Joy distinguished: Teleological perspectives on joy as a virtue

ABSTRACT

The most specific psychological literature associates joy with goodness; however, psychological science has no clear means to distinguish one good thing from another or to decipher the degree of goodness required to designate joy beyond subjective or conventional opinion. In order to provide a framework for a science of joy that identifies both the psychological processes that comprise joy and a means of understanding and operationalizing goodness, I conceptualize joy as a virtue of knowing, feeling, and doing what matters most and propose a teleological framework to conceptualize goodness. Such a multidimensional understanding of joy informed by characteristic adaptations given meaning by a transcendent narrative identity and a developmental, contextual telos of the reciprocating self sheds light on the potential power of joy as a psychological phenomenon favorable for sustained positive affect that is animating and expansive, yet simultaneously has moral and spiritual heft to guide people in lives worth living.

KEYWORDS:

• Joy
• virtue
• telos
• teleology
• thriving
• transcendent narrative identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Perhaps this should not have been a surprise given that much of positive psychology originates in the United States, a country whose value of ‘the pursuit of happiness’ is identified as an unalienable right of its citizens in its Declaration of Independence.

2. See King and Defoy (in press) for review of the psychological literature on joy and emotions. Joy is recognized by some as a basic emotion (Eckman, 2016; Izard, 2007), a positive emotion with no transcendent dimension (Tong, 2017) and with a transcendent dimension (Vaillant, 2008; Watkins et al., 2017). Joy is recognized as a discrete emotion (Fredrickson, 2001; Vaillant, 2008; Watkins et al., 2017). Joy is also related to other positive emotions like pride and affection (Izard, 2007), hope and inspiration (Kast, 1991), interest, contentment, and love (Fredrickson, 2004), amusement, contentment, and serenity (Tong, 2017), and love and gratitude (Armenta, Fritz, & Lyubomirsky, 2017; Watkins et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was made possible through the support of a generous grant funded by the John Templeton Foundation through the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.