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My view on happiness
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The question of what it means to live a good life revolves around human nature all the time. Philosophers try to justify what a person needs to do to live the best life. Some philosophers argue happiness makes a life whole, and there are certain actions one takes to earn a good life. The next question these philosophers try to answer is whether a good life is comprised by living life in the pursuit of happiness and living justly. Plato, St Thomas, Marx, and Kant are among the philosophers that explored this question. Plato’s argument on happiness revolves around the city modeled on his “Republic”. The citizens in the city are the happiest, because they are able to achieve what they place value on. Plato also recognizes that in order to achieve …show more content…
Through a readjustment of economic conditions that would allow those who are poor or in the middle class to have their fair share of possessions fulfillment and meaning could be achieved. Marx is concerned with economic conditions in looking at the meaning of life, and believes the meaning of life can only be analyzed in materialistic terms. Therefore, Marx argues people are defined by what they do or make. In a capitalist system people are ultimately unhappy because they are unable to do what will fulfill them. Marx claims that if capitalism was overthrown it would bring about greater human happiness. In Marx famous quote, “labor is the source of happiness” he presents the importance of the material life. Marx’s view of happiness illustrates that it is the combination of creation and enjoyment. These philosophers offer a rounded perspective on achieving happiness. In examining these philosophers, I believe Marx is too focused on the materialistic items, and it is possible to be happy and not have anything. It is equally possible to be rich and unhappy. On the other perspective with the philosopher Kant, I do not believe that reason is the sole driving factor to achieve happiness. My views seem to align most with St Thomas and Plato. I agree that others may have different types of happiness depending on what they value, as Plato
Plato’s theory of happiness is analysed throughout the Republic. He believes as Socrates did that the virtues of courage, temperance, wisdom and justice and the ability to regulate them with harmony is the key to an authentically happy person. The virtue of justice is of particular interest and what its function is in a truly just person and how that relates to happiness. Who is happiest the truly just person destined to be shackled with all the perils of the unjust, or the truly unjust person destined to lead the enriching life of a just person? Plato analyzes justice in terms of the tripartite city first. The idea here is that it is easier to interpret a quality if it is in context of a larger whole. The society being the whole of a person which makes up its parts. If you can define justice based on a truly just city then you could apply this to the person more easily.
“ The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less, said Greek Philosopher Socrates. Philosophers have said that happiness is about living a good life. Looking at the reading we see different views of what people thought happiness was. We will explore the different characters and stories of a few people like Epicurus, Epictetus, and Socrates. Whether it be through doing what we want to do or doing what we ought to do through happiness or pleasure.
Everyone desires to live a good life and people are always searching for ways to do so. In my case, by moving to the United States, I now have the opportunity to live a good life, but my definition differs from everyone else’s. I believe that living a good life means getting a good education, working hard, family support, willing to adapt new environment, having a leader, and becoming a self-made individual.
My first premise is in order to achieve happiness, you need to live life according to virtues. Living virtuously will help you in achieving your values in life. Aristotle focuses a lot on the idea of moral excellence. He claims that we were not born with moral
What does it mean to “live well”? To live well can mean a variety of different things depending on who you are as an induvial. Each person has different ideas with how they feel they should live their life and what it means to live well. “One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of a man, of moral evil and of good, then all the sages can.” – William Wordsworth. To live well for one person may mean to forget the commotion around and seek nature for wisdom rather than look to books. For another living well may mean pursuing a dream in a city, right in the middle of all the commotion. More can be taught by the settings around then the things going on in daily life. In the film “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” protagonist Craig Gilner learns
To understand Plato’s view of the nature of human beings one must also understand his view of the world and the soul in turn. Plato’s Republic is a Socratic dialogue, this excerpt from Book IX relays the second of a three-part argument aiming to prove that a man who leads a just life leads a happier and more fulfilled life than the unjust man.
Every decision that we make has an effect on one’s life. Simple choices like the clothes we wear to complex decisions like the schools we attend shape our future. Most decisions made by people are to help them achieve success or live a “good life.” The common steps to living a “good life” are going to school to get educated, going to work to support yourself, and retiring to enjoy the remaining years. Just two years ago, I made a decision to go to LASA high school instead of my home school. Why did I do this? I felt that being educated would help me live a “good life.” The problem I had was that I neither understood what a “good life” was, nor did I know how education would help me live a “good life”. The quest for the answer will help me understand more about myself and my values, as well as help me find steps to create the life I want.
