WarTrek

So this feeling I get when I make the virtuous decision, that's happiness? I absolutely agree - even the dictionary denotes living virtuously is morally, though I doubt the person writing that understood the objectivity of morality. I can be happy while undergoing physical pain... I'm not sure what you're trying to say, could you elaborate?

How can you say that without redefining happiness? I mean, I get it, the dictionary isn't the end all, and it's vague enough, but if we can call happiness an involuntary response to virtue, then the communist could call happiness an involuntary response to their (inconsistent and illogical) standard of virtue, and then we'd have more trouble communicating than when we started :/

One way to put it is that we're just throwing around synonyms without taking into account their dictionary definitions or how those definitions relate to eachother. I propose that instead of saying happiness is the end to which all actions are means, we say that this end is instead pleasure, and leave it up to the individual to decide what kinds of pleasure and how much of it to pursue via what actions. This way, we have a clear understanding of the motives behind actions, the end to which these actions are means, and the end, the motive, is pleasure, on which we have a decent enough scientific grasp, as Wuzzums pointed out, though we still don't understand exactly how it works, we have a good outline and we certainly know WHY we feel pleasure - to incentivize us to do things that are beneficial for the survival of the genes.From this, we can see that those of us who derive pleasure from wisdom do it in an attempt to understand reality because we think it will bring us the most pleasure, while others who don't care about intellectual consistency but want only to have hedonistic fun in the now and to heck with the consequences, they can do that too - they're doing those actions which they think will lead to the most pleasure in the form they most desire based on their subjective experiences with the many kinds and degrees of pleasure.Is any of this making sense?

happy: 1 feeling or showing pleasure or contentment: Melissa came in looking happy and excited | [ with clause&nbsp] : we're just happy that he's still alive | [ with infinitive&nbsp] : they are happy to see me doing well. • [ predic.&nbsp] (happy about) having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction with (a person, arrangement, or situation): I was never very happy about the explanation | I can't say they looked too happy about it, but a deal's a deal. • [ predic.&nbsp] (happy with) satisfied with the quality or standard of: I'm happy with his performance. Something tells me that happiness is a bit loaded of a word - the dictionary uses pleasure and contentment which I don't think are the same as happiness - orgasms are pleasurable, but the act of orgasming doesn't make me feel "happy", whatever that means. Orgasm with different stimuli and settings feels different, like doing it with your wife feels different than doing it with your hand. Additionally, many people are "content" with the "pleasure" derived from masturbating, and so might be called happy, by the definition of the dictionary. I'm thinking of looking for universality, and happiness doesn't seem to cut it - what else do we have in our arsenal? ​Wuzzums, very good point - I didn't think of the genes providing incentives to do things that we might not consciously think advantageous to our goals, which are not always consciously reproduction (not everyone cares all the time about having successful reproduction). However, I think that you're referring to pleasure, not "happiness", when you talk about the "how" which, I agree, probably isn't fully understood even today. Again, this is why I propose we look into alternatives to the word "happiness" so that we can be precise and universal in our terminology dsayers, I know how it feels to be virtuous, but I've felt good in many ways many times before, so what exactly is happiness? Why would the feeling I get when I look to the west when I act virtuously be singled out as feeling happy? Pepin, which book of Nathaniel's would you first recommend? Also, this carries over from what I said to dsayers, how can we completely redefine happiness? just because we make its definition more precise doesn't mean that we shouldn't just use a different word or concept to describe what we mean, considering that the dictionary seems to say that the concept of happiness is just a derivative of the physical phenomenon of pleasure or contentment?

I'm not fully versed in the history of philosophy, but as I understand it, Aristotle thought that all human action was a means to an end and that this end was individual happiness. First, is this true, and second, if it is true, then, if we say that, for instance, practicing parkour or any other physical activity makes us happy, then why is this the case? The individual is the one who can most authoritatively say what makes him or her happy, but if I state that executing a parkour move (as close as I can humanly come to executing it) perfectly, is an action which makes me happy in its execution, then why is this the case? Perhaps it is due entirely to the physical responses that we get from an action. For instance, orgasm feels good to virtually everyone for reasons that are reasonably well understood. Oddly, orgasm doesn't always make us happy, even though the execution of an orgasm makes us feel physically good. I could use more examples and perhaps site some research, but I think y'all get the idea - why do things which we say make us happy, make us happy?

Bro, be sure to check out the meet ups here: http://www.meetup.com/Freedomain-Radio/ The rest of rational florida will be happy to meet you!