Achievement and Happiness

Achievement is commonly understood as a core component of happiness. Achievements themselves are thought to be vital elements in a meaningful life, the kinds of things that merit esteem and pride. So a life of achievement might be characterised by raising a family; a life of devotion to friends or church or country; a life of artistic or intellectual activity; a productive and successful career in business; and so on. A life without any of these things might seem lacking from the standpoint of meaning and happiness – or so intuition tells us.

Although it seems clear that achievement is valuable, it is not quite so clear why achievement is valuable for the person who achieves, and so contributes necessarily to a person’s happiness. In the above examples, the benefits seem most obviously to accrue to others. So why is achievement good for the person themselves? The aim of this two-day conference is to examine more closely the link between achievement, happiness, and related concepts, and aim to answer this and other questions.