When Happiness Was Invented
My tradition on this blog is to take a break (mostly!) from current events sometime in mid- August. Instead, I pre-schedule daily posts based on things I read during the previous year about three of my preoccupations: economics, editing/writing, and academia. With the posts pre-scheduled, I can then relax more deeply when floating on my … Continue reading When Happiness Was Invented The post When…
Economists often use the term "happiness" interchangeably with "utility," which forms the basis for an economic model wherein individuals seek to maximize their own utility. This concept can be traced back to Jeremy Bentham, a utilitarian philosopher who proposed that the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" should be the measure of right and wrong. According to Bentham, an act's tendency to promote happiness is its utility, while its deviation from this is harmfulness.
However, the notion of happiness was not originally inherent in Bentham's thinking. Instead, it was a relatively new idea when Bentham wrote his utilitarian axiom. The term's centrality in contemporary discourse can be traced back to the mid-16th century, when it was first used by translators and writers in English translations of Latin works such as Thomas More's Utopia. Prior to this, the word "happiness" was not commonly used in English.
One of the earliest recorded instances of "happiness" being used in English occurred in 1556 when Ralph Robinson translated More's Utopia. Before this, the word "happiness" was often replaced by alternatives such as "felicitas" or "beatitudo," which conveyed worldly contentment or spiritual fulfillment. The shift in the meaning and usage of "happiness" began in the 1470s and continued until the 1550s, when the word started to acquire its contemporary connotations.
These connotations were influenced by the Greek notion of eudaimonia and the Latin sense of "summum bonum," which represented the realization and fulfillment of perfect and natural selfhood, as well as the overarching ideal of the good life, person, and afterlife. The connection between happiness and "hap," an Old Norse term meaning luck or fortune, was ultimately broken by the 1560s, and writers began to distinguish between "heavenly life" and the "civil" happiness.
Thus, the modern concept of happiness in English was effectively "invented" in the mid-16th century and has since become an integral part of economic theory, self-help literature, and policy research.
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