ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Religious,philosophica and Psychological Foundations of Happiness Section (2). Philosophical Foundations of Happiness It appears that we can hardly find any philosophers who have not spoken of happiness. It indicates the close relationship between philosophy and happiness. Some of philosophers have written much about happiness, and some less.

Investigating the details of their theories regarding happiness is impossible here, especially considering the fact that the main purpose of this book is description of the correlatives of happiness and those factors (religious, philosophical and psychological) that cause humans to reach happiness. We have divided here the philosophers' viewpoints concerning happiness into two categories: non-Muslim and non-Iranian philosophers & Muslim and Iranian philosophers. 2-1.

Non-Muslim and non-Iranian philosophers Philosophical discussion of the concept of 'happiness' has been tended to be found mainly within moral philosophy. It is associated especially with the classical utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The utilitarian assert that happiness is, as a matter of fact, the ultimate aim at which all human actions are directed and that it is therefore the ultimate standard by which to judge the rightness or wrongness of actions.

'Actions are right', says Mill, 'in proportion as they tend to promote happiness'- that is to say, 'the general happiness', the happiness of all concerned. Still following Bentham, Mill goes on to equate happiness with 'pleasure and the absence of pain'. For Bentham, the identity of 'happiness' and 'pleasure' is quite straight forward. An action's tendency to promote happiness is determined simply by adding up the amounts of pleasure, and subtracting the amounts of pain, which it will produce.

It is a matter solely of quantitative factors such as the intensity and the duration of the pleasurable and painful feelings. Mill is aware that this is altogether too crude. Happiness, he acknowledges, depends not only on the quantity but also on the quality of pleasures. Human beings, because of the distinctively human capacities they possess, require more to make them happy than the accumulation of pleasurable sensations.

They are made happy not by the 'flower pleasures' but by the 'higher pleasures' - 'the pleasures of the intellect, of the feeling and imagination, and of the moral sentiments'.