The limits of happiness

B.P.R. VITHAL

The increasing happiness of an increasing number is often taken to be the marker of progress in human history. Yet when it comes to the concept of happiness there is no general agre­ement as to what its elements are. Pleasure and pain are easier to define because they both havesensory origins, but few would equate happiness with pleasure or even with an algebraic sum of pleasure and pain. Though some pain may actually give rise to happiness as in the case of martyrs, in general, a reduction of pain results in a direct increase of happiness. The relationship between pleasure and happiness is, however, more complex. None would deny a causal relationship between plea­sure and happiness but few would insist on a one to one re­lationship. All pleasure is not, in equal measure, happiness as would be evident from the extreme case where pleasure may actually cause unhappiness due to some socially determined moral considerations. How much of pleasure results in happiness is socially and psychologically determined.

Happiness, however, has an element in it which is more than this complex and transformed input of sensory pleasure and pain, an element which may be called cerebral. The cerebral element, as the term itself indicates, arises in the brain and should not be confused with a “spiritual” element. The cerebral component of happiness may itself have had a sensory origin initially. To adapt Wordsworth’s definition of poetry, it may be the mental residue or impression of an original sensory pleasure that is then “recollected in tranquility”. But the cerebral com­ponent may also arise out of the interplay of entirely non­sensory inputs such as ideas or concepts.

We may put these relationships in the currently fashionable algebraic form: H = K PL - P + X. where H is happiness, PL is pleasure, P is pain and X is the cerebral factor. K is a constant which determines how much of pleasure will result in happiness and is socially determined for a given society and psychologically determined for a given individual. It is a function of Social Mores and Individual Psychology, while Indi­vidual Psychology is itself a function of the social mores and personal history.

Having laid this conceptual framework we are now in a position to examine the effect science and technology have had on human happiness. Science has helped reduce human pain dramatically while technology has had an equally dramatic effect in increasing the range and complexity of human pleasure. If the relationship had been merely H = PL - P then there would have been no doubt at all that Science and Technology have had the direct result of increasing the total quantity and quality of human happiness. In the case of pain the relationship is straight forward because P always has a negative sign and reduction of pain will always have a positive effect on Happiness. But the position regarding pleasure is complicated because of the K factor. While Science and Technology have increased Pl the social configurations necessary for their growth and impact have been historically such that K has been simulta­neously reduced. That is, Technology affects K and PL inversely so that KPL remains constant.

Wecan illustrate this point by two examples - the impact of technology on Sex and on Music. Sex is the most basic, most complex and deepest of all human sensory pleasures. The human sexual cycle, unlike that of other mammals, is not sea­sonally restricted but is a perpetual one whose pace was set only by its procreational consequences. The technology of contraception and the consequent social mores of modern socie­ties have removed the restrictions on this pace. The abandon and frequency with which technology now permits Sex should have resulted in an unqualified increase in happiness if sensory stimulation were its only source. Yet this has not been so. The excitement of frequency and variety have not compensated for the disillusion of satiety. Music is a good example to illustrate the way K PL and X work. Music has both a sensory and a cerebral impact, pop music having more of the former and classical music more of the latter. Technology has dramati­cally increased the sensory stimulation caused by music through devices such as technological music. The happiness that music gives rise to is however a cerebral phenomenon and this re­quires that the KPL factor be converted into the X factor. It is doubtful if technology has made much contribution to this aspect, with the result that, while the drug like - stimulation music may give may have increased pleasure through the KPL factor, the happiness that music gives through the X factor is no more in modern society than it was in earlier societies.

Thus, although technology has dramatically increased the opportunities, scope and depth of sensory pleasure available to human beings, the extent to which sensory pleasure gets reflected in human happiness, viz. KPL, has remained constant because of technology affecting K and PL inversely. Human happiness has thus increased only to the extent science has reduced pain. In our equation, the cerebral factor has been given a “+ or -” sign. However, we have so far managed our society in such a manner as to result in this factor also being, negative so that the sum total of this equation has been to keep H constant; i.e. the sum total of human happiness has not increased.

Pleasure and pain being sensory phenomena are objectively discernable. Therefore when we look at societies as a whole we get an impression that the human condition has improved because at this level H = KPL - P. But, when we go down to the individual level the factor has to be reckoned with and once this is done it is not possible to say that the sum total has increased. Here again, if we take an individual at a point of time it may well be that H has increased but if we add up the sum for the entire life span H remains constant. There­fore at points of space or time H may increase or decrease but over a span of time or of space the sums even out and we get a constant factor. This is the law of the Indeterminacy of Human happiness or it may also be called the law of Deter­minacy, depending on the point of view one takes. At individual points it is not possible to determine human happiness but in the totality of a human life or of human societies it is so determined as to remain constant. This is the fundamental verity the Buddha proclaimed when he said that the basic fact of human existence was Dukkha, which is the obverse of the fact that Sukkha cannot be increased. This riddle can be solved only by addressing ourselves to the cerebral factor, the X factor, which is the one indeterminate factor capable of increasing H in the totality in our equation.

This is not meant to be a revised version of the Karma Theory leading to the pessimistic conclusion that human endeav­our is therefore futile. What is intended to be shown is that linking human progress to increase in human happiness through increase in pleasure is a self defeating endeavour that leads to disillusionment and loss of faith in science and progress itself. The fact that Los Angeles is suffocated not only by smog but divorcees and schizophrenics while Calcutta can be a City of Joy substantiates our formulation here but the wrong conclusions can be drawn from this. In our equation while KPL is constant what makes the equation open ended and positive is the X factor. This is the domain of moral and intellectual values such as the pursuit of Truth through Science and of Justice through Social action. If this formulation is therefore not to be a counsel of despair then the goal of human endeavour ought to be linked not to the increase of happiness as pleasure but to the pursuit of moral values through individual action.