What Is Happiness?

Gary Cox asks, ‘is happiness a cigar called Hamlet?’, and other searching questions.

- Gary Cox

I spent my formative years being told by advertisers that ‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’. These celebrated cigar ads ran from 1966 until tobacco advertising was banned from UK television in 1991. Despite all I have read and written on the subject of happiness, whenever I am asked, ‘What is happiness?’, my reflex thought is still that slogan. Sometimes I give that epithet as my flippant answer, too; but sometimes I hold back, and resort instead to quoting from Ken Dodd’s song, Happiness.

Seriously, though, is ‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’ a good or a bad answer to the question ‘What is happiness?’? This perennial question has received a wide range of answers over the centuries, and it seems unlikely there will ever be an answer that everyone agrees on. Given that, perhaps ‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’ is as good an answer as any? Or rather, perhaps this flippant reply well highlights the problematic haziness of the happiness question: the way it always seems to be shrouded in a fog of confusion as thick as a cloud of cigar smoke.

Actually, we need not be so defeatist, like the men in the Hamlet ads themselves, resignedly smoking a cigar while the rest of their lives, or at least their days, are in ruins. Philosophers have in fact made huge strides in defining happiness. It’s just that their wise answers can rarely if ever be reduced to simple, catchy slogans that satisfy the general public.

Utilitarian Happiness