Yuval Eytan

This article argues that John Stuart Mill’s conception of happiness represents a fundamental shift from closed, static ideals of the meaning of life to an open, dynamic framework centered on perpetual self-development. It explains Mill’s critiques of Jeremy Bentham and Auguste Comte as expressing the view that truth is inherently dynamic and progressive, which becomes the foundation for reconceiving human flourishing. Rather than thinking of happiness in terms of desire satisfaction, pleasures, and positive emotions, Mill articulates an ideal of the meaning of life based on originality, creativity, struggle, freedom, and progress—elements that align him more closely with the ideal of authenticity than with traditional utilitarian theories of happiness. This interpretation challenges conventional readings that position Mill as merely refining utilitarianism, suggesting instead that Mill’s mental breakdown was a turning point that fundamentally transformed the question of what makes life meaningful.

בעשור האחרון אנו עדים להטמעה שיטתית של עקרונות הפסיכולוגיה החיובית במערכות חינוך פורמליות, לרבות הקמת תוכניות הכשרה ייעודיות לאנשי חינוך, דוגמת "פסיכולוגיה חיובית בבתי ספר יסודיים" באוניברסיטת רייכמן. תוכניות אלו נשענות על פיתוחיה התיאורטיים של הפסיכולוגיה החיובית, ובעיקר על המעבר מן התפיסה הדיכוטומית שאפיינה את הגל הראשון, לעבר עמדה דיאלקטית המאפיינת את הגל השני – השואף לאושר מתוך הכרה בחשיבותו של הסבל כחלק מתהליך ההתפתחות ומציאת משמעות אישית לקיום. מאמר זה מבקש לבקר את השימוש הרווח בדיאלקטיקה ההגליאנית כמקור לחזון חינוכי של אושר. אטען שמהפכנותו של הגל בכל הנוגע להבנת האמת כתהליך דינאמי וחי, התבטאה בתפישה השוללת את הבחנה חותכת בין תהליכי חינוך לתכליתם. המאמר מציע, אפוא, לראות בהגותו של הגל יסוד מרכזי להבנת החינוך כתהליך מתמשך המלווה את חיי האדם לכל אורכם, תהליך שאינו חותר לשחרור מכאב ומרגשות שליליים לטובת מקסום הנאות ורגשות חיוביים, אלא להעמקת עולם הרגש באמצעות פיתוח כישורים אישיים ויכולות אינטלקטואליות. האדם מוכר כיצור שחירותו מתבטאת בנטייתו הטבעית לחינוך, המובנת כתשוקה רדיקאלית להעמקה בלתי פוסקת של יחסיו עם עצמו ועם זולתו.

Despite the many interpretive disputes regarding John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of education, there is wide agreement that Mill saw education as the most necessary and significant means of promoting human happiness. I challenge this view by claiming that Mill belongs to a broad philosophical trend of his time that rejected the conception of human nature that stands at the foundation of the modern ideal of happiness according to which human freedom is expressed in the autonomous pursuit of self-satisfaction. Instead, he embraced an understanding of humans as unique beings whose freedom is expressed in the development of original characters. I argue that the change in Mill’s perception of truth that occurred during his mental crisis led him to understand these processes as open—they are not subject to any static or universal purpose since freedom is understood as the ability of individuals to alter their purposes according to the internal changes they experience. My claim regarding the negation of happiness in Mill’s thought provides an answer to the question, largely neglected in the literature, of why, unlike many thinkers associated with the tradition to which he belonged, he chose not to elucidate the operative steps necessary to promote happiness in a book dedicated to education. I conclude by claiming that his use of the utilitarian lexicon is not accidental and does not reveal internal contradictions, but is a tactical move intended to enable the optimal conditions for creating significant change in people.

This article provides a constructive critique of positive psychology, focusing on its second wave, which attempts to offer a more developed position than the first but still lacks a philosophical foundation anchored in an understanding of the inherent tensions between dialectical processes of authentic self-development and meaningful happiness or flourishing. Much criticism has been leveled against the so-called “tyranny of positive thinking,” and many agree that one of positive psychology’s most significant flaws is its consistent refusal to participate in any deep philosophical discussion. I argue that both the criticism of positive psychology and the approach it criticizes lack in-depth dialogue regarding human nature, freedom, and purpose in modern thought. Although the second wave tends to rely on Hegel’s dialectical worldview, I know of no reference in the positive psychology literature, even in works by its critics, to the fact that, from Hegel’s perspective, the ideal of happiness should be rejected. The lack of attention to the significance of this rejection, which profoundly influenced perceptions of individualism among nineteenth-century thinkers and significantly impacted the field of humanistic psychology in the twentieth century, points to significant failures that must be addressed if positive psychology is to preserve its relevance.

It has recently been claimed that Marx’s aspiration to achieve happiness by reducing human suffering makes it possible to dismantle the conceptual walls between his approach, contemporary socialist approaches, and Eastern and Western perceptions of happiness. In contrast, this essay argues that Marx’s notion of freedom not only cannot be conceived as a means of achieving happiness but actually contradicts the possibility of happiness. The essay instead interprets the dialectical negation of the ideal of happiness in a way intended not to reinforce the walls between Marx’s approach and different worldviews but to reveal a common denominator relevant to different streams of nineteenth-century thought on this subject. Marx’s own conclusion that satisfaction is not a natural purpose of human existence originates in a dialectical approach regarding human needs that expresses radical criticism toward the hierarchical binary conception of pleasure and pain and of physical and spiritual needs.

The roots of the ideal of authenticity in modern Western thought are numerous and complex. In this article, I explore their development in relation to Rousseau’s paradoxical conclusion that complete satisfaction is an aspiration that not only cannot be fulfilled but whose actual realization will make a person miserable. I argue that there is an unresolved tension between the notion of humans as creatures who by nature strive to eliminate suffering to achieve static serenity and the idea that their natural goal in society is to constantly change and enrich themselves. The purpose of this article is not to construct another pessimistic interpretation according to which our most profound desire – happiness – cannot be achieved, but rather, by understanding natural inequality as a historical phenomenon, to shed light on Rousseau’s idea that happiness should be rejected because it contradicts the new foundation of morality: the realization of people’s uniqueness.