From Homo Economic us to Homo Eudaimonicus: anthropological and axiological transformations of the concept of happiness in a secular age

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From homo economic us to homo eudaimonicus: anthropological and axiological transformations of the concept of happiness in a secular age

Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, CSO "The Ukrainian Institute for Happiness Research" (Lviv, Ukraine),

Purpose. The paper is aimed to explicate a recently emerging anthropological model of homo eudaimonicus from its secular framework perspective. Theoretical basis. Secularity is considered in three aspects with reference to Taylor's and Habermas' ideas: as a common public sphere, as a phenomenological experience of living in a Secular Age, and as a background for happiness to become a major common value among other secular values in the Age of Authenticity. The modifications of happiness interpretation are traced from Early Modernity till nowadays. The preconditions of the contemporary appeal to Aristotle's eudaimonic theory of happiness are elucidated. The main characteristics of homo economicus anthropological model and reasons for its collapse in the contemporary world are analyzed. Specificities of the contemporary interpretations of eudaimonia are described with reference to the works of MacIntyre, Haybron, Hamilton, Kekes, Melnick, and others. A moral foundation and a behavioral strategy of homo eudaimonicus model are expounded and the role of this model in the life of a contemporary individual person and society is revealed.

Originality. For the first time in the Ukrainian philosophical discourse, it is shown how secular ethics enables the rise of a new homo eudaimonicus model within a sphere of secularity; and it is argued that homo eudaimonicus is the result of overcoming the values crisis. It is revealed how homo eudaimonicus along with being descriptive becomes also a normative model of a new effective behavior strategy of a contemporary person facing the current social, economic, political, and environmental challenges.

Conclusions. According to the contemporary interpretation, happiness as eudaimonia is a combination of the good life and the meaningful life; it is a human flourishing in this world (saeculum) through the accomplishment of a person's life plan in the sphere of secularity. Homo eudaimonicus manifests the overcoming of values crisis and the rediscovery of purpose and meaning, this time on the secular basis. Homo eudaimonicus implies the realization of a person's project of a happy and fulfilling life through moral behavior and socially useful activities.

Keywords: person; values; happiness; secularity; secularization; secular values; Modernity; Age of Authenticity; eudaimonia; homo economicus; homo eudaimonicus; social business.

Від Homo Economicus до Homo Eudaimonicus: антропологічні та аксіологічні трансформації концепту щастя у секулярну добу

У.I. Лущ-Пурш, Львівський національний медичний університет імені Данила Галицького, ГО "Український інститут дослідження щастя"

Мета. Стаття спрямована на пояснення змісту нової антропологічної моделі homo eudaimonicus крізь призму її секулярного підґрунтя. Теоретичний базис. Секулярність розглядається у трьох аспектах із покликанням на ідеї Тейлора та Габермаса: як спільна для всіх публічна сфера, як феноменологічний досвід життя в секулярну добу і як підґрунтя, завдяки якому щастя стає найважливішою загальною цінністю серед інших секулярних цінностей в добу автентичності. Простежено модифікації інтерпретацій щастя від раннього модерну до сьогодення. Висвітлено передумови сучасного покликання на Аристотелеву евдемонічну концепцію щастя. Проаналізовано основні характеристики антропологічної моделі homo economicus та причини її занепаду.

Описано особливості сучасних інтерпретацій евдемонії крізь призму праць Макінтайра, Гейброна, Гамільтона, Кікса, Мелніка та інших. Роз'яснено моральну основу та поведінкову стратегію моделі homo eudaimonicus та розкрито роль цієї моделі в житті сучасної людини і суспільства. Наукова новизна. Вперше в українському філософському дискурсі показано, як секулярна етика уможливлює появу в сфері секулярності нової моделі homo eudaimonicus та доведено, що homo eudaimonicus є результатом подолання кризи цінностей. Розкрито, як homo eudaimonicus, будучи дескриптивною, стає ще й нормативною моделлю нової ефективної поведінкової стратегії сучасної людини перед лицем актуальних соціальних, економічних, політичних та екологічних викликів.

