The Taxonomy of Good Feeling

Happiness has much more positive connotations. I want to be happy. That sounds better. People have often used the word happiness for the more extended of those four types of good feeling. If someone is pleased that Liverpool just scored a goal or that his daughter has learned to walk, he wouldn't say that that makes him happy. But if someone has got a good feeling about his life as a whole, I think we would be inclined to say that's happy.