In his work, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud discusses the drives behind acts of compulsion. His first tendency is to apply his Pleasure Principle as the driving force behind compulsions. The basis of the Pleasure Principle is that humans seek to increase their pleasure and decrease their pain. But Freud rejects the application of compulsion as being driven by pleasure, instead asserting that compulsions are driven from a dark source described as a “root of fear driven by a demonic compulsion” (p. 44).
By asserting that compulsions are not a function of pleasure, Freud enters an entirely new realm of psychological theory. He asserts that instinct is the “tendency innate in living organic matter impelling it towards the reinstatement of an earlier condition.” (p. 44). This means that human beings want to go back to prior states regardless of happiness felt in the present or in the past. It follows that people may be driven to return to unhappy states which leads me to wonder how Freud views our purpose in life. Does he believe that happiness is an active factor in human development?
It seems that compulsions are not sensitive to happiness, but does this mean that the Pleasure Principle is correlated with happiness? Seemingly, if Freud is prepared to say that compulsions are not related to happiness, then pleasure is not necessarily related to happiness because happiness does not seem to be an underlying principle in Freud’s view of development.
I think that Freud’s denial of happiness as a major function in development is one of Daniel Gilberts’ primary motivators in his studies of happiness. Disregarding his philosophy of positive psychology, Gilberts relativist assertions in Stumbling on Happiness can be traced to Freud’s above ideas. It is important to ignore Gilbert’s prescription for happiness because if he believes that happiness is truly relative, then how can he say that one particular method will lead to it? This assertion in itself is not relativist.
Now that we have isolated relativism, let us approach it from Gilbert’s perspective in light of Freud. Freud views happiness as something more arbitrary than determined. He sees the struggle in conscious beings as the primary activity, and happiness is something which may or may not result as a bi-product of this conflict. This means that there is necessarily no prescription or core explanation for happiness. Whatever the situation, one can be happy or unhappy. If one is happy then he/she is so only relatively, meaning that it is not certain or definite because happiness is not by itself as an independent force, which makes it arbitrary. It also means that it can never be properly quantified or measured because of its arbitrary nature.
Gilbert relies heavily on describing happiness as being from an individual perspective: “All claims of happiness are claims form someone’s point of view” (p. 57). He describes this process through the use of charts to demonstrate semantic differences in the verbalization of happiness. This is in direct influence form Freud’s model of arbitrary happiness.
Although I previously attempted to discredit Gilbert’s assertions about positive psychology, I think that it is this relativist viewpoint which has led him to his conclusions. If happiness is indeed an arbitrary by-product of an unrelated driving force of human beings, then why not try and influence it consciously? Surely leaving it to the whims of subconscious activity will guarantee it no more then by actively pursuing its achievement. I think that Gilbert, while not fully believing that happiness is necessarily attainable through the methods of positive psychology, sees an opportunity for himself and his audience. It is this opportunity which may make all the difference in the end result of being happy.
-Betzalel Laudon (Sol)