Висновки. Згідно з сучасною інтерпретацією, щастя як евдемонія є комбінацією доброго (благого) та значущого життя. Це процвітання людини у цьому світі (saeculum) шляхом реалізації життєвого плану в сфері секулярності. Homo eudaimonicus свідчить про подолання кризи цінностей та віднайдення мети і смислу на секулярному ґрунті. Homo eudaimonicus передбачає реалізацію людиною проєкту щасливого та повноцінного життя завдяки моральній поведінці та соціально корисній діяльності.

Ключові слова: людина; цінності; щастя; секулярність; секуляризація; секулярні цінності; модерн; доба автентичності; евдемонія; homo economicus; homo eudaimonicus; соціальний бізнес

Introduction

A Secular Age (that is, Modernity at the beginning of which religion as a social institution lost its monopolist influence upon different spheres of human life and the scientific picture of the world became a foundation for a new worldview) has shaped a new existential situation by bringing about new conditions in domains of ethics, politics, social and personal life. In the 19^th century the decline of religious values resulted in disillusionment and nihilism. The 20^th century was replete with claims about a deep values crisis and, especially in the writings of religious philosophers, with moods of hopelessness and nostalgia for the times when the world of values was well-ordered and stable. Tempting freedom turned out to be a new burden - a burden of personal obligation to choose among relative values and a burden of responsibility for one's own choice. A person found herself baffled and confused at the crossroads of multiple available worldview options, value systems, and lifestyles. In addition, there has been disappointment with a consumerist life and with over-satiety caused by the variety of available material goods.

However, despite a set of al-new challenges, the 21^st century is marked with the outlining of a way out from disappointment, confusion, and relativism. The crisis of values and meaning is getting overcome by a new anthropological model (figure) that is being shaped on the secular foundation - homo eudaimonicus. This new anthropological model is being resulted from the search for a new effective human behavior strategy in the face of current economic, social and environmental challenges as well as of a contemporary person's existential needs. It reflects a new system of values and meanings, a new range of parameters for setting goals, and a new set of criteria for evaluating human actions. Given that it is based on secular ethics and morality, a new anthropological model of homo eudaimonicus keeps taking roots in different cultures across the globe and claims to become a new foundation for social cohesion.

Purpose

To explicate a recently emerging anthropological model of homo eudaimonicus from its secular framework perspective. The purpose is to be reached through consistent answers to the following questions: What is secularity? What are secular ethics and secular morality? How did happiness become a "secular dream"? Why does a homo economicus model fade out? Who is homo eudaimonicus?

Statement of basic materials what is secularity?

The process of secularization deprived religion from its monopoly in different spheres of human life by "disenchanting" the sacred cosmos (that is, by means of Modern science depriving nature from miracles, supernatural phenomena, and God's intervenience) and undermining solid metaphysical foundations of the absolute values. Nevertheless, despite Enlightenment philosophers' expectations and, in particular, Auguste Compte's predictions, secularization was not aimed to eliminate religion from people's lives. Secularization re-oriented values towards "this world" and brought the sacred and the human closer together by "humanizing the divine" and "divinizing the human". "Divinization of the human" does not mean that a man replaces God; it implies, instead, that human life receives a status of the highest value that cannot be neglected or sacrificed in the name of some greater purpose.

"Humanization of the divine" means that a person receives autonomy for choosing and arranging her values. Consequently, religion has been relocated to the sphere of a person's private life and become a matter of person's private choice by making room for beyond-religious values, meanings, and goals. Therefore, secularization has significantly expanded space of the human freedom and triggered the emergence of a new unprecedented sphere of human life and interaction - secularity - in which a person is able to implement her life project freely designed by her own on the basis of her freely chosen values.

