I believe two vocabularies are used to denote one set of mental phenomena. One centers around the term 'happiness', the other around 'pleasure'. Both are complex, and they are not isomorphic. My goal is to delineate the structure of the two vocabularies, and map one onto the other. The paper is therefore a partial analysis of the concepts of pleasure and happiness, and a defense of the thesis that pleasure and happiness are the same thing.
I begin by distinguishing between the occurrent and dispositional senses of happiness. In the occurrent sense, 'A is happy' means that A feels happy or is experiencing happiness; he is in high or good spirits, is in a good mood, and feels good. In the dispositional sense, 'A is happy' means that A is predominantly happy in the occurrent sense. The dispositionally happy man may occasionally be unhappy (for example, when a friend dies), and he may at the moment be asleep or unconscious. That someone is smiling, has sparkling eyes, looks healthy and rested, and is bubbling effusively about a favorite hobby is good evidence of occurrent happiness. That someone is moderately wealthy, loves his wife, enjoys his work, and has robust health is good evidence of dispositional happiness. 'Happy' is ambiguous in the same way 'warm' is. 'It is warm in Florida' may describe the current weather there (as in the daily paper) or the normal weather (as in a geography book). In both senses, a man may be happy now, unhappy later. Even dispositional happiness may end, as when an accident paralyzes a man and kills his wife. Elsewhere, 1 I define occurrent happiness in terms of belief, desire, and occurrent thought.
The previous paragraph concerns happiness as a nonrelational state. There are in addition various types of relational happiness. The adjective 'happy' can either stand alone, or it can take various complements such as 'that' and 'with'. Happy that expresses a propositional attitude. A is happy that p only if A believes and desires that p. It is presupposed in addition Philosophical Studies 39 (1981) 305-317.