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> Research | > Happiness |
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> Research | > Happiness |
The shortest motto I can think of that expresses the goal of moral living is
this one:
Spread Happiness!
That's basically the same concept as the golden rule, which recommends treating other people the way you wish to be treated yourself. You prefer happiness over misery, and so do others. A better world results when everyone seeks to make each other happy.
That seems pretty simple and easy, but it's not quite as simple as it seems. A person will intuitively know whether he (or she) feels happy or not, but sometimes the person may feel unhappy or depressed without knowing why. He may be even less sure what other people need to make them happy.
To solve this, it's helpful to understand what happiness is, to know the "components" of happiness, to be aware of some problems and misconceptions that might get in the way of happiness, and how to choose strategies that lead to mutual happiness with other people. These things are covered in three chapters, which you can select from the menu panel or from the hyperlinks below.
Also, there is much more research occurring in the modern world about happiness than there had been in the past. Here are some hyperlinks to web sites that offer information about happiness:
Lastly, for making group decisions that affect the wellbeing of group members, or of external people or animals, it can be useful to estimate how each option under consideration will affect their wellbeing. To do this, it is necessary to measure happiness under each scenario. That's not easy to do, because the individuals might not know their what their own happiness will be without actually experiencing it. Nevertheless, for important decisions that have a significant impact, it's worth the effort. To find out about strategies to use for figuring this out, read about estimating wellbeing.
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