The phenomenon happiness: Prolegomena to a phenomenological description.

Abstract

This article argues that phenomenology should investigate the phenomenon human happiness because this distinctive style of philosophizing has the potential to make a special contribution to the determination of the highest human good. This distinctive contribution is a function of the phenomenological method, which generally involves the performance of the phenomenological epoche and the execution of the transcendental reduction with respect to the acts of consciousness and their correlatively constituted objects. By means of an axiological application of the phenomenological method specifically to this fundamental ethical and practical question, it becomes possible to distinguish in a rigorous manner between what people think or feel happiness is and what it genuinely is. For example, the phenomenological approach to happiness enables people to neutralize their natural attitude toward the perceived highest good, in which it is given naively and straightforwardly, and to adopt the transcendental attitude ...