WarTrek Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 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?
Wuzzums Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 Usually questions like these have two parts, the "how" and the "why". How some things make us happy deals with the underlying process that goes on when we achieve a state of happiness by doing an action. I can't even begin to give an answer. A satisfying answer would have to go through the mechanics of the brain and body, hormone interactions, consciousness and so on. It's far too complex and I don't think it can even be answered at present day. Why some things make us happy is significantly easier to decipher. Evolution is a process, it creates beings capable of reproducing. The sole purpose of any of those beings is to reproduce. We are a product of evolution so anything we do or feel is a result of evolution too. This means that the answer to any "why" question is "because it's advantageous to our reproduction" (or it might be advantageous at the very least). Why does someone like to play the piano? Because our environment is such that playing the piano offers an evolutionary advantage, it gets your genes spread. So if you want to get your genes spread (which everybody does because that's what evolution is all about) it's probably a good idea to play the piano. And how do your genes trick you into playing the piano? By offering you an enjoyable altered state called happiness while doing so.
dsayers Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 Happiness and pleasure are different things. We know the biochemical explanation for pleasure. This can come from foods, exercise, sexual release, etc. I think many people misuse the word happy in an attempt to repress the unprocessed trauma they suffer from. If you accept that reason = virtue = happiness, then I don't think happiness is a localized experience. As in "I pitched in at the homeless shelter and that made me happy." Following that description, we'd only achieve happiness by living a reasoned, virtuous life consistently. I think that localization is another reason why people misuse the word. It's often passed off as the opposite of sad, which is a relatively localized experience.
Pepin Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 To be happy is to perceive a relation between the self and reality. The values may be subjective, yet the relation between the value and reality must be objective. This is to say that if your will is to be in two places at once, that this is incapable of causing happiness because the will has no capacity to be translated into reality. Reason is needed for happiness because reason is the means of knowing reality and of establishing values and action that can be translated into reality. Without reason, choices can have no relation to reality. Virtues are non-contradictory values that are easily translated into reality. They must be consciously chosen and valued by the self. Happiness is a concept that focuses on the self as opposed the rest. It isn't that rest isn't important, for instance being healthy is likely to have an indirect affect on happiness through limiting the capacity to act, but it is like any other specialized field dealing with the human body. Happiness has a strong relation to the concept of self-esteem that Nathaniel Branden describes in his books on the matter.
WarTrek Posted February 13, 2014 Author Posted February 13, 2014 happy: 1 feeling or showing pleasure or contentment: Melissa came in looking happy and excited | [ with clause ] : we're just happy that he's still alive | [ with infinitive ] : they are happy to see me doing well.• [ predic. ] (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. ] (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?
Kevin Beal Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 I'm not sure why it needs to be any more complicated than it feels good to be happy. If we found a case where happiness somehow caused unpleasantness, we'd consider that pathological,... or at least unhealthy, something to be analyzed.
WarTrek Posted February 13, 2014 Author Posted February 13, 2014 I'm not sure why it needs to be any more complicated than it feels good to be happy.If we found a case where happiness somehow caused unpleasantness, we'd consider that pathological,... or at least unhealthy, something to be analyzed.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?
dsayers Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 That's the biological description. Reduction of pain and maximization of pleasure is present outside of humans also. Happiness requires reason or biologically, the upper brain.
WarTrek Posted February 13, 2014 Author Posted February 13, 2014 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 :/
dsayers Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 if we can call happiness an involuntary response to virtue Happiness isn't an involuntary response of virtue, it's the effect of living virtuously. the communist could call happiness an involuntary response to their (inconsistent and illogical) standard of virtue Ironically, this would be to redefine virtue. Virtue IS logical and it is objective. I'm with you that language is important. People who are not virtuous want to call their view virtuous so that it will not be scrutinized. People who cannot negotiate will pass their opinions off as facts. People who want you to not question their decrees will call them laws. And so on. The point being that somebody that says that communism is virtuous is being dishonest. Because assigning different rights to different humans is morally invalid. Virtue denotes an adherence to morality.
LovePrevails Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 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. Not exactly in my view, I believe people are motivated either by the desire to achieve happiness OR to avoid suffering but not at the same time!!! This explains a lot -you can't pursue happiness if you're afraid of suffering in the short term as sometimes essential to your personal growth that you make difficult decisions. You will see that most people who don't grow live their whole life just avoiding suffering, not much in the way of doing what they need to do to become happy.
WarTrek Posted February 14, 2014 Author Posted February 14, 2014 Happiness isn't an involuntary response of virtue, it's the effect of living virtuously. So this feeling I get when I make the virtuous decision, that's happiness? Virtue IS logical and it is objective. I absolutely agree - even the dictionary denotes living virtuously is morally, though I doubt the person writing that understood the objectivity of morality. Not exactly in my view, I believe people are motivated either by the desire to achieve happiness OR to avoid suffering but not at the same time!!! This explains a lot -you can't pursue happiness if you're afraid of suffering in the short term as sometimes essential to your personal growth that you make difficult decisions. You will see that most people who don't grow live their whole life just avoiding suffering, not much in the way of doing what they need to do to become happy. I can be happy while undergoing physical pain... I'm not sure what you're trying to say, could you elaborate?
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