Being happy by being good with yourself and by maintaining quality relationships with your environment is the foundation of personal development and positive psychology. It even happens to have a name : eudaemonism. The editorial staff of the EVE webmagazine wanted to know more about this philosophical doctrine that makes happiness a common good.
A sensible happiness
Eudemonism has its etymological origin in the ancient Greek term εὐδαιμονία which means " bliss". But then what is the difference with hedonism, which comes from the Greek ἡδονή, which could be translated as " bliss" ?
Both relate well to happiness. But in hedonism, it is enough to enjoy pleasures and spare oneself suffering, whereas in eudaemonism, there is a whole morality of the satisfactions of existence. Eudemonism is a happiness that carries meaning, a reason for being, and prospects for fulfillment.
The Origins of Eudemonism : Ancient Philosophy
A Platonic ideal of " demonic " and virtuous happiness
It all begins with Plato who becomes Socrates' mouthpiece. For the ancestor of Western philosophy, eudaemonism is a demonic happiness, that is to say, one that goes beyond the human, bringing him closer to God through the work of wisdom and virtue. " The individual who is beautiful and good is happy ," he tells us in the Gorgias, " while he who is unjust and evil is unhappy ."
The hedonists of his time laughed at this, as the opponents of " political correctness " would perhaps be indignant today: what a sinister vision of happiness that requires so much morality ! Not all pleasures are moral, far from it.
Aristotle's Intellectualist Eudaemonism: Happiness is in the Truth
The proponents of immediate enjoyment and sometimes guilty pleasures are hardly reassured by Aristotle's conception of eudaemonism: for the Peripatetic philosopher, happiness is to be sought on the side of truth and to be found within oneself. A hint : truth is found in balance, or even moderation, as well as in reason.
To be a happy Aristotelian, one must not seek satisfaction of one's needs and above all not form opinions. One must live as a " wise mind", attentive to the outside world but independent of the influences that the environment could infuse with corrupting in the intimate and deep quest for truth. Ooh la ! The nerd is tying his brain in knots and in the meantime, glorification of the feeling of friendship aside, we still haven't had much fun !
Sensualist Epicureanism: The Return of the Body in the Quest for Happiness
It gets a little better with Epicurus for whom happiness would be like a fluid that passes from the body to the mind and from the mind to the body, provided that one is aware of one's luck (not to say, without fear of anachronism, of the kif that it is) to eat well, to sleep well, to breathe a good air, to feel the caress of the sun or a gentle breeze, to see his needs satisfied and his desires satisfied.
So, we reject suffering in the field of frustration or an insufficient ability to be satisfied with what we have. Vulgarly, one could say that happiness is in the glass half full as long as the water is clear and healthy.
Stoic Happiness: An Ethics of Interiority
For the Stoic Zeno, happiness is also a fluid, more precisely " a good flow of life " that circulates when we live in good understanding with nature, and more broadly with our environment. Nothing is insurmountable, neither hunger, nor poverty, nor abandonment, nor the disasters that befall them... We can always try to take action to protect ourselves, but nothing is guaranteed : a hazard, chance, the harmful will of others can destroy our efforts to build a secure future.
What does not depend on oneself imposes itself and we must accept it by working on what depends on oneself, namely our thoughts, our judgments, our will. Integrity gives the strength to build one's " inner citadel", an unattainable intimacy that empowers the ability to be happy. I can be imprisoned, abused, tortured, but I remain myself and can draw on my solid personal resources to resist attacks.
Eudemonism and theories of commitment
Spinoza : living happily and socially engaged
In the seventeenth century, Spinoza returned to the subject, long neglected by Western philosophy, of happiness. He wants to build an ethic of joy. At the heart of it, he places desire. Identifying what one really wants, what transports desire and passionately motivates one's action (as a free and autonomous individual, of course), is the way to happiness !
And of a radiant happiness, because desire is interactional, directed towards the relationship and mobilized in action. To be happy, you have to make others happy too. You have to give (the pleasure of giving as the florists say), share, get involved.
Eudemonism and Utilitarianism : The Shared Interest of Sensible Causes
Utilitarian economists and their liberal descendants applaud: the one who finds his or her interests (a slight bifurcation of the Spinozist notion of desire) has heart for his or her work. Nothing beats the intrinsic motivations of the individual to give the best of himself.
A whole logic of productivity stems from this: bringing well-being to work, listening to the need for motives superior to the mere income of a food income, nurturing meaningful missions, it's a good employee-employer deal. One does not count his or her hours, the other gives him or her space-time to create value parallel to the primary object of the company. But you never know, the expertise and experience acquired by an employee committed to the ecological, solidarity or feminist cause can always be useful...
However, there is a risk of misunderstanding, or even a conflict of loyalty : is the committed person who mobilizes his or her energy in the service of his or her convictions and acquires skills and expertise in his or her eventual militant activity not likely to one day shoot against the camp of the company considered by him/her to be insufficiently virtuous in terms of respect for the environment, Social diversity or professional equality?
