Abstract

This research adopts an analytical‑comparative approach to examine the concept of happiness (saʿādat) in the thought of Mullā Ṣadrā and Lorraine Besser, in order to demonstrate how these two theoretical systems, despite fundamental differences in their metaphysical and methodological foundations, each present a picture of human development and well‑being. In Transcendent Philosophy (al-ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliyah), happiness is an ontological matter grounded in substantial motion (al-ḥarakat al-jawharīyyah), existential intensification (al-ishtidād al-wujūdī), and the union of knowledge, the knower, and the known (ittiḥād al-ʿālim wa al-maʿlūm), in which human development is realised through knowledge, intellection, and the acquisition of virtue on the path toward Absolute Truth. In contrast, Lorraine Besser regards happiness as a eudaimonic concept arising from human flourishing, shaped within interpersonal relationships, experiential self‑knowledge, and the actualisation of capacities. Drawing on positive psychology, she interprets happiness as a this‑worldly event dependent on satisfaction, flourishing, and feeling good. The findings indicate that both thinkers link happiness to the concept of development, but development in Mullā Ṣadrā’s thought takes a metaphysical form grounded in the gradations of existence, whereas in Besser’s theory it assumes a psychological, empirical, and this‑worldly orientation. By clarifying the structural commonalities and fundamental differences between these two intellectual systems, this study opens the possibility of a new dialogue between philosophical theology and contemporary psychology.