Secularity has become a framework for the emergence of what Charles Taylor calls "the Age of Authenticity" - a new type of culture that has been developing since the 1960s. As I was describing in one of my previous papers, A philosophical focus has been shifted to person's subjectivity and self. [...] a person rebels against the discipline and limits imposed by the "system", strives "to be oneself"... Personal feelings, personal wealth, personal fulfilment, personal life, personal health, personal privacy, and much else "personal" besides become the major preoccupations of people. (Lushch, 2018, p. 17)

In this context, secularity, on the one hand, requires and, on the other hand, enables an interreligious dialogue - a dialogue between people of different religious belonging and of different values: those who are practicing a particular religion, those who are "believers without belonging", those who are agnostics and atheists. As Charles Taylor (2007) defines it, secularity is a secular common public sphere shaped by a key underlying condition that consists in clear awareness that one's own values and beliefs are only one possible option among many others and that hegemony of anyone's religious convictions is not possible. "Secularity may be seen as a way of living together in which no religion or spiritual authority has the hegemony but must share power and influence with other movements, institutions, and lines of thought" (Leirvik, 2014, p. 38).

Thus, secularity is not hostile, but neutral towards religion, enabling within itself equal rights to people with different views and providing a neutral ground for solving common problems related to our common life in the saeculum (this earthly world). As Oddbj0m Leirvik (2014) emphasizes, "people of different faiths realize that some sort of confidence-building and consensusseeking conversation about urgent ethical and political questions has to take place in the public sphere in order to foster constructive coexistence" (pp. 37-38). Secularity nourishes pluralism in contemporary societies and, for this reason, implies the usage of a common secular language so people of different religious convictions could understand each other. John Rawls (1999) while speaking of "public reason" and "the duty of civility" argues that not only the representatives of the government and the judiciary but ordinary citizens as well are obliged to explain their beliefs in a language that everyone can understand. Jьrgen Habermas (2005) articulates, in this respect, the translation requirement for communication in the public sphere: "The truth content of religious contributions can enter into the institutionalized practice of deliberation and decisionmaking only if the necessary translation already occurs in the pre-parliamentarian domain, i.e., in the political public sphere itself" (p. 9).

A common religiously neutral language is necessary in contemporary multicultural societies for people of different religious convictions to concur on a common view of goals and criteria of social development. What kind of language is it? The one of human rights which is already quite deeply rooted in people's minds. Oddbj0m Leirvik (2014) shares a vivid example of Norway, where "young Muslim women tend to argue their right to wear the hijab not with reference to religious demands but to human rights principles and matters of individual choice" (p. 43).

Secular language leans on a new system of secular values which concern people's lives in this world and become a convergence point of different worldviews and religious convictions. Secular values underlie secular morality and secular ethics which guide a person's behavior within a common religiously neutral public sphere - within secularity.

What are secular ethics and secular morality?

Speaking of secular values, one must bear in mind that they are not objective in the sense that they are independent of persons, external, and standing apart in relation to their lives. On the contrary, secular values are intersubjective, they deeply relate to people's lives in the saeculum (this earthly world). They are fundamentals for human flourishing in the saeculum, they reflect what we share in common despite differences in worldviews, cultural/religious belonging, and personal convictions.

Secular morality is a timeless and universal fixed moral code that transcends all ethical circumstances and personal feelings, and the Golden Rule of Morality ("do to others what you want them do to you") serves as its foundation (Cirrone, 2015). The main principles of secular morality are: 1) all human life has inherent dignity, and, therefore, all human life deserves respect; 2) if something is good for us, then it should be good for others; 3) actions that seek to harm or that knowingly harm others are immoral (Cirrone, 2015, pp. 7-14).

