Paradox of hedonism

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was published in 1976 and is set in an ambiguous time period and location in a utopia called Omelas. This story discusses the idea of whether or not it is acceptable to destroy a small amount of people’s happiness for the good of the majority. The ethical theory behind this notion is utilitarianism: “that conduct should be directed toward promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number of persons”…

We all tend to be happy in our lives. Some people compare happiness with factors like money, social status etc. while some mean satisfaction by happiness. I personally feel that it is our desires that control our happiness and these desires if controlled can lead to positive feelings like satisfaction. It has been rightly said, “Satisfaction is the death of desire.” Out of the four accounts that we covered, I would select the views of the Epicurean and the Stoic accounts for the description of…

Is Happiness The Standard Of Value? The