Happiness Is The Highest Good Essay

Zijian Liu

110424163

Paper 1 In my view, happiness is not the highest good. There are some kind of actions do not aim at happiness but are meaningful for the actors. Revenge, for example, does not give people happiness all the time, but I have read many stories of revenge in my high school history textbook. Some people revenged for their families, some revenged for strangers, and some did for their countries. In many cases, people chose to do that even knowing revenge will hurt themselves and do not lead to happiness. Suicide is another example. If happiness is the highest good, then no one will do things do not make one happy. What makes some rational people choose to suicide, since suicide does not make people happy. There exists decisions people make do not aim at happiness, that is why I do not believe happiness is the highest good.

Life itself has no meaning, but human beings define it. When talking about goals, every person has unlimited goals. Some of them are short term such as receiving a high GPA this year, and some are long term such as working in a specific company in the next five years. However, what I mention about is those goals that people are willing to spend their lifetime, sometimes even their lives, to pursue. For example, Kung Fu masters are willing to keep training themselves until the end of their life, scientist is more likely to focus on their topic throughout their life, and those people whose countries are invaded will treat union as their life goal. After people setting their life goals, everything they do is for being closer to their goals. Achieving life goals is just for achieving, not for other thing such as happiness, although happiness always comes with accomplishment and happiness itself can be a life