There are various forms of rational, nonreligious ethics: from rigorous Kantian ethics to the several forms of utilitarianism - but all of them share in common three main features: 1) emphasis on human autonomy; 2) person's right to avoid or reduce suffering; 3) focus on observable, this- worldly values as common and reliable whereas any religious references are considered as belonging to the individual's private sphere. Autonomy (1) - from Greek "law-making by oneself" - means that an individual person is the locus of decision-making and should rely on a kind of moral intuition. A person herself decides on what is good for her and, therefore, for others within the framework of the Golden Rule of morality. Autonomy is related to the responsibility for the impact of one's decisions and actions not only upon one's own life but upon the lives of others as well. A person's right to avoid/reduce suffering (2) implies each person's right to be protected from harmful actions of others that relate to the third principle of secular morality in which actions that harm others are considered immoral. As Ronald Green outlines:

Social choices affecting others, by contrast, must be made in terms of widely valued public or "primary" goods such as personal liberty, the avoidance of violence, and the preservation or promotion of each person's access to needed resources (food, clean air and water, monetary income). Secular ethical systems do not aim at saving "souls" but at rendering the conditions of life in this world tolerable. (Green, 2013, p. 79)

Hence, in the 21^st century, three main secular matters of concern have been shaped: humani-tarianism, human rights, and ecology. Given this, a person's right to avoid/reduce suffering (2) does not have the exclusively negative formulation but also implies an affirmative formulation: each person has the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that is spelled out in the

U.S. Declaration of Independence inspired by Enlightenment philosophy. Here is where happiness came on stage and claimed to be a secular goal of a person's life in saeculum. Since the beginning of Modernity happiness has been paving its way to become one of the common values of secular ethics.

In this respect, secularity might be considered not only as a religiously neutral common public sphere but also as a special kind of phenomenological experience of a person living in a saeculum (this earthly world) in a Secular Age and guiding her behavior with secular values.

How did happiness become a "secular dream"?

Due to secularization, Modernity engendered the idea of progress and granted to the human flourishing status of the purpose of history. The Modern Project was aimed at promoting freedom, justice, and prosperity of people in this world (saeculum). As Charles Taylor describes:

[T]he coming of modern secularity... has been coterminous with the rise of a society in which for the first time in history a purely self-sufficient humanism came to be a widely available option. I mean by this a humanism accepting no final goals beyond human flourishing, nor any allegiance to anything else beyond this flourishing. (Taylor, 2007, p. 18)

The modern view of happiness was not inspired by Aristotle's virtue ethics and not related to eudaimic well-being. A word used in modern theories of happiness is felicity and relates to contentment from desire satisfaction. In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes claims that "felicity of this life" consists in "continual prospering" which is the perpetual satisfaction of desires. "For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquility of mind, while we live here; because Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire", Hobbes (1991, p. 46) argues. Enlightenment philosophers kept emphasizing the importance of wealth and pleasure for achieving happiness and political economists, who started elaborating a politics of well-being, coined thea term "public happiness": Ludovico Antonio Muratori and Antonio Genovesi in Italy, Rousseau, Liguet, Maupertuis, Necker, Turgot, Condorcet, and Sismondi in France, Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham in Great Britain. Smith's liberalism and Bentham's utilitarianism contributed most to shaping the "secular dream of happiness". Both theorists emphasized the external goods as a means for achieving happiness and reintroduced the possibility of using pleasure as a measure of well-being (Mckay, 2016, p. 59).

In Smith's theory, happiness results not merely from possessing an object that satisfies our desire but rather from how well one thinks an object satisfies that desire. Thus, the richest one is, the more efficient tools one might afford and the more happiness one might achieve - that is how the modern formula of gaining happiness through wealth appeared. In Bentham's theory, happiness, pleasure, and utility are basically considered as synonyms and "all actions, including governmental ones, were to be judged according to how much pleasure they produced" (Mckay, 2016, p. 65). Later on, in the 19^th century, Vilfredo Pareto introduced the concept of preference. The question "how much pleasure does an object cause?" was replaced with the question "is object X preferred over object Y?" (Mckay, 2016, p. 69).

That is how Modernity gave rise to a new anthropological model - "homo economicus". This is a hedonic actor, the one who seeks to maximize pleasure and utility, therefore, is self- interested, but also rational, since uses reason to find the best way to achieve the goal. Money becomes a means of a quantitative evaluation of a qualitative experience of pleasure (happiness). According to "homo economicus" model, driven by the pursuit of happiness people reach an agreement to recognize money as a universal tool for providing themselves with conditions for earthly happiness (Finance, 1962, p. 14).

