Heroic Versus Hedonic Happiness

Two formulas for happiness. Two very different results.

Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer

Key points

• Happiness may be a universal human pursuit, but the way we pursue happiness varies.
• The modern formula we follow for happiness differs dramatically from the formula proposed by classic thinkers.
• The hedonic happiness formula is easy to follow but hard to live with due to the mental health consequences.
• The heroic happiness formula is hard to follow but easy to live with due the mental health benefits.

Happiness may be the only universal human pursuit. No matter how much any given two people might differ in their biological, psychological, cultural, and social circumstances, each of them is almost certain to dedicate much of their life towards improving their personal happiness and the happiness of those they most care about.

Even though this aspiration towards happiness appears to be intrinsic to the human condition, however, the method by which we pursue happiness makes a difference. In fact, as this post explains, the formula you and I follow for happiness may make more of a difference to our health and quality of life than just about anything else we do.

How are we doing in the pursuit of happiness?

We live in paradoxical times. Like a modern incarnation of "A Tale of Two Cities"¹, we're experiencing on one hand an era of unparalleled "happiness", at least by objective macroeconomic and health metrics. Examine from afar the stock market value, home prices, employment statistics, and access to smartphones and the internet, for example, and it is difficult not to conclude that Americans must be enjoying a period of unrivalled prosperity. Similarly, we have doubled our average lifespan in a single century, invented nuclear and green energy sources, created societal safety nets for healthcare and retirement, and almost entirely eradicated conditions such as smallpox, starvation, and tuberculosis that historically threatened countless lives each year. By all these big-picture standards, we should be happier and healthier than ever.

Yet this argument for peak happiness and health is countered by indicators suggesting that American happiness may be at all-time lows. Mental health — whether defined by conventional psychiatric diagnosis such as depression or by nonclinical symptoms such as loneliness — has been declining for at least two decades (not just since the COVID pandemic)². Suicide rates show the same worsening pattern³. And "deaths of despair" in the form of addiction, poor health behaviors, and drug overdoses have rapidly emerged to become a part of everyday language among public health scientists⁴. If these mental health metrics are somehow insufficient, the physical health evidence that more than 90% of Americans are now living with one or more forms of metabolic dysfunction⁵ is at least as worrisome for anyone believing that health and well-being are the foundation of the American Dream.

21st Century America has somehow simultaneously become the best and the worst of times for happiness. The question is how to reconcile these co-existing realities. Even better, how can we correct course for those feeling off track in their happiness pursuit (often without knowing why)?

Heroic versus hedonic happiness

The answer posed here is that our classic formula for happiness has been slowly and stealthily replaced with an alternate happiness formula designed to promote consumerism and economic growth instead of individual or group prosperity. These classic and modern happiness formulas can be called Heroic Happiness and Hedonic Happiness, respectively (see Figures below).

Heroic happiness — for most of history — was simply called happiness. When great thinkers of the past from Eastern and Western philosophies spoke and wrote about happiness, for example, they distinguished human happiness from basic pleasures such as food, sex, and drug use. Aristotle, for instance, described happiness ("eudaimonia") not as a feeling of pleasure but as a lifetime process of cultivating virtues such as health, friendship, knowledge, and moral development. Among Eastern thinkers, long before we had the science to prove him correct, the Buddha recognized that no material reward or satisfaction of desires could provide lasting happiness. He instead believed (similarly to Aristotle) that happiness could only be achieved through a process of mental and spiritual development.

Heroic Happiness was similarly the intended meaning of Thomas Jefferson, when he scribed the famous "pursuit of happiness" clause in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson himself borrowed the "pursuit of happiness" phrasing from the writings of 17th century English philosopher, John Locke. Like the above happiness philosophers, Locke separated "true happiness" — resulting from actions that improve well-being — from "imaginary happiness" derived from simple pleasures (that frequently worsen individual and societal well-being).

Yet after two hundred years of Heroic Happiness as a founding ideal in the U.S., our happiness formula began to shift in the mid-20th century to the Hedonic formula shown above. Notably, this change did not result from a single source, but from many. It didn't happen overnight, but gradually. Radio, for example, became television, then 24-7 cable, and finally binge-watching on self-advancing streaming platforms. Fresh food became ultra-processed food. The latter began innocently enough as a means of stabilizing the food supply but — empowered by neuroscience breakthroughs that revealed how to stimulate the reward pathways in our brain — became intentionally designed to promote excess consumption and cravings⁶. The time and physical barriers that stood in the way of obtaining pleasure from sources such as gambling, shopping, and drug and alcohol were minimized or even eliminated by online shopping, same-day delivery, and computers. And smartphones and social media rapidly evolved beyond mere tools for enhancing interpersonal connection in order to promote advertising and harvest personal data in the creation of ever more compulsively used technologies.

In the face of any one of these changes alone, the effects likely would have been manageable. But combined in overlapping and ever more intrusive forms, they've created a profound cultural shift in how we pursue happiness. And despite their surface-level differences, the common consequences of these changes are more isolation, more emphasis on the superficial, and more reliance on short-term pleasures to feel good and lessen pain. An individual and collective shift back to the Heroic Happiness model is sorely needed.

Summary

The best-selling author Stephen Covey once said that "If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster". He could have said the same thing about happiness if we're seduced by the Hedonic Happiness formula.