Happiness as expressed as Eudaimonia or Ataraxia in ancient western philosophy was extensively discussed by Aristotle and Pyrrho. Cynics and Stoics (primarily influenced by cynics such as Crates of Thebes) emphasized virtue as their version of happiness and morality consistently syncretized. For contemorary philosophers discussing similar topic is referenced here:
Władysław Tatarkiewicz
Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886–1980) was a Polish philosopher, historian of philosophy, historian of art, esthetician, and ethicist. For Tatarkiewicz, happiness is a fundamental ethical category.
Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor and founder of logotherapy. His philosophy revolved around the emphasis on meaning, the value of suffering, and responsibility to something greater than the self; only if one encounters those questions can one be happy.
Robert Nozick (1938–2002) was an American philosopher and professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his political philosophy, but he proposed two thought experiments directly tied to issues on Philosophy of Happiness. In his 1974 book, Anarchy, State, Utopia, he proposed a thought experiment where one is given the option to enter a machine that would give the maximum amount of unending hedonistic pleasure for the entirety of one's life. The machine described in his thought experiment is often described as the "Experience Machine." The machine works by giving the participant connected to it the sensation of any experience they desired and is said to produce sensations that are indistinguishable from real life experiences.
Nozick outlined the "utility monster" thought experiment as an attempted criticism to utilitarianism. Utilitarian ethics provides guidance for acting morally, but also to maximizing happiness. The utility monster is a hypothetical being that generates extreme amount of theoretical pleasure units compared to the average person. Consider a situation such as the utility monster receiving fifty units of pleasure from eating a cake versus forty other people receiving only one unit of pleasure per cake eaten. Although each individual receives the same treatment or good, the utility monster somehow generates more than all the other people combined. Given many utilitarian commitments to maximizing utility related to pleasure, the thought experiment is meant to force utilitarians to commit themselves to feeding the utility monster instead of a mass of other people, despite our general intuitions insisting otherwise. The criticism essentially comes in the form of a reductio ad absurdum criticism by showing that utilitarians adopt a view that is absurd to our moral intuitions, specifically that we should consider the utility monster with much more regard than a number of other people.
Sonja Lyubomirsky asserted in her 2007 book, The How of Happiness, that happiness is 50 percent genetically determined (based on twin studies), 10 percent circumstantial, and 40 percent subject to self-control.
Not all cultures seek to maximise happiness, and some cultures are averse to happiness. Also June Gruber suggests that seeking happiness can have negative effects, such as failed over-high expectations, and instead advocates a more open stance to all emotions. Other research has analysed possible trade-offs between happiness and meaning in life.