"Homo economicus" model entails the classical modern view on human activity and societal progress: consumption and production for the sake of utility and pleasure are considered as main functions of a human being, whereas the overall growth of the economy (not individual wellbeing) is claimed to be the key indicator of progress. The Modern belief that the improvement of material conditions (the increase of income and comfort) would make people better morally and their lives happier lasted till almost the end of the 20^th century. "For decades libertarianism has been implicitly promising that the way to a good society is through economic growth and higher incomes", as Clive Hamilton (2011, p. 5) argues. Austrian libertarian philosopher and economist Friedrich von Hayek in 1944 claimed that the expansion of individualism and commerce had "surpassed man's wildest dreams", and the most significant and far-reaching effect of the ongoing rapid economic growth would be the next generations' feeling of increasing "power over their own fate" and "the belief in the unbounded possibilities of improving their own lot" (Hamilton, 2011, p. 5). Those who were making efforts to accomplish the Modern Project by conquering political and individual freedom and by building welfare truly believed that the ideal happiness they were striving for was already close beyond the horizon and the next generation would finally be able to enjoy it fully.

Why does the homo economicus model fade out?

The hopes of libertarians and other advocates of the Modern Project failed. Past generations tried so hard to become rich, but affluence did not bring happiness after all. Consumerism has made the pursuit of happiness vain and even painful: instead of satisfying people's needs, the market has been generating new needs; marketing technologies include elements of psychological manipulation to make people buy more what they do not actually need; possession and consumption of material goods, that have become a purpose of a consumerist lifestyle, do not provide lasting and sustainable happiness, on the contrary, they cause insatiable hunger and disappointment. Clive Hamilton vividly describes the contemporary situation:

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, citizens of rich countries confront a perplexing fact: despite decades of sustained economic growth, [...] people are no happier. Indeed, the proliferation of the maladies of affluence - such as drug dependence, obesity, loneliness, and psychological disorders ranging from depression, anxiety and compulsive behaviors to a widespread but ill-defined anomie - suggests that the psychological well-being of citizens in rich countries is in decline. [...] It now appears that, by removing sources of oppression based on gender, sexuality and race, these social revolutions have left us free to be miserable in new, more insidious ways. (Hamilton, 2011, pp. 3-4)

On having what was thought to be enough for happiness, a person still does not feel herself happy. The behavior of homo economicus focused on increasing income for purchasing more "utility = pleasure = happiness" has turned out to be ineffective. There are, obviously, some more ingredients in the happiness formula.

The role of sufficiently high income and material comfort in constituting basic conditions of happiness should not be diminished. However, it's reasonable to assume, those people of the past generations who lived in much less welfare and struggled for liberation might have been much happier than those contemporary people living in affluent societies pursuing hedonic and consumerist pleasures. The thing is that people of the past generations had a goal that was transcending their own lives - and that was a very secular goal, not related to any religious context, the goal to conquer freedom for the next generations or at least to pave the way to a free and affluent future. They felt involved in a mission much bigger than their lives; they also felt a connectedness with others pursuing the same goal, they had a strong sense of their identity even if this identity did not give any privilege, except restrictions and oppression. Yet, they felt doing something meaningful together with others, they had a long-term goal (a dream, bigger than life) - and that made discomfort and misery bearable (on the role of long-term goals and large-scale dreams for lasting and sustainable happiness, see: Purii & Lushch, 2019).

A contemporary person, a person of the Age of Authenticity is the one for whom freedom - political and individual - has been conquered and welfare has been built but happiness is still beyond the horizon. The person of the Age of Authenticity keeps pursuing happiness, this time and unlike predecessors, through the search for the authentic path, for the true self, for selfactualization, and psychological flourishing (subjective well-being). A complicated part is that happiness is not clearly defined anymore as it was in the Modern Project. The hedonic definition failed and - in the sphere of secularity - the person is free to choose among various options, philosophical and religious interpretations. The contemporary person is still struggling for liberation and aims at freedom but this time it is inner freedom, freedom from stereotypes, fears, imposed suggestions of consumerist culture. In the case of homo economicus the goal was clear, happiness defined, the only task is to choose the most effective tools to achieve it and learn skills to increase income since welfare was considered to be the way to a happy life. The freedom of a contemporary person is the freedom to define, first of all, what happiness is to her, to freely choose a type of happiness to pursue, to freely choose herself, the meaning of her existence and her own system of values (Finance, 1962, p. 15).

