HAPPINESS IN KANT AND ROUSSEAU

Abstract

Most modern philosophers understand happiness fundamentally in terms of the subjective states of pleasure or desire satisfaction; while pre-modern philosophers tend to understand happiness fundamentally in terms of possessing certain objective goods like virtue, which do not reduce to pleasure or desire satisfaction, or engaging in objectively worthwhile activities like doing philosophy76. his paper investigates two modern conceptions of happiness: namely, Kant's and Rousseau's. I argue that their subjectivist conceptions of happiness do not prevent them from recognizing certain objective goods that help us to become happy. In fact, I argue that they both hold that some of the same objective goods that Aristotle thinks happiness consists in - including virtue, the development of our rational powers, and love of others - are either necessary for or at least tend to promote one's own happiness.