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Kevin Corcoran Happiness

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Recommended: Aristotle's understanding of happiness

In the informative article, “Happiness on the Brain, the Neuroscience of Happiness” author Kevin Corcoran begins his attempt to explain what happiness truly is by first identifying how it relates to the brain. Corcoran acknowledges the fact that recent scientific findings have allowed doctors to “rewire our brains…there are ways the neuroplasticity of our brains can serve to increase our level of happiness.” The author uses this information to suggest that humans have a deep-seated desire to be happy. He further proves his point by explaining how this quest for happiness has become a modern trend. Nonethless, Corcoran recognizes the fault in this pursuit saying, “It seems the more we desire happiness, pursue it, and consmue products we hope will help us to …show more content…

In both responding to this issue and concluding, Corcoran says that dispositional happiness is an attitude of “openess, wakefulness, affirmation, and receptivity to the world. He says that, “Dispositionally happy people embrace and savor life, they welcome new experiences, are imaginitive, exuberant, resilient… unlikely to have their positive emotional setting permanently altered by life’s…setbacks and dissapointments.” In my opinion, the author misses the point by implying that this mentality can be the answer to ultimate happiness. The problem lies in the author’s own words, describing this component of happiness as being an “emotional default setting”. It seems to me like dispositionally happy people are just really good at ignoring the purpose of life and placing their emotional state of mind above what really matters because they are too afraid of the risk of “setbacks and dissapointments”, that are sometimes a negative result of pursuing things above. I agree more closely to Aristotle’s view of happiness that seems to embrace possible persecution and setbacks as a small price to pay in achieving

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