiness all about?

VII: Homework: Is there a Roger Federer of happiness?

VIII_v1: A Happiness Puzzle

VIII_v2: A Happiness Puzzle

VIII_v3: Why skillful living?

IX: Reply to readers comments

X: How do I define “skillful living”?

XI: Can I list some rules for skillful living?

What Does Happiness Feel Like?

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“A Philosophical Look at Racism”