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> Research | > Happiness | > Mutual Happiness |
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| Seek happiness, but not just any kind of happiness. Seek mutual happiness! |
Mutual Happiness is what results when people choose to spread happiness. To build happiness among more than one person or animal, it is necessary that each of them understands what motivates the others. It is further necessary that they have some means of communication and cooperation so that they can achieve it together.
Mutual happiness is also possible between people and many kinds of animals. Although the animals are limited in their ability to communicate, they can communicate somewhat using gestures and sounds. In the species that people often select as pets, the animals have empathic motives as well, that help them to interact with people in mutually-beneficial ways.
For mutual happiness, each person seeks for himself (or herself) to fulfil the desires that are the components of happiness. These motives include empathy, so that people are also motivated to help each other.
There is typically more than one way for each motive to be satisfied, which provides a lot of flexibility. For example, on the matter of hunger, there are a variety of foods to choose from that provide energy and nutrition. Similarly, on the matter of curiosity, there are an infinite number of things available to be explored. So, when a person is satisfying their desires, he (or she) can pick among many options. For mutual happiness, he needs to choose options that don't interfere with the happiness of other people or animals with whom he could cooperate.
When mutual happiness is the goal, it gives rise to opportunities for synergy, where more can be achieved together than by any individual alone.
This also means that each person must take care to handle counterproductive motives in ways that prevent internal conflict and misery that may arise from instinctive ways of responding to those motives.
If a person has both kind and malevolent motives, one might ask why he might prefer to curtail the malevolent motives and act instead on the kind ones. Certainly he could choose to do the opposite, if he wished.
The answer has a lot to do with his aspirations. He could ask himself:
Over time and across generations, the choices people make shape the characteristics that are passed on to the next generation. People choose who they will marry, according to the kind of person whom they admire, and they choose the kinds of behaviors that they teach their children. There is an advantage to societies who make decisions that bring them greater cooperation and less conflict; it tends to put them in a position where as a group they have more capability to achieve the things they want.
People can choose to be part of that trend, if they wish.
If we wish to devise a solution in which each person can be happy, and whereby many animals can be happy as well (insofar as we can arrange it with them), it would be very helpful if one could identify exactly how happy each one is, and then take action to fill gaps in happiness.
Being able to measure happiness, or at least to develop an approximate measure, could be useful for some kinds of social policy decisions. At first glance, it might seem like one could tally the motivational satisfiers for each person in a population using the scoring described under components of happiness. It turns out that's an oversimplified approach that won't quite work. In reality it can be difficult to do, so there a long explanation covering it, under the topic Estimating Wellbeing.
However, there are many situations in which the available alternatives each have very wide differences in satisfactions among those affected. One alternative creates joy and the other creates misery! These are easily decided without having precise measurements.
Also, most problems are better solved with creative means, rather than by picking the best from among several mediocre or undesirable alternatives.
Consider a situation of a famine, where you are presented with various alternatives of whom you shall leave to starve. You may busily occupy yourself trying to calculate which one "maximizes the happiness," which in this case is really only minimizing the misery.
A more ethical solution would have been to avoid the problem in the first place. What was causing it: bad farming practices, a lack of sufficient food storage to cover inevitable periods in which weather gets in the way of food production, overpopulation...?
Gradually over time, societies face these problems and they may learn in an evolutionary manner, to put standards and processes in place to prevent the problems from occurring.
Having the solutions in place, such as better agricultural practices, food storage and transport to bring food into shortage areas, etc. yield not just tiny differences in happiness, but huge differences! There is a lot that can be improved without the need to measure happiness precisely.
Even in a situation where it's too late to prevent the problem, often some creative thinking can bring to mind solutions beyond the obvious rationing and "minimize the misery" methods. In the case of a famine, one might look outside their own country and make an appeal for help from other nations, where people will often be pleased to contribute to both short-term and long-term solutions.
Over time, people develop ideals, which are preferred ways of satisfying motives. Ideals include such things as preserving the environment, telling the truth, setting standards of fairness, etc. In many cases, these have indirect ways of supporting motivational fulfilment, but whether direct or indirect the result is greater happiness. You can find out more on the cross reference of basic ideals to motivational fulfilment.
We must remember that our motives are one component of a well-functioning mind, and that we need to make use of all parts of our mind to produce mutually happy results. This means making use of learning, imagining, reason, as well as seeking to satisfy our desires.
Choose ways of achieving your happiness that are compatible with the happiness of other people, so that you may have mutual happiness. For your mind to function effectively, it helps if you make these resolutions for judging your own happiness:
These choices will lead to behavior that produces a better world: a world in which all people can be happy.
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