What Is The Difference Between Happiness And Pleasure?

What makes you content with your life? Most people will answer with various reasons such as faith, family, job, money, things like that. All of those reasons that people give are they giving those people happiness or pleasure? Happiness and pleasure are two very different concepts that people use or think about every day without knowing the real difference either because they have never thought about it, or they just are unaware of the differences. Happiness is a state of well being determined by your positive mental and emotional stability at a given time. Each individual person decides and reports when they have achieved a state of happiness. In a New York Times article "A Formula for Happiness" by Arthur Brooks, it is reported that after …show more content…
Pleasure is the feeling of satisfaction or enjoyment gained through a positive feeling. So, the difference is that happiness can give pleasure, but pleasure can only give an individual a moment of happiness. In a Huffington Post article, "The Difference between Happiness and Pleasure" by Margaret Paul, it is reported that, "pleasure has to do with the positive experience of the senses." This means the moments of happiness pleasure produces are external, and are easier to attain than real happiness. Those moments of pleasure being easier to attain can be compared to a drug. All people want to be happy, it is the ultimate goal of life. So, these pleasure moments are like a drug in that they give us a taste of the whole goal. People will want more and more of those moments just like an …show more content…
In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article, "Aristotle 's Ethics," his ideas of pleasure are summed up and explained to be that, "a happy life must include pleasure," but that they are different. On the other hand a more modern philosopher, John Locke, considered happiness to be the same as pleasure. These two intellectuals had very different views on the relationship between happiness and pleasure. I think most people today would agree with Aristotle on this point. This is an example of the distinctions made between happiness and pleasure according to two different intellectuals years