In a previous post, I took joy to be happiness with respect to our ultimate good. We also spoke about two ways in which happiness is achieved: through the acquisition of a good or the continued possession of a good.

The Aristotelian inside me was unsatisfied with this, for we usually take happiness to be identical with the ultimate good. Clearly in the earlier post I was using the term in a less precise sense. After thinking about it a bit more I realised that what I actually meant by happiness was “pleasure” or “delight”. But then what is delight? Aquinas takes delight to be the appetite’s rest in good. Appetite, here, is the faculty with which we desire the good, and rest presumably involves the achievement of good (either by acquisition or continued possession).

So delight is to good as joy is to ultimate good. This leaves us free to use happiness in the Aristotelian sense, which pleases me greatly. Indeed, we can say that delight is to good as joy is to happiness.

Let’s take the account further. Hope can be taken as expectation with assent. That is, we expect an outcome to occur that we see as good. To compare this with alternatives: expectation with dissent is dread, doubting with assent is wishing, and unknowing (neither expecting nor doubting) with dissent is fear.

Consider hope with respect to our ultimate good.[1] It seems that this hope supports joy, and is to some extent necessary for it. That we’re looking forward to our ultimate good is clearly related to joy, which just is delight in our ultimate good. However, the expectation part is also important. After all, if in our life we contribute to something that we’re not expecting to achieve at the end of the day, then our efforts will seem to be in vain.[2] That the good is ultimate means that joy and hope involve good that is stable, that is, for continued (indeed, indefinite) possession. We don’t always desire goods in a way that we necessarily desire their continued possession. For example, we desire money for the sake of spending it. Because an ultimate good is not desired for the sake of something else, however, we necessarily desire its continued possession. Our joy, then, needs to be proportioned to (1) the goodness and (2) certainty of achieving our ultimate good as well as (3) the stability of that good.

Perhaps this is at the heart of the problem faced in Ecclesiastes. The Teacher is looking everywhere for an appropriate place for his hope, but finds nothing that is good, certain, and lasting.

Notes

1. This is what the New Testament usually means by hope.
2. Or ultimately meaningless. It is no mistake that the word in Ecclesiastes is translated as “meaningless” by some translations and “vanity” by others.