Argumentative Essay: More Than Happiness

More Than Happiness In this paper I will argue happiness isn’t the sole component of the quality of our lives. In contrary, hedonists believe happiness is the single thing that is intrinsically valuable (Shafer-Landau, FE p22). In this view, anything that makes you happy is valuable. Anything that makes you unhappy is unvaluable. “According to hedonists, a life is good to the extent that it is filled with pleasure and is free of pain (Shafer-Landau, FE p22).” Pleasure here is not physical pleasure rather attitudinal pleasure. Attitudinal pleasure is the positive attitude of enjoyment. Happiness, according to hedonism, is worth pursuing for its own sake (Shafer-Landau, FE p23). An attraction of hedonism is it offers flexibility. There is more than one way to live a good life. Philosophers can live a good life by designing arguments if that’s what makes them happy. Accountants can live a good life by doing math problems all day, every day if that’s what makes them happy. Any activity can be labeled as the greatest good. Now, what the greatest good to one person is may not be the greatest good to another person. This is where hedonism shows its flexibility. In the same way, hedonism also allows for personal authority. You …show more content…
Happiness may promote your well-being. I agree with the hedonists on this premise. For example, take a relationship. If both are loyal to each other, then they will both be happy. They consider loyalty, honesty, kindness, presents, and comfort as their greatest goods. As another example, take a mechanic. If mechanics are happier experimenting on their cars with different parts, then they will do so. Those mechanics will have a better quality of life compared to a mechanic that hates everything about cars. The difference here is one set of mechanics is happy, while the other set is unhappy. Both a couple and the first set of mechanics enjoy their lives, happiness is valuable to