97. A recipe for happiness
97. A RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS
When we use others as catalysts for our own selfish lust, we seek, and perhaps even find, some kind of perverse pleasure in this. Is there an even greater pleasure when we treat others rightly, with charity, as is our moral duty? Or is it duty versus pleasure, as Kant and the Stoics say?
Whether doing good to another is a cause of pleasure?
. . . [I]nasmuch as through being united to others by love, we look upon their good as being our own, we take pleasure in the good we do to others, especially to our friends, as in our own good. . . . Wherefore men take pleasure in their children, and in their own works, as being things on which they bestow a share of their own good. . . . [F]or whatever we do or suffer for a friend is pleasant, because love is the principal cause of pleasure (I-II,32,6).
Pleasure, of course, is not just physical. It means “being pleased”. It is the subjective dimension of happiness—happiness in the classical, old, wise, deep, complete meaning of true blessedness, eudaimonia, makarios, or beatitudo. In other words, St. Thomas means by “pleasure” what we subjectivistic, feeling-oriented moderns mean by “happiness”.
The surest way to attain this “happiness”, or “pleasure”, is through charity. Charity is the will to the good of the other. You know you have this will when you actually do to the other what you think is good for the other. A will is not just a wish or a feeling, it is a command to yourself to act. So it is active charity, acts of charity, that brings pleasure. Kierkegaard says, in Works of Love, that for a Christian love is the works of love rather than mere feelings. Feelings usually accompany these acts, and they can help to motivate these acts, but the acts are essentially acts of will. The feelings of pleasure they bring are mainly the effects of the works of love. The more you treat someone you hate as if you loved them, the more you will find yourself loving them.
The crucial catalyst of this whole equation is the mind, and what we see, or believe. It is only “inasmuch as . . . we look upon their good as being our own (that) we take pleasure in the good we do to others.” We judge our good to be their good and their good to be our good. It is a judgment of being, a proposition with an “is” verb, not just an imaginative picture or concept. We “look” at a sunset, but we “look upon” it as being beautiful, i.e., we judge it to really be beautiful. It is a judgment, not just a concept, whether the basis for that judgment is faith, logical reasoning, or concrete experience. We will love our neighbor as we love ourselves when we look upon our neighbor’s good as being our own good. It depends on this “big picture”, this worldview, this piece of metaphysics. Ethics depends on metaphysics, not only for philosophers but for everybody; not only in argument but in life.
God’s tremendous invention of the family is our great teacher here. We all understand (unless we are very, very wicked) how our siblings’ good, and our children’s good, and our parents’ good, gives us pleasure. The next step is to see all men as our brothers, both in Adam and in Christ, both biologically and spiritually. But we will probably never see this, never move from original selfishness to universal charity and unselfishness, without the intermediate step of the family.
All recognize St. Thomas’ last statement to be profoundly true, by experience: “love is the principal cause of pleasure.” Therefore the more love, the more pleasure. This is why the smile on the faces of the saints is the deepest smile in the world. Even when they frown, they smile. You can sense the smile behind the severe frown of the honest moralist or the strict but loving teacher or parent.
So if you want to be truly happy, start in your own home. If you don’t love the people you see, you can’t love the people you don’t see. Try it; you’ll like it. It’s the world’s most reliable experiment: every time you forget yourself and love your neighbor, you find deep joy, deep down. Every time you don’t, you find deep doo-doo, deep down.