We Have No 'Right to Happiness'

With every passing article written by C.S. Lewis I gain more and more respect for him. He is able to capture ideas and express them on paper in ways that seem unfathomable to me. In this essay about the "right to happiness" Lewis writes of examples and other ideas and relates them so beautifully together that I am pleased to learn from them.

As Americans we are used to the phrase "the pursuit of happiness", and we think of happiness as a legal right and something that should always be evident in our lives. Lewis shows us that we are wrong in assuming this is the case. He uses the example of the seperation of Mr. and Mrs. A and then the fact that Mr. A and Mrs. B were in love so they got together to be happy. Lewis shows us that happiness cannot justify an action and that it is incorrect to think that happiness can be a legitimate reason for doing something. There are many people that think that we do have a right to happiness, while on the other hand there are many people that think just the opposite. We had a good long discussion dealing with this in class yesterday, and to be honest I don't really know which is the correct answer. I do believe that legally we do have a right to happiness, but morally I think it is almost ignorant to say that we do, in fact, have a right to happiness.

Towards the end of the Essay I like when Lewis tries to prove a point by explaining why some people can achieve lasting happiness. He says, "When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also - I must put it crudely - good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people." Here I think that Lewis is subliminally trying to show us that if we are to have any chance of achieving this happiness that so few people are actually blessed enough to achieve, then we must be good, trustworthy people, and I agree with him.