Two Conceptions of Happiness

(Found here)

“. . . We are dealing here with two profoundly different experiences, pleasure and joy, which underlie two distinct conceptions of happiness: One belongs to the domain of the senses; the other belongs directly to the moral and spiritual level. Let us note their essential differences: Pleasure is an agreeable sensation, a passion caused by contact with some exterior good. Joy, however, is something, interior, like the act that causes it. Joy is the direct effect of an excellent action, like the savor of a long task finally accomplished. It is also the effect in us of truth understood and goodness loved. Thus, we associate joy with virtue, regarding it as a sign of virtue’s authenticity.

Pleasure is opposed to pain as its contrary. The two are essentially incompatible. Joy, on the other hand, is born of trials, of pains endured, of sufferings accepted with courage and with love. Pleasure is brief, variable and superficial, like the contact that causes it. Joy is lasting, like the excellence, the virtues, that engender it. Sense pleasure is individual, like sensation itself. It decreases when the good that causes it is divided up and shared more widely; it ceases altogether when this good is absent. Joy is communicable; it grows by being shared and repays sacrifices freely embraced. Joy belongs to the purity and generosity of love.”

~Servais Pinckaers