From Andrew Norris
Mary Midgley makes the fine point that observation and experience play an important part in judging the happiness of a fellow human (14 June, p 30). But to my mind what was being said in Owen Flanagan’s piece on happiness was that both brain scans and observation play a part (24 May, p 44).
Psychologists will tell you that some people can become very good at “acting happy”. They can fool even those they are close to. So intuition is not enough on its own. And Buddhists are a very special case, in that it is possible that all that their hours of meditation achieve is to appear “outwardly” calm. As scientists we have to put all the facts together and not just run down one avenue. We must listen to both logic and intuition.
Warrington, Cheshire, UK
