Research shows that doing good deeds, makes us feel happy.
I am a Humanist educator. I teach people how and why to be moral and why being moral will help lead to happiness. This is philosophy. Humanist philosophy. But it turns out that this approach is backed up by – science.
YourMorals – is a empirically based blog about morality. They publish and comment on research into morality. They recently published a wonderful article about every day moral life – see (http://www.yourmorals.org/blog/2014/09/some-good-news-about-everyday-moral-life/)
This article is about a study of 1,252 participants who were asked 5 times a day if they had experienced any moral or immoral acts and how they felt.
Their main findings?
Participants reported committing and receiving more moral than immoral acts but learned about twice as many immoral than moral acts. In other words, we definitely experience more good than bad, but we like to gossip about the bad.
They also found that most moral or immoral acts were about three dimensions: Honesty, Liberty/oppression, and Self Discipline. The first two is how people interact with you – the third is how we ourselves decide to act.
Finally, it’s not surprising to find that “being treated morally increased one’s happiness and being treated immorally decreased it. What is more intriguing is that the greatest increase in a sense of purpose and meaning in life came after reports of having acted morally oneself.”
What can we take away from all this? Well first, that I am right and you should read my books on Humanism.
2nd, that morality really is all about how we ourselves want to be treated. And that the best way to ensure that others treat us well is to do and be good ourselves.
But most importantly, if you want to be happy, you have to have a purpose in life that involves being good and helping others. Or as a Humanist would say – life a life of ethical fulfillment that aspires to the greater good of humanity!
Or to quote the article: “our moment-to-moment happiness depends on (how we are treated by) others, our larger sense of purpose in life is our own doing.” Be good my friends.
I am a Humanist educator. I teach people how and why to be moral and why being moral will help lead to happiness. This is philosophy. Humanist philosophy. But it turns out that this approach is backed up by – science.
YourMorals – is a empirically based blog about morality. They publish and comment on research into morality. They recently published a wonderful article about every day moral life – see (http://www.yourmorals.org/blog/2014/09/some-good-news-about-everyday-moral-life/)
This article is about a study of 1,252 participants who were asked 5 times a day if they had experienced any moral or immoral acts and how they felt.
Their main findings?
Participants reported committing and receiving more moral than immoral acts but learned about twice as many immoral than moral acts. In other words, we definitely experience more good than bad, but we like to gossip about the bad.
They also found that most moral or immoral acts were about three dimensions: Honesty, Liberty/oppression, and Self Discipline. The first two is how people interact with you – the third is how we ourselves decide to act.
Finally, it’s not surprising to find that “being treated morally increased one’s happiness and being treated immorally decreased it. What is more intriguing is that the greatest increase in a sense of purpose and meaning in life came after reports of having acted morally oneself.”
What can we take away from all this? Well first, that I am right and you should read my books on Humanism.
2nd, that morality really is all about how we ourselves want to be treated. And that the best way to ensure that others treat us well is to do and be good ourselves.
But most importantly, if you want to be happy, you have to have a purpose in life that involves being good and helping others. Or as a Humanist would say – life a life of ethical fulfillment that aspires to the greater good of humanity!
Or to quote the article: “our moment-to-moment happiness depends on (how we are treated by) others, our larger sense of purpose in life is our own doing.” Be good my friends.
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