"We Have No 'Right To Happiness'"

Our society encourages us to pursue a lot of things for ourselves: success, fame, love, the list could go on and on. Using C.S Lewis' article, we focused specifically on discussing whether or not we have a "right to happiness". I think that whenever we discuss having a right to anything, we have to look at our motives behind claiming these so called "rights". To me, claiming that you have a right to something implies that you feel you deserve that thing. Lewis phrases it this way, "[a right is] correlative to an obligation on someone else's part. If I have a right to receive 100 pounds from you, this is another way of saying that you have a duty to pay me 100 pounds." Saying that we have a right to happiness means that if we don't have it, then we are someone being cheated or failed by society.

Pursuing a right to happiness is focusing on ourselves and what we deserve. If we are true followers of Christ, we know that focus on ourselves is exactly what Jesus preached against. The familiar story of the disciples who wanted to sit next to Jesus in places of honor in Heaven were chastised. Jesus told them, “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” He also instructs us to deny ourselves, as we talked about in class. Jesus always encouraged self-control and contentment. For me, the important question is not so much do we have a right to happiness as should we try to pursue our own individual happiness?

On a completely different note, I would like to bring up an interesting point for discussion because I am curious about what others think. In the article, Lewis starts one paragraph with the statement “For one thing, I believe that Clare, when she says ‘happiness’, means simply and solely ‘sexual happiness’.” Then he goes on to describe aspects of Clare’s character that led him to this conclusion. My question is, do you think that Lewis is slipping slightly into Bulverism here, or do you think he is simply giving background information in a somewhat sarcastic context? Yes, he addresses and refutes Clare’s actual point throughout the rest of the article. But do you think he uses bulverism when he describes her as “rather leftist in her politics” and a “rabid teetotaler”? I’m not sure myself, just some food for thought.