The Nature and Value of Happiness

Vitrano, an assistant professor of philosophy at Brooklyn College, turns a scholarly eye on a subject that fascinates us all: happiness. But rather than penning a how-to guide to feeling better, she examines the concepts and hypotheses concerning happiness offered by famous philosophers of old, including usual suspects Plato and Aristotle, as well as thinkers of the modern era, like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill; then she challenges them. Hedonism on its own doesn’t produce happiness, she points out, but then again neither does satisfying certain desires. Practicing righteous moral behavior isn’t even a surefire way to be happy—sometimes charity can be misunderstood, and of course everyone knows what the road to hell is paved with. For the most part, the text reads like a philosopher’s graduate thesis, and endnotes spring up like so many weeds at the sidewalk’s end. But Vitrano saves her simplest—and perhaps most profound—observation for the very end: “If over the course of your life you fail to appreciate what you have, you will never be happy. But if you can find satisfaction in your situation, whatever it may be, then happiness will be yours.” (Aug.)