ABSTRACT
To say that happiness has been one of the main subjects of philosophical reflection since antiquity is to state the obvious. Although Greek and Roman philosophers differed in their ideas of how to achieve happiness, they all agreed that the pursuit of happiness was the main motivation of human life. The same model was adopted and cultivated in Christianity, where happiness meant communion with God, but the fulfillment of this communion took practices only accessible to few. In this traditional perspective, happiness was an ideal available to all, but achievable only by few. Since the advent of modernity, this elitist concept of happiness has undergone radical changes. Firstly, happiness has ceased to be a moral practice or a moral ideal, gradually turning into a science. Secondly, the ideal of happiness has become democratized. These two developments have invited censure as one of the many excesses of modern narcissistic individualism, but they can also be construed as a realization of pragmatist meliorism. Pragmatism offers a more complex perspective on happiness, in which happiness does not denote a pursuit of a single ideal, but rather connotes an enjoyment of varied and plural dimensions of experience.
