MT38. 17 May 2005.
Copyright © 2005 by Kevin Sharpe. All rights reserved.
Unaccepted submission for a conference presentation.

The Empirical Approaches to Happiness and their Challenges to Theology

by

Kevin Sharpe

Graduate College, Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio
Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, Oxford

10 Shirelake Close, Oxford OX1 1SN, United Kingdom
kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
www.ksharpe.com

ABSTRACT.

Genes and circumstances equally contribute to a person’s happiness at any moment, but genes cause about eighty percent of the range of happiness they can feel. Genes do this by setting the production and release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and the neurotransmitter serotonin to create the feeling of misery. The scientific story continues. Evolutionary psychologists have mapped the evolutionary means by which these genes arose, and social psychologists suggest that happiness largely depends on feeling meaning in life. This presentation explores such matters and relates them to the idea of God as the source of human meaning and happiness.

PROPOSAL.

For each of us, our happiness (as subjective well-being) fluctuates within a small range called a ‘set point’ or ‘set range’ that our genes largely determine. The set range represents a kind of preset value with which we are born and to which our level of happiness inevitably returns. Support for this genetic set range comes from a series of twin studies, which show that identical twins attain the same level of happiness 44% of the time, while fraternal twins reach the same level only 8% of the time. These data show that the broad heritability of happiness is 40 to 50%. Heritability raises even higher for happiness in the long term. Other studies show that how one feels right now is about equally genetic and circumstantial, but how one will feel on average over the next ten years is fully 80% because of one’s genes. The momentous events – winning the lottery or giving birth to a first child – and the desperately tragic – losing a spouse or becoming permanently paralyzed – usually have no long lasting effect. At the time, they raise or lower happiness levels but their effects disperse quickly, within a year or even three months.

This is a behavioral genetics approach to happiness. A genetic view looks to the action of two neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin. Their effects considerably affect happiness levels. Genes influence their prevalence, scarcity, and activity, and, in turn, whatever behaviors and feelings these neurotransmitters induce.

Other sciences beyond behavioral genetics, genetics, and neuroscience contribute to this discussion. Social psychology explores activities that activate our happiness. Four character traits tend to make for happiness: happy people (1) have high self-esteem; (2) feel optimistic; (3) are extroverts; and (4) feel in control of their lives. Csikszentmihalyi, for instance, considers being in a state of flow can lead to feeling happy: when we find ourselves absorbed in an activity and time flies, we feel happy, satisfied, with a sense of meaning, purpose, and control. Social psychology also tells us about things that fail to make us happy. Happiness does not rely significantly on external factors: economic class, age, gender, education, or race. Wealth does not correlate with happiness, except in the very poorest countries.

The science of evolutionary psychology has something to say about happiness too. Evolutionarily, we are designed to pursue happiness; and the attainment of Darwinian goals – sex, status, and so on – often brings happiness, at least for a while. Still, the frequent absence of happiness is what keeps us pursuing it, and thus makes us productive. The search for happiness plays the key role.

A materialist focus shines through the empirical approaches to happiness. Our biology directs us into our passionate love affair with happiness. Scientific and theological approaches to happiness also clash over matters of definitions and timing: for instance, many religious traditions think that nonphysical happiness in the life-to-come steals the show over any possible happiness we may feel in our earthly lives.

How do scientists and spiritual thinkers react to such clashes?

Scientists usually take little notice of insights from theologies. On the other hand, a number of different reactions appear from theologians. The ‘Let’s-Get-’Em’ response points to inadequacy in the science; its results do not replicate, they may say, or twin studies are questionable. Other critics concentrate on the ‘There’s-More-To-Us-Than-A-Bunch-Of-Genes’ response, claiming that geneticists and their popularizers ignore the real subjective realm by confounding human experience with mere physical phenomena. The third approach, the ‘Let’s-Have-’Em-Both’ response, represents a more sophisticated version of subjectivist criticisms. Proponents of this admit the validity of results from behavioral genetics and other sciences, but then they set up a dualism: on one side lies the mind with its feelings and sensations, and on the other lies the brain with its neurotransmitters. They create a unique spiritual status for happiness and thereby divorce it from the biological stuff of genes and brains. A last ditch response to scientific explanations – the ‘Let’s-Hope-It’ll-All-Go-Away’ approach – employs avoidance tactics. Theologians in this camp play a wait-and-see game: we will only approach gene studies seriously when and if someone else adequately answers all possible criticisms.

However, theologians need not adopt any of the above tactics. Scientific and theological approaches to happiness can co-exist in that the genetic set range still leaves room for the affects of other things such as mind, free will, and spirituality. Determinism does not necessarily rule the day. We need to build on, not deny, this compatibility. But what concessions must each side make? We also need to ask different and not defensive questions. Do the genes of the spiritually enlightened predispose them toward great happiness? How do genes and neurotransmitters relate to an afterlife? Trying to answer such questions may help us move beyond the conflagration between the science and the theology. Scientists and theologians can work together toward a richer, more meaningful account of the nature of happiness.