In Mark Kingwell’s excerpt, “In Pursuit of Happiness,” he discusses the challenge of defining happiness. This work serves to inform the audience on a topic they may never have considered while using evidence and support from philosophers, authors, and even scientists to contribute to various viewpoints on the subject. At the end of the excerpt, Kingwell discusses happiness, even unhappiness, and concludes with his own opinions on the subject.
The outstanding ways that people can be brainwashed. Hitler was a dictator that didn't so much brainwash people he would just capture them and make them slaves in World War ll. In the book Anthem, they have been taught to think a certain way and make them live the way they want. Comparing the Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow, and then putting Anthem next to it, it shows that Hitler was a dictator that did not care about anyone.
In all of Plato 's dialogues, Socrates ' main goal is to achieve happiness, although friends and foes alike present him pathways that could lead to pleasure, but not true happiness. Moreover, in Crito, Socrates pursues happiness by obediently following the Athenian law, whereas, Crito tries to lure him into committing an unjust action so that he can obtain the pleasure of having a friend and keeping a good reputation and so that Socrates can still have the pleasure of life on earth1. One can know that happiness and pleasure are different due to the fact that happiness is a state of being eternally fulfilled, but pleasure provides a person only an immediate and short-lived image of fulfillment.
(AGG) “Money cannot buy peace of mind. It cannot heal ruptured relationships, or build meaning into a life that has none” (DeVos). Some people think that money can buy happiness, but it does not give anything more. (BS-1) In the book Fahrenheit 451, Montag, the main character, lives in a society where people are obsessed with possessing materials around them. (BS-2) Therefore, the author includes affects that the materials have on people. (BS-3) However, the society also has rebelled with an exception to the people who aren’t obsessed with the objects. (TS) Ray Bradbury creates a society of materialistic people, obsessed with having too much, all the while warning the reader about the dangers of greed, through the example of a few characters.
Have you ever heard the phrase, "Money can't buy happiness?" Have you ever thought to yourself that this statement is most likely true because money physically cannot buy the happiness we long for? An author by the name of William Hazlitt believes that money can, indeed, buy happiness. From what it seems, through the diction, syntax, and metaphors provided, Hazlitt brings our attention to no matter how someone may live, money does play even the smallest of roles in buying one's happiness.
In Andrew Guest’s, “Pursuing the Science of Happiness” he argues the complexity of happiness and the pursuit in which you follow to gain it. The ultimate objective of life for some individuals all through the world is to accomplish the condition of happiness while doing the activities they cherish the most. Each individual satisfies his or her own particular measurement of happiness in different courses, from practicing their most loved game, being with their families and companions, to making a trip to exciting puts over the planet. Guest uses rhetoric and research to carry on his argument that speaks on the idea of reference anxiety, where people change their dreams based on financial standpoint, and they define financial prosperity with their happiness, which is superficial.
In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the concept of happiness is introduced as the ultimate good one can achieve in life as well as the ultimate goal of human existence. As Aristotle goes on to further define happiness, one can see that his concept is much different from the 21st-century view. Aristotelian happiness can be achieved through choosing to live the contemplative life, which would naturally encompass moralistic virtue. This differs significantly from the modern view of happiness, which is heavily reliant on material goods. To a person in the 21st-century, happiness is simply an emotional byproduct one experiences as a result of acquiring material goods. Understanding Aristotelian happiness is important for the 21st century because
The pursuit of happiness was something I never gave much thought to until it was brought up this year. Reflecting back over this past school year I can honestly say that I not only learned more about what the pursuit of happiness is as a whole, but also how it applies in my personal life. I think it is fair to say that different things make us humans happy. Just a small example, it may make you very happy when your favorite sports team wins, and for someone else they could care less. It may make you very happy if it is sunny and 75 outside, but to some people that isn’t something that makes them happy. Those are just small examples of things that can make someone happy. I think the pursuit of happiness is something way deeper than that, and that is what I came to realize over the course of this year. To me, happiness doesn’t come from the amount of money you have or how successful you are, but rather it comes from the relationships you build here on Earth. The American Literature we explored throughout the school year, make that clear to me.
It is a fundamental aspect of society and of mankind that individuals seek their own happiness. Almost every aspect of life centres on the importance of self-fulfillment, and throughout history, the often selfish nature of man loans itself to the idea that life is about pursuing one’s own happiness. In a perfect world, the search for satisfaction in life would go unheeded, and every man would come to realize a perfect sense of self. Unfortunately, there are often many challenges and compromising aspects of society that inhibit individuals from achieving happiness. In Timothy Findley’s 1977 novel, The Wars, the nature in which individuals pursue and or compromise their happiness is explored through the actions of characters,
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle contributes subjects such as art, actions, pursuit, and inquiry to the nature of humans. He categorizes all of these elements as good and argues that goodness is essential and inter-webbed in the nature of humans. Not only does he describe goodness as merely an intricate part of human nature, but also he states that is good that is at the center of the human aim. Thus, it is the nature of humans to seek, establish, create, and exert goodness amongst other human beings, the overall universe, and us. Aristotle argues that because goodness is natural to humans, knowledge of goodness is natural to humans as well. The author furthers his comment on goodness and its relation to human nature by stating that humans
Other things also play a role, as Aristotle recognizes: “happiness obviously needs the presence of external goods as well” (I 8 1099a30); and “[good fortunes] are required as complementary to a fully human life” (I 10 1100b5). In the next paragraphs, I will explain what Aristotle means by this.
Many classical philosophers have given their voice to the nature of human life and what entails its climax. The very nature of human beings has been investigated, broadly, to establish a comprehensive understanding often pegged on morality. Yet, such thoughts have prompted diverse viewpoints with accompanying grounds or reasons. Happiness is an unending topic of discussion in philosophy. This paper explores the similarities and differences in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism to coin a position in whether or not happiness is the ultimate end that human society aspires to acquire. In a critique of both the works, the paper adopts the Aristotelian thought citing that actions of human aims to fulfill goodness, which arguably is the happiness, one that arises from virtues practiced out of habit.
How does someone know if they are truly happy? Much of society have come to associate happiness with the pursuits of personal pleasures or that which makes us “feels good”. When we feel good we display positive expression of emotions such as joy, laughter, kindness and fewer negative emotions such as anger, hate, and sadness. To some people our happiness is already determined through our genes. Some people seek happiness through money and material possessions. However, many would argue that true happiness comes from within and gratifies a state of well-being. In my opinion, the understanding of true happiness is a personal experience and will vary among us. It's what makes us as individuals satisfied and content.
According to Aristotle, an individual can achieve happiness only by realizing all the works and activities in accordance with reason throughout his lifetime. He claimed that happiness consists in cultivating and exercising virtue and it is the ultimate purpose of human existence, as stated in his work Nicomachean Ethics “He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life”. However, such Aristotelian concept of happiness inevitably contradicts the understanding of history as development which maintains that fulfilling the work of human exceeds the limits of an individual and thus can only be achieved in the course of history. Three
What is the proper goal of life? Are all pleasures equally good or are there better or worst pleasure? Does 'happiness' is our main goal, and how can we reach it? All these questions human tried to answer for ages and centuries. From the Ancient Greek to the modern philosophy, there were different ideas, hypothesis, and contradictions. People always had an understanding that their nature is different from animal and plant nature. We are not moving according in internal principle of order. We have to choose the goals and habits that will allow us to fully actualize ourselves – to live a good life.