Happiness: Subjective Versus Objective

    When I think of happiness, I think of the feeling a parent gets the first time they see their newborn child, or the first time a parent introduces their kid to the new family pet, or when I make a good grade on a test I stressed over for days while studying for. All of these examples have something in common, it is something that happens to you, or something that you get and as the end result, you feel the emotion of being happy. So, before reading this book, this is how I would have described happiness. As an adjective or a way of feeling. I would have described it as an emotion, and I would have left it at that. I also would have told you that I believe that everyone aspires to reach a level of happiness at some point in their lifetime. We see that Aristotle would agree with this statement, because he says “ As for its name, then, it is pretty much agreed on by most people; for both the many and the refined say that it is happiness,” (1095a17-18).

    However, Aristotle seems to have a different outlook or perspective on happiness. In some ways he seems to agree with my point of view, but he also shows how others can perceive happiness and how it can be very diverse, given the person and situation. We see this when he says “But as for what happiness is, they disagree, and the many do not give a response similar to that of the wise” (1095a21-22). He goes on to say that “The former respond that it is something obvious and manifest, such as pleasure or wealth or honor, some saying it is one thing, others another” (1095a22-24). This demonstrates how happiness is not necessarily a certain objective thing, but that it is actually subjective to the person and situation. Not everyone is going to obtain happiness in the same way from the same things. Just Iike Alabama winning a football game would not make and LSU fan happy, but it would make me happy. I believe that this is the point that Aristotle was trying to get across to us in this book. He wants us to realize that not everyone obtains happiness in the same way. He wants us to understand that happiness is not an objective subject, but instead subjective. He wants us, as human beings, to realize that not everything that makes you as an individual happy will also make someone else happy too. Happiness is very diverse and dependent on each person's own feelings and aspirations.

   Many believe that you obtain happiness by being a good person. We see this when Aristotle states that “Certain others, in addition, used to suppose that the good is something else, by itself, part from these many good things, which is also the cause of their all being good” (1095a26-28). Although happiness usually runs hand in hand with being a good person, it is not always true that good people obtain happiness. It is definitely not correct to say that only good people obtain happiness. However, I would agree that good people are more likely to obtain more happiness than a bad person.

    Throughout the book Aristotle debates what is good, what makes a person good, what happiness is and how you obtain it. This really made me think of how I have obtained happiness in my lifetime and it made me start to notice when others become happy and how/why they became happy. If you look at happiness in an open point of wise, you start to become more aware of what makes you happy and or sad, and you also realize the same things about others. You begin to realize the things that you do to make others happy, but you also begin to realize the things you do to aggravate others or make them sad.

   In conclusion, even though happiness is obtained in many different ways by many different people, not all people strive for happiness, nor do all people feel happiness in the same way from the same things. Happiness is not something that you obtain and keep, yet it is a way of being in a certain moment of something that makes you happy. Aristotle supports this over and over by showing different point of views of happiness and what different types of people perceive happiness as. We also have the liberty and freedom to decide what our own versions of happiness are and how they affect us and others around us.