The Pursuit of Happiness

It has often been explained to me that happiness is the purpose of man. For a good deal of time I frowned upon this explanation of man’s purpose as being over-simplified and outrageously dangerous, even though I had no problem with being happy myself. After all, a man could most certainly be happy while violating the rights of others — is this hypothetical man actually fulfilling his purpose? Are any actions that bring happiness moral? Is morality completely subjective to the whims of each individual?

My dislike for the idea simply came from a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of what “happiness” truly is. Overall happiness is not just an emotion, but is the mental recognition of the achievement of a value. Happiness is often seen as nothing but a fluffy emotion, but self-satisfaction is the greatest form of happiness theoretically possible, and one which every non-suicidal* individual pursues, consciously or not.

Disclaimer: This post will be more of an explanation for my reasoning rather than a case for it, hence the small number of arguments. At a later time, I will most certainly present a case for my belief in satisfaction — I’ll just need to consider it for a bit longer.

Satisfaction

Happiness is often seen as a fluffy emotion. If this is true, happiness can be achieved through a drug. However, happiness is not the greatest feeling (or belief) regarding oneself. Definitionally speaking, the greatest self-belief is much deeper. Self-satisfaction is what occurs when a man sees himself as being the best and most that he can possibly be. Perfection is not possible, but “greatest” self-satisfaction, of course, is.

Every time a person takes an action, they are acting under the assumption that they are making the best choice — even the person who attempts to do away with them self thinks that their decision is the best one. If someone has any mechanism for determining what to do, then their actions are the reflections of an attempt to meet their mechanism — it’s impossible for someone to voluntarily do what they completely don’t want to do.

Our mechanism — our code — dictates how we act.

Value Code

The foundation of every action a person takes is that person’s code. This code is their value system that dictates our every response. If a man decides to go to church rather than watch football on Sunday, his moral code places the attendance of church over the watching of a football game. The code does not necessarily reflect the reasoning for its existence — just that it exists.

Every man, whether he wills it or not, takes action for the sake of satisfying this value code. This value code is a part of his mind, and cannot be escaped — even if the code says that the code is unjustified.** However, once there is this self-contradiction in the code, complete self-satisfaction is instantly unachievable. If a man values being selfishness and selflessness at the same time, there will be mental and emotional warfare within his mind. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Reason

As explained above, complete satisfaction is the inherent goal of every man, whether he recognizes it or not. Also explained above is that satisfaction is still dictated by the laws of reality — you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

The only way one can determine what increases one’s satisfaction is reason. Incoherency is inefficiency. Reason is the greatest system in regards to production. Google has risen to it’s Internet super-star status not by incoherent policies and decisions, but through well-reasoned algorithms and stylistical decisions — reason was used at every stage. The moment a business or individual decides to reject reason for an alternative system of thought, the incoherency instantly impacts their lives, and its impacts bring with chaos.

As explained above, if one values something and its opposite, then one is not achieving the greatest level of satisfaction possible — reason is necessary to understand which of the two conflicting values is illegitimate. Ayn Rand explained, “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

The purpose of man’s life is satisfaction, which may or may not include drastically large amounts of emotion-based “happiness”. Satisfaction is the end result of a man achieving his value code. His value code can only be maximized if founded upon reason.

Reason is required for maximum satisfaction.
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*It could even be argued that suicide is an attempt at self-satisfaction, at least that it’s means are based upon self-satisfaction, whereas the result is simply absence.
**This is not nearly as outlandish at it may sound. I know of many people who live a life of self-sacrifice, meaning that part of their code is to ignore their code. These people are living a life of self-torture.