Are Americans still convinced that their conception of happiness is a self-evident truth and a universal gospel?
But if the consolatory force of religion had diminished, the need for some conception of happiness that was immune to time had not.
Aristotle, for example, thought that the goal of every human life is "eudamonia", a deep conception of happiness as long-term flourishing, rather than fleeting pleasure.
These rights include the rights to life, liberty, private property, freedom of speech and association, freedom of worship, government by consent, equality under the law, and moral autonomy (the pursuit of one's own conception of happiness, or the "good life").
In keeping with Wharton's historical moment, if I'm asked to imagine life in a networked, commercialised collective, I tend to retreat into the conception of happiness offered by Isabel Archer in Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady: "A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can't see".
And this is more the Aristotelian conception of happiness, the happiness that comes from the experience of your own unfolding, the experience of yourself as a growing and developing person, the experience of yourself as someone who can become a better version of yourself.
But it's difficult to know if these self-reports are authoritative since many may not have coherent, consistent or accurate conceptions of happiness to begin with.
For richer and more sensitive conceptions of happiness, we need to turn to philosophers, who, from Plato and Aristotle, through Hume and Mill, to Hegel and Nietzsche, have provided some of the deepest insight into the possible meanings of happiness.
Even if empirical investigation could discover the full range of possible conceptions of happiness, there would still remain the question of which conception we ought to try to achieve.
We have focused so far on understanding Mill's version of utilitarianism, especially his conceptions of happiness and duty.
