The Virtue Of Happiness Essay

Measuring Happiness: the Vices and Virtues
There are many different perspectives on ethics; many question the concept of happiness, this ideology ties in with three short essays: “Character and Self-Love,” “Despair,” and “The Virtue of Humility.” In the short essay, “Character and Self-Love,” Voltaire discusses ideas involving the concept of one’s character and one’s self-love. The meaning of one’s character and if one could really change who they are as a human and their ability to self-love. Mostly understanding the need for self-love and the need to conceal one’s obsessions or narcissism with one’s self. In another short essay, “Despair,” Joyce Carol Oates tackles the idea of religious believers claiming that suicide is viewed as a sin when …show more content…
An example that somewhat relates would be god believer’s or people that wish to spread the word of god. These people are not really humble, they are not in church for god but for themselves. They go to the church to prove to god their loyalty to enter the world of what is heaven. And I am not saying this to bash out religious people, but in an honest context, we often want to believe in god to save ourselves. To not feel alone, we go to church to discuss our troubles and make others feel better, not because we are humble. But compared to homeless people who understand what it sincerely means to have nothing, yet give the little they have is humble. There was once an elderly homeless man who heard another man need twenty dollars. that elder was gifted twenty dollars and had bought himself a few pillows and blankets to sleep better in the streets. Having heard the other man that needed the money, the elderly man returned all his items in order to give the man those twenty dollars. The elderly man had heard that the man had needed twenty dollars for his daughter’s medicine. She was in critical condition and needed her medicine to get better. In the end, often as Richards has stated, “humble people do not know they are humble.” Not all homeless people are humble of course, but it goes to show that they have nothing much to offer, yet offer it anyway. They do not want others feeling the way they feel or in the state they are in. Because they know too well the feeling of losing it all. In this case, I somewhat agree and support Mandevilla, in situations such as these, are false views of one wanting to save themselves. Often other’s such as a homeless man , are happy with the little things in life and not the luxury, yet they manage every