Moreover, given the current environmental situation and the Strategy of Sustainable Development, the behavior of homo economicus is harmful. According to the definition of the Brund- tland commission, "sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (UN Secretary- General, 1987, p. 54). Homo economicus does not fit these requirements, since it is a self- interested and pleasure-seeking actor aimed at maximizing income and consumption. The behavior and the image of the good life within the homo economicus model turn out to be destructive and unsustainable, since they include neither considerations of the needs of future generations, nor an intention for the preservation of nature (Binder, 2019, p. 171).

Hence, not only an alternative efficient definition of the individual good life needs to be found but also the good life with others. There is a need to reconstruct the social cohesion, to restore social solidarity in the individualized world on a completely new value basis. Boundaries between classes, races, genders or religious communities that shaped peoples' identities keep vanishing. As Clive Hamilton (2011) puts it: "We must reconstruct the idea of solidarity. And .. .we must first reconstruct the individual. Who is it that joins with others in pursuit of common goals?" (p. 12).

Who is homo eudaimonicus?

The solution to the problem has been found through the appeal to Aristotle's eudaimonism. Secularity creates a new context in which the eudaimonic happiness is being modified and adapted to the conditions of the Age of Authenticity. Eudaimonia has been studied since the last few decades of the 20^th century in different domains: philosophy, psychology, economics, and cognitive science. Numerous contemporary philosophers elaborate the eudaimonic theory of the good life: MacIntyre (2007), Nussbaum (1986, 1994, 1999), Taylor (1989), Annas (1995), Kekes (2007), Kovвc (2012), Russell (2012), Haybron (2013, 2016), Melnick (2014) and others.

"Ethical eudaimonism grounds morality and other values in the agent's own well-being: the ultimate reason to be virtuous, for instance, is that you need to be virtuous to flourish" (Haybron, 2016, p. 28). Happiness in this case has two components: affective (mood, feeling good) and cognitive (evaluation of one's life as a whole). Happiness as eudaimonia means enduring wellbeing related to life as a whole, not just a domain of life or not merely experience of feeling good in a particular moment (Ott, 2020, pp. 19-20; Phillips, De Freitas, Mott, Gruber, & Knobe, 2017). So to live a happy life one needs to be a good person: happiness depends not on external factors (success, wealth etc.) but on a person's moral character; and here secular morality plays its role by providing the universal moral framework applicable in different cultural contexts and in interreligious communication. Hence, the eudaimonic happiness becomes a factor of modernization of religions or, let's say, their adaptation within secularity: when secular values (human flourishing in this world, being of service to others as a secular mission, love and family relationships) are being revalued, promoted and preached in religions which were has been focused exclusively on transcendent values before (Lushch-Purii, 2021, p. 110).

An interesting fact that eudaimonia was once already a secularized concept in away, and now it is pulled out from the Pre-Modern Age and takes root in a different kind of secular ground - Modern secularity. The first one to secularize a concept of eudaimonia was Aristotle. As we find out from the works of Hesiod, in the Ancient Greek culture eudaimonia meant a special kind of fortune received from the gods. Etymologically, the Greek eu (good) and daimon (god, spirit, demon) implied that happiness was to be lucky, to have a good spirit guiding you. Aristotle "altered the popular account of eudaimonia in two ways, first, by giving greater emphasis to internal goods over the external ones, and second, by placing greater emphasis on human intervention over the divine" (Mckay, 2016, pp. 55-56). Internal goods are virtues, personal qualities, excellences, and a human being is the one who is responsible for choosing to develop them and who keeps working on them.

