美德是幸福的前提吗?

Is Virtue a Pre-requisite for Happiness?

幸福研究方兴未艾,但当今研究着重于幸福的心理描述性层面,而通常忽视了幸福概念中的规范性或者评价性层面。在孔子和亚里士多德等哲学家眼中,美德是幸福的前提。心理学实证研究发现,实践美德行为,如志愿、捐助等活动能够使人获得幸福。同时,研究也发现,人们倾向于认为具有美德的人会更加幸福。虽然实证研究能够说明美德与幸福具有关系,但是在美德与幸福的因果联系确定上,以及美德对于幸福来说是否是工具性的问题上,还需要更多的研究。

Happiness become a hot topic in recent years in the area of psychology. Scholars try to use experimental results in psychology to boost the human happy experiences, guide folks＇ life, and influence public policy. But recent research mainly focused on the descriptive and psychological aspect of the conception of happiness, and neglected the normative and evaluative aspect. Virtue is the pre-requisite of happiness from both Confucian and Aristotelian tradition. Aristotle built his happiness theory on his view of virtue. In his theory, to reach the state of happiness, we need to behave in a virtuous way. Confucian tradition also hold a belief that, pure happiness consistent with self-control state which toward ethical norms. Experimental results showed that, behave virtuous can boost happiness. First, religious people were found happier than nonreligious people. This was an indirect evidence because religion always push people to behave in a virtuous way. Religious people were more likely to experience positive emotion, were less inclined to feel anxiety and depression. That might because religious people got more social support, had higher self-esteem and found more meanings in life. Second, people behave more virtuous, they feel happier. This is the direct evidences. People who donated money or spent his own money on others was found happier that who spent money on himself. Prosocial spending make effectively good influence on human emotion and meaning system （Duma, Aknin, ＆ Norton, 2008）. This might be an evolved psychological mechanism that we are born to be good. In other research, young kids were happier giving treats away than they were when receiving the same treats themselves （Aknin, Hamlin, ＆ Dunn, 2012）. Volunteers also happier than control group in other studies. Writing also can boost human happiness, wrote down his own moral behavior several times per week, the author will be happier （Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, ＆ Schkade, 2005）. These behavioral effect also found on children participants. Whether doing a moral behavior could improve happiness or not is still an ontology question. Another important question is about the epistemology. That is, how we judge a person who obtain virtues, he is happy or not when compare to other persons who do not obtain virtues. Experimental results showed that, people tend to judge good people happier than bad people. In one condition, behavioral agents was described as a Red Cross field doctor who had both positive and negative mental states. In the other condition, behavioral agent was described as a Nazi death camp doctor who experienced the exact same type of mental states （Phillips, Nyholm, ＆ Liao, in press）. Comparing the two conditions, participants were significantly more likely to agree with the statement that Richard is happy when he was described as a Red Cross doctor than when he was described as a Nazi doctor （Phillips, Nyholm, ＆ Liao, in press）. Moreover, when researchers showed a more ambiguous moral situation, like a gay man who, though conflicted because of a religious upbringing, began dating another man, the results were more interesting （Phillips, Nyholm, ＆ Liao, in press）. When looking at how judgments of immorality and distress predicted judgments of happiness, the judgments of immorality predicted judgments of happiness in a way that was independent of perceived distress. Both judgments of distress and judgments of immorality influenced attributions of happiness, the impact of normative judgments on judgments of happiness was not due to the difference in perceived distress. A series of studies testified this effect. In our belief, we tend to think virtue is the pre-requisite of happiness. Empirical research explained the relationship between virtue and happiness. But the problem of casual attribution of virtue on happiness, and the problem of instrumentality of virtue on happiness still need more research to give a satisfying answer. Because the attribution process is hard to identify in virtue and happiness, which one is the cause and which one is the result is hard to anscuer. Or if the causation process is a circle, we need more theories and studies to identify the complex mechanisms.