The pursuit for happiness has been a quest for man throughout the ages. In his ethics, Aristotle argues that happiness is the only thing that the rational man desires for its own sake, thus, making it good and natural. Although he lists three types of life for man, enjoyment, statesman, and contemplative, it is the philosopher whom is happiest of all due to his understanding and appreciation of reason. Aristotle’s version of happiness is not perceived to include wealth, honor, or trivial
Unlike Freud, believes that having a purpose and finding happiness are connected in his book, “The Republic.” Plato determines that happiness can be created if our society is just. He describes this through his representation of a perfect civilization. From Plato’s teachings one can infer that to establish justice, one’s purpose, and happiness, one must establish several maxims in one’s life including specialization and moderation. Although Plato describes happiness on an individual and group level, he mainly views perfect as the quality of the happiness of the
However, we can wonder if the pleasures that derive from necessary natural desires are what actually brings us happiness, since having a family, friends, a good job and doing fun things seem to bring the most joy in life. Plato’s ideas on life are even more radical, since he claims that we should completely take difference from our bodily needs. Therefore it seems that we should only do what is necessary for us to stay a life and solely focus on the mind. Although both ways of dealing with (bodily)pleasure are quite radical and almost impossible to achieve, it does questions if current perceptions of ‘living the good life’ actually leads to what we are trying to achieve, which is commonly described as
Lovin’s defines ethics as “…how we try to become good people and shape for ourselves a life that is worth living” (7). According to Lovin, Christian faith cannot be separated from our ethics as they shape and define each other. Moral choices define an individual’s ethics and each choice must be an individual decision that none other can make (7). Lovin’s definition must be divided into two parts in order to effectively comprehend his rationale. The first, ethics as an attempt to become good, encounters people in the crossroads of their lives. Christians live with the curse and blessing of being painstakingly aware of their goodness and task of doing good in the world. Lovin states “We wonder whether we pay enough attention to people in need…
According to Aristotle, the good life is the happy life, as he believes happiness is an end in itself. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle develops a theory of the good life, also known as eudaimonia, for humans. Eudaimonia is perhaps best translated as flourishing or living well and doing well. Therefore, when Aristotle addresses the good life as the happy life, he does not mean that the good life is simply one of feeling happy or amused. Rather, the good life for a person is the active life of functioning well in those ways that are essential and unique to humans. Aristotle invites the fact that if we have happiness, we do not need any other things making it an intrinsic value. In contrast, things such as money or power are extrinsic valuables as they are all means to an end. Usually, opinions vary as to the nature and conditions of happiness. Aristotle argues that although ‘pleasurable amusements’ satisfy his formal criteria for the good, since they are chosen for their own sake and are complete in themselves, nonetheless, they do not make up the good life since, “it would be absurd if our end were amusement, and we laboured and suffered all our lives for the sake of amusing ourselves.”
The meaning of the good life can be interpreted in multiple ways, depending on the person. When it comes to my interpretation, it is when a person accomplished his/her objective and feels content about what they contributed to themselves or their community. If the person is fortunate enough, that said person should contribute to the overall society as best as humanly possible. To live a good life, a person should contribute to a community to fulfill the needs of the community and that path to living the best life you can have.
I was raised as a Catholic and always looked at morality as values and vice versa. I never truly made a distinction between the two until I was older and had to help my own children differentiate between the two. I grew up feeling that if I was kind and truthful, I was a person with strong values, but as I have aged, my thoughts on being moral and what it means have changed. To me now, values are having ideas of what is important to me or not. I value a friend ship or I do not value it. Where morality is the guidelines or rules about how I chose to live my life and I choose the morals that are guided by my Catholic faith. I know that God has given me free will to make choices that can be morally correct and align with God’s plan for me or I can use my free will to make choices that might be morally wrong and lead me in a path further from God. In the book The Tem Commandments, Eileen P. Flynn states that morality is “knowledge based on human experience, reason, and God’s revelation that discovers what we ought to be and what we ought to do to live fully human lives” (Flynn, 2010, p.
The meaning of a “good life” can be interpreted in various ways. The term “good” can be seen as happiness and fulfilment because of personal achievements, but it can also be seen as in being a morally just person because you put others before yourself by giving back to your community. “Life” in its plainest meaning can be just living, but it can also be lifelong goals that give you a purpose for existing. Together the “good life” in this sense has two different meanings. It can be achieving fulfillment because of the actions you did to benefit yourself, but it can also be finding happiness in others through charity and turning that into your own happiness. Personally, the second interpretation of a “good life” is my position on this, but to fully understand the “good life,” it is important to see the opposite of that, a miserable life.