Nowadays, what all theories of eudaimonia share in common are virtue, practical reason, and flourishing which are borrowed from Aristotle's philosophy. Alasdair MacIntyre (2007) contributed by adding practice (for example, art, sciences, politics, by practicing which a person is acquiring virtues - the internal goods belonging to these practices), narrative (story of the self, some conception of "the whole life" that implies acquiring not merely practice-based virtues, but virtues related to the whole life (Lushch, 2018, pp. 23-24)) and tradition (for a historical and cultural contextualization of moral subjectivity in terms of the cultivation of virtues) (Mckay, 2016, pp. 210-216). The narrative relates to the rational life plan - the idea elaborated by John Rawls (1999, p. 408). The ultimate goal of life, according to this view, is life as rich in value fulfillment as it could be. Happiness is not a sum of separate pleasant moments, since: "the value of a part of life is determined by its relationship to the whole; the bits cannot be assessed first and added up because we do not know how much each bit worth without looking at the entire life" (Tiberius, 2018, p. 50).

So contemporary eudaimonia is not purely Aristotelian, it is a combination - and its proportions differ from person to person - of the good life and the meaningful life, the two of three types distinguished by the pioneer of the positive psychology Martin Seligman (2011). As for the first type (1), it is the pleasant life - hedonic, consumerist life aimed at maximizing pleasant experience and directed to the external world as a source of satisfaction; and that corresponds to homo economicus model. The good life (2) - eudaimonic flourishing, life devoted to developing one's capacities and thereby fulfilling one's potential and, hence, self-centered; it includes purposeful engagement, high quality relationships, contribution to the community and an ongoing personal growth; even though the activity is inwards, the success manifests itself in the outside world. The meaningful life (3) - pretty much similar to the good life, but instead of being focused on the self it is focused on the commitment to something greater than oneself; the boundary between the self and the other is permeable and the reward is always intrinsic (a person is pursuing some higher goal even if her name won't become famous and her contribution won't be appreciated publically); this type of well-being might have a religious as well a secular context (Hamilton, 2011, pp. 15-18).

Eudaimonic psychology, which is rapidly developing nowadays, provides empirical proves that sustainable happiness and higher life satisfaction lie, indeed, in ethical behavior and altruistic deeds: social activities, caring for others, bringing about social change, caring for nature (for a list of relative studies, see: Binder, 2019; Phillips, De Freitas, Mott, Gruber, & Knobe, 2017). Happiness is lasting and sustainable when one's life is actually good in addition to having pleasant psychological states making one feel good.

That's interesting that the eudaimonic view of happiness is considered within a contemporary political economy as a solution to a range of economic, environmental, mental, and public health problems: "A renewed focus on the role of ethics, and in particular of virtuous behavior, in happiness could lead us to new and effective strategies for raising individual, national, and global well-being" (Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs, 2013, p. 82).

On the one hand, the intention to globalize a new model of behavior (or a new sustainable way of life) is obvious; on the other hand, this new model quite seems to be a bottom rising, it's not initially artificial and imposed from above. It's rather a model of behavior intuitively invented by persons of the Age of Authenticity attempting to fill the value gaps. Scientific and philosophical studies prove its effectiveness in dealing with current challenges given the current circumstances, and this model of behavior is being transformed from descriptive into normative: it starts being imposed and popularized.

Francis Mckay (2016) suggests to call this model of behavior "homo-eudaimonicus, i.e., the person of virtue and wisdom" (p. 84). However, homo eudaimonicus was mentioned earlier by a French Catholic philosopher Joseph de Finance (1962) which he defined as a person who is absolutely focused on happiness pursuit and who measures the value of her actions with the amount of felicity they provide her with (p. 15).