Thus, adherence to a cause is implicitly conditioned by the justification of a contribution to performance : feminism must focus on the promotion of a diversity that produces potential for innovation, in-depth knowledge of environmental issues must be put at the service of the company's CSR policy or ecosystem strategy, solidarity sensitivity, enriching knowledge of the field, helping to detect atypical talent profiles and benefiting the humanist image of the organization.
Eudemonism and impact : how to marry meaning, well-being and economic and social performance?
Positive Leadership: Being Good to Do Good
Positive psychology reappropriated eudaemonism in the 1990s. This current with its emphasis on personal development wants to forge individuals who are strengthened in their being-self, who will then be able to have a positive impact on all their environments. The PERMA model developed by the " pope " of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, is symptomatic of this vision : it proposes to rely on one's Positive emotions (P), to Engage (E) in one's present and for one's future, and to influence others through exemplary leadership based on Relational Ecology (R) and respect for each person's need for meaning (Meaning) and Accomplishment (A).
The approach is seductive in that it appeals to common sense : obviously it is preferable to have " leaders of the rope " who are aware, balanced, generous, open to the world and respectful of all...
But positive leadership comes up against a fundamental question : the poorly demonstrated efficiency of the trickle-down principle in " change making ". In other words, what guarantees that the personally more " positive " individual is " positively " impactful on his or her environment ? By what mechanism does the convinced eudaimnism infuse in his company, in his family, in all his relational circles, this spirit combining personal interest in well-being and general interest in living together?
Happiness at work : eudaemonism in action ?
Chief Happiness Officer : generalized eudaemonism mission
And suddenly, the Chief Happiness Officer appeared in the landscape of organizations ! Her job : to ensure that everyone in the company benefits from conditions that are favourable to their well-being, but also to their personal development, and even to their happiness.
Because " Happy employees are half as sick, six times less absent, nine times more loyal, 31% more productive and 55% more creative ," says Laurence Vanhée , star speaker and founder of the consulting firm HappyPerformance , based on various studies from MIT and Harvard. The profession is developing at great speed in organizations : the club that brings them together in France announces no less than 200 large companies equipped with a CHO.
Can we make others happy?
Critics are quick to ironize the possible misinterpretation : can happiness, which is essentially philosophical, complex and free, be objectified in a series of KPIs and summed up as a factor of profitability? " Instead of admitting that happiness is an art of the indirect that occurs or not, depending on parameters that do not always depend on us, it is falsely presented as a goal that is directly attainable, immediately accessible, with recipes to back it up. Nicolas Bouzou and Julia de Funès accuse in their book La Comédie (in)humaine published in September 2018.
Is the company intended to make happiness or business ?
Others denounce a " Care Bear " vision of the company, such as Philippe Schleiter, author of Management : the great return of reality (2017): the expert of change believes that " at work, men and women do not aspire to be pampered, pampered or consoled. On the contrary, they want to be considered as autonomous and responsible beings, capable of taking initiatives, taking up challenges and contributing, through their efforts, to collective works that are beyond them and of which they can take pride. In other words, to ensure the happiness of their employees, the best method is for managers to prefer passion to compassion ."
A eudaimonic approach in its own way, since it is a question of passion, autonomy, meaning, but which calls for the return of a classic leadership, which is above all concerned with economic profitability and only interferes with well-being at work within the strict framework of the legal provisions guaranteeing employees conditions of safety and physical and psychological integrity.
Eudemonism in the service of neo-paternalism ?
In contrast to this conservative-inspired criticism, the authors of Happycratie (2018), Eva Illouz and Edgar Cabanas point to the risk of a neo-paternalism that no longer simply offers sports activities and other distractions to employees as in the era of the industrial revolution, but invades the field of their emotions even in their intimacy, possibly depriving them of distance between professional existence, social existence and personal existence... Or even putting their critical mind to sleep. " Today we govern by the promise of happiness and by the norm of positive feelings. To promise something to someone is to ensure their loyalty. The promise of happiness is a promise made on the condition that we work and transform the self. Working on ourselves is a way of being governed. Eva Illouz said in an interview with Le Monde.
For a empowering and empowering eudaemonism
All this criticism challenges the quality of life at work pros who persist in promoting flexible and empathetic leadership against traditionalist perceptions of vertical authority, while defending themselves from the caricature of " table football " as the alpha and omega of work-pleasure and the suspicions of latent authoritarianism that " happycracy " contains.
In this growing maturity of the discourse on happiness at work, the challenge is no longer to make employees happy for the sole benefit of productivity but to broaden the mission of the company, a stakeholder in society, in particular by integrating its responsibility into the overall empowerment of its employees. This empowerment supported (through training and learning, the right to make mistakes, the possibility of taking part in intrapreneurship programs or other approaches that promote the spirit of initiative) goes hand in hand with a parallel expectation of empowerment of employees, particularly with regard to taking charge of their professional project: The paternalistic enterprise has come to an end, long live the reasoned and autonomous commitment of each individual.
