I just read The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson for my later 18th century Brit lit class. It is a philosophical novel about a young prince, raised in the Happy Valley (where every pleasure is available and every need met), who is unsatisfied and breaks out to go into the world and decide what kind of life brings happiness.
A few themes of the book:
1. There is not one "choice of life." We make choices every moment that determine the course of our lives. We can't make"the one" choice that will lead us to a life of happiness or a life of misery.
2. There is no one life that leads to happiness, either. We find happiness along the way in all kinds of lives. There is no perfect kind of life (solitary or social, leader or follower, country or city).
3. Virtue does not guarantee happiness. Here is a quote from Rasselas that I love: "All that virtue can afford is quietness of conscience, a steady prospect of a happier state."
This last theme is particularly relevant to Objectivists because our virtues are our tools for living in a way that will help us be happy. Without practicing the virtues, we cannot possibly be happy. But I believe that Dr. Johnson is right that living virtuously does not guarantee happiness either. We can be completely productive, and the government can shut us down. We can be excellent parents and devoted lovers, and our families could still die. Tragedies that are not within our control can affect our happiness. "All that virtue can afford" is the knowledge that our unhappiness is not because of our own folly or evasion or laziness. We can know that we tried our very best, and though that sounds like small comfort, I actually think that it is quite a lot of comfort to know that you lived your life virtuously and experienced all the happiness that your circumstances made possible, that you didn't miss a moment of joy that you could have had.
By the way, this doesn't mean that happiness is rare or hard to get. I think that (great tragedy aside) life is full to bursting with opportunities to love, to achieve, to learn, and to do right, and all these things often lead to happiness. But the equation is not as simple as it is sometimes supposed to be: Live virtuously = be happy. Our lives factor in accident, tragedy, other people's schemes, our temperaments, and the political and social climate of the world we live in.
Living virtuously is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.