Homo eudaimonicus is not merely an idealized model, a theoretical construct detached from reality. Homo eudaimonicus is a mindset that lots of people have already chosen and a lifestyle they are happily leading. Homo eudaimonicus is the one who has freedom and courage to choose one's own values and to create a life plan; the one who is improving oneself, developing one's virtues, potentials, and skills; the one who dares to define a secular purpose to one's life in saeculum and to find meaning in daily activities; the one who feels neither nostalgia for the "enchanted cosmos", nor disappointment or confusion facing relativity of values. Homo eudaimonicus is the one who does not pursue happiness, but experiences happiness on the daily basis; the one who is aware of the responsibility for one's choices, who leads an eco-friendlier and sustainable life-style, who does not spend one's income mindlessly for excessive consumption, but invests one's time and money in other-regarding projects and big dreams.

In the domain of entrepreneurship homo eudaimonicus way of behavior results in corporate social responsibility and social business. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the founder of a business fund "Yunus Social Business" professor Muhammad Yunus coined the term "social business" and defined it in his books as a self-sustainable business created to address social problems (poverty, public health, and environmental issues, etc.) and designed to affect social change and increase happiness of other people (Hysa & Suparaku, 2020, p. 115). Social businesses are businesses founded with the aim to do good instead of maximizing profit. "The payoff for running such firms, however, is psychological, not monetary because one has found something one can 'do with joy'" (Binder, 2019, p. 180). Corporate social responsibility relates to the "triple bottom line".

The bottom line is the profitability of a business after all the expenses are deduced from the revenue, in other words, that is a profit necessary for a business to survive and remain self-sustainable. Within the framework of homo economicus model, the bottom line and maximization of profit is the only motivation and the main goal of a business, whereas, within the framework of homo eu- daimonicus and social business, social and environmental bottom lines complement the purely selfish perspective. In companies holding the triple bottom line strategy not only the owners, but also employees and managers are happier, since they find their work meaningful, feel connectedness and involvement in a mission that transcends their individual lives (they are happier from being aware of contributing to a higher socially useful mission together with their team). This is not utopia but real cases (among well-known companies implementing corporate social responsibility are Microsoft, Hallmark, Zappos for Good etc.).

Homo eudaimonicus model represents a contemporary person's effective response to economic, environmental, social and cultural challenges and a successful attempt in overcoming the values crisis through learning to be happy with others (regardless to their religious or cultural belonging) in saeculum (earthly world) by doing good (socially useful) deeds based on secular morality and ethics. Therefore, eudaimonic happiness shapes a positive and successful model of the expected future, provides a new foundation for social expectations, and in such a way impacts significantly a person's social behavior (more on the role and structure of social expectations see: Khmil & Popovych, 2019). With no exaggeration, it might be concluded that eudaimonic happiness becomes an intersubjective secular value with a huge potential for social integration.

Originality

For the first time in the Ukrainian philosophical discourse, it is shown how secular ethics enables the rise of a new homo eudaimonicus model within a sphere of secularity and argued that homo eudaimonicus marks the overcoming of values crisis. It is revealed how homo eudaimonicus along with being descriptive becomes also a normative model of a new effective human behavior strategy in the contemporary world in the face of social, economic, political, and environmental challenges.

happiness moral eudaimonicus

Conclusions

Secularity as a religiously neutral common public sphere is a foundation for respectful coexistence and effective cooperation between people despite their religious and cultural differences. Happiness as human flourishing in this earthly world (saeculum), as a good and meaningful life claims to become a major common secular value in the Age of Authenticity. The contemporary eudaimonic interpretation of happiness - that is composed of Aristotle's, MacIntyre's, Rawls' and other contributors' ideas as well as supported with empirical evidence from psychological and cognitive studies - allows a person to find a place and regain existential stability in the "disenchanted world" (that is, the world which the Modern scientific rationality deprived of miracles, supernatural forces, and God's intervenience) and enables to overcome the values crisis by rediscovering the meaning and the purpose of life. Homo eudaimonicus is not merely an idealized anthropological model detached from reality; on the contrary, it is a more and more widely applied new way of life that results from secularity as a phenomenological experience of living in saeculum in a Secular Age. Homo eudaimonicus implies the realization of a person's project of a happy and fulfilling life through moral behavior and socially useful activities.

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