The 'Right' to
Happiness
Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.
We do not have a right to be happy.
The assumption that we do lies behind the utopian turmoil of our times.
An amusing citation from Margaret Thatcher reads: "The problem with
socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." The
socialists, however, were not the only ones who would run out of other
people's money. Democracies are quite capable of duplicating this
feat.
The question is this: What entitles us to acquire other people's money
in the first place? Do other people have any money that is not ours if
we "need" it? Taxation, with or without representation, is about this
issue. Who decides what we need? Who gets what is taken from us? On
what grounds do they deserve it?
C. S. Lewis said that no one has a right to happiness. Our [American]
Declaration only says that we have a right to pursue it. Whether we
attain it is not something that falls under the perplexing language of
"rights." If someone else guarantees my right to be happy, what am I?
Surely not a human being, whose happiness, as Aristotle said, includes
his own activity, not someone else's.
In a world of rights, no one can give anything to anybody else.
Everything is owed to me if I do not already have it. If I am not
happy, I am a victim of someone else's negligence. A "rights society"
is litigious. If I am unhappy, it has nothing to do with me; my
unhappiness is caused by someone else who has violated my rights, they
say.
Unhappy people witness the violation of their rights by someone else;
their unhappiness does not involve them. Their mode is not, "What can
I do for others?" but, "What must they do for me to make me happy?"
In his Ethics, Aristotle remarked that, if happiness were a gift of
the gods, surely they would give it to us. No Christian can read such
a line without pause. Is not the whole essence of our faith that we
have no "right" either to existence itself or to a happy existence?
Some things must first be given to us, no doubt -- including our very
selves, which we do not cause.
Indeed, the whole essence of Revelation is that we do not have a right
to the eternal life that God has promised to us. We cannot achieve it
by ourselves, because it is not a product of our own making or
thinking. God does not violate our "rights" by not giving us either
existence or happiness; creation is not an act of justice.
The doctrine of grace opposes the notion that we have a right to
happiness. It is not even something that we deserve or can work for.
At first sight, this primacy of gift and grace seems to lessen our
dignity, which surely ought to include some input on our part.
Christianity says that indeed this "givenness" is the case. We are
given what we have no right to receive. This "givenness" should make
us like the Giver, should incite us to something more than our own
"rights." Happiness evidently lies beyond rights. We can only speak of
a "right" to happiness with many distinctions.
The doctrine of grace opposes the notion that we have a right to happiness.
What was the point of Margaret Thatcher's quip about running out of
someone else's money? Some do demand someone else's money. From whence
does this demand arise? From those who claim that they have a right to
happiness. If they do not have what others have, it is a sign, not of
one's own failure to embrace the habits and ways to produce what is
needed, but of someone unjustly having what I think I need. Thus, I do
not have to earn what I need. The mere fact that I do not have it is
enough to suggest that someone else is preventing me from enjoying my
"right" to be happy.
Much of the world is filled with what I call "gapism." The so-called
gap between the rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots, is a sign,
not of the natural order in which some know more and work more, but of
a dire conspiracy to deprive me of what is my right. So the purpose of
"rights" is to correct the world's "wrongs." A divine mission flashes
in the eyes of those who would presume to make us happy by giving us
our "rights." People lacking the "right" justify the takers.
So we do not have a right to be happy. The assumption that we do lies
behind the utopian turmoil of our times. The attempt to guarantee our
right to be happy invariably leads to economic bankruptcy and societal
coercion. By misunderstanding happiness and its gift-response
condition, we impose on the political order a mission it cannot
fulfill. We undermine that limited temporal happiness we might achieve
if we are virtuous, prudent, and sensible in this finite world.
________________________________________
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Father James V. Schall, S.J. "The 'Right' to Happiness." Crisis
(February 3, 2009)
Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.
We do not have a right to be happy.
The assumption that we do lies behind the utopian turmoil of our times.
An amusing citation from Margaret Thatcher reads: "The problem with
socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." The
socialists, however, were not the only ones who would run out of other
people's money. Democracies are quite capable of duplicating this
feat.
The question is this: What entitles us to acquire other people's money
in the first place? Do other people have any money that is not ours if
we "need" it? Taxation, with or without representation, is about this
issue. Who decides what we need? Who gets what is taken from us? On
what grounds do they deserve it?
C. S. Lewis said that no one has a right to happiness. Our [American]
Declaration only says that we have a right to pursue it. Whether we
attain it is not something that falls under the perplexing language of
"rights." If someone else guarantees my right to be happy, what am I?
Surely not a human being, whose happiness, as Aristotle said, includes
his own activity, not someone else's.
In a world of rights, no one can give anything to anybody else.
Everything is owed to me if I do not already have it. If I am not
happy, I am a victim of someone else's negligence. A "rights society"
is litigious. If I am unhappy, it has nothing to do with me; my
unhappiness is caused by someone else who has violated my rights, they
say.
Unhappy people witness the violation of their rights by someone else;
their unhappiness does not involve them. Their mode is not, "What can
I do for others?" but, "What must they do for me to make me happy?"
In his Ethics, Aristotle remarked that, if happiness were a gift of
the gods, surely they would give it to us. No Christian can read such
a line without pause. Is not the whole essence of our faith that we
have no "right" either to existence itself or to a happy existence?
Some things must first be given to us, no doubt -- including our very
selves, which we do not cause.
Indeed, the whole essence of Revelation is that we do not have a right
to the eternal life that God has promised to us. We cannot achieve it
by ourselves, because it is not a product of our own making or
thinking. God does not violate our "rights" by not giving us either
existence or happiness; creation is not an act of justice.
The doctrine of grace opposes the notion that we have a right to
happiness. It is not even something that we deserve or can work for.
At first sight, this primacy of gift and grace seems to lessen our
dignity, which surely ought to include some input on our part.
Christianity says that indeed this "givenness" is the case. We are
given what we have no right to receive. This "givenness" should make
us like the Giver, should incite us to something more than our own
"rights." Happiness evidently lies beyond rights. We can only speak of
a "right" to happiness with many distinctions.
The doctrine of grace opposes the notion that we have a right to happiness.
What was the point of Margaret Thatcher's quip about running out of
someone else's money? Some do demand someone else's money. From whence
does this demand arise? From those who claim that they have a right to
happiness. If they do not have what others have, it is a sign, not of
one's own failure to embrace the habits and ways to produce what is
needed, but of someone unjustly having what I think I need. Thus, I do
not have to earn what I need. The mere fact that I do not have it is
enough to suggest that someone else is preventing me from enjoying my
"right" to be happy.
Much of the world is filled with what I call "gapism." The so-called
gap between the rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots, is a sign,
not of the natural order in which some know more and work more, but of
a dire conspiracy to deprive me of what is my right. So the purpose of
"rights" is to correct the world's "wrongs." A divine mission flashes
in the eyes of those who would presume to make us happy by giving us
our "rights." People lacking the "right" justify the takers.
So we do not have a right to be happy. The assumption that we do lies
behind the utopian turmoil of our times. The attempt to guarantee our
right to be happy invariably leads to economic bankruptcy and societal
coercion. By misunderstanding happiness and its gift-response
condition, we impose on the political order a mission it cannot
fulfill. We undermine that limited temporal happiness we might achieve
if we are virtuous, prudent, and sensible in this finite world.
________________________________________
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Father James V. Schall, S.J. "The 'Right' to Happiness." Crisis
(February 3, 2009)
Concurrence and Expansion on Fr. Schall's "'Right' to Happiness" Piece
Fr. Schall says it
right when he inserts,
"The doctrine of
grace opposes the notion that we have a right to
happiness. It is not
even something that we deserve or can work for.
At first sight, this primacy of gift and grace seems to lessen our
dignity, which surely ought to include some input on our part.
Christianity says that indeed this "givenness" is the case. We are
given what we have no right to receive. This "givenness" should make
us like the Giver, should incite us to something more than our own
"rights." Happiness evidently lies beyond rights. We can only speak of
a "right" to happiness with many distinctions.
The doctrine of grace opposes the notion that we have a right to happiness."
At first sight, this primacy of gift and grace seems to lessen our
dignity, which surely ought to include some input on our part.
Christianity says that indeed this "givenness" is the case. We are
given what we have no right to receive. This "givenness" should make
us like the Giver, should incite us to something more than our own
"rights." Happiness evidently lies beyond rights. We can only speak of
a "right" to happiness with many distinctions.
The doctrine of grace opposes the notion that we have a right to happiness."
______________________________________________
Ratzinger nailed the point when he was trying to get at the source of joy. He wrote: "the root of man's joy is the harmony he enjoys with himself. He lives in this affirmation. And only one who can accept himself can also accept the thou, can accept the world. The reason why an individual cannot accept the thou, cannot come to terms with him, is that he does not like his own I and, for that reason, cannot accept a thou.
"Something strange happens here. We have seen that the inability to
accept one's I leads
to the inability to accept a thou. But
how does one go about affirming, assenting to, one's I? The answer may perhaps be
unexpected: We cannot do so by our own efforts alone. Of ourselves, we cannot
come to terms with ourselves. Our I becomes
acceptable to us only if it has first become acceptable to another I. We can love oursevles only if we
have first been loved by someone else. The life a mother gives to her child is
not just physical life, she gives total life when she takes the child’s tears
and turns them into smiles. It is only when life has been accepted and is
perceived as accepted that it becomes also acceptable. Man is that strange
creature that needs not just physical birth but also appreciation if he is to
subsist" (Principles of Catholic Theology Ignatius [1987] 79-80).
The
metaphysical grounding of this is the revelation that the human person has been
created in the image and likeness of the divine Persons, concretely, the Son.
And that the divine Persons are pure, subsisting Relations. They are not
substances as individuals, but actions. [The Father is the
action of engendering the Son, and the Son is the action of obeying and
glorifying the Father]. Joy and happiness are something we
"are" if we achieve the state of being who we are.
But what we are is relation.
As creatures we exist as individuals. But that is not who we are as persons
(subsistently). We have to grow and expand into relation in order to achieve
that. So, happiness/joy (I don't know how to really distinguish them) is
something that happens to us when we are loved by another and when we transcend
ourselves in love and service to others (not “self-referential” and going to
the “peripheries” in the language of Francis).
I think,
properly speaking, we have a right to be loved; and we have a right to serve
and love the others. Happiness and joy are necessary consequences of those
actions of relation asself-transcendence. Therefore, properly speaking, we do not have a right to
joy or happiness as such. We do have the responsibility and mission of becoming
who we are meant to be.
Rev. Robert A. Connor - robertaconnor@gmail.com
Rev. Robert A. Connor - robertaconnor@gmail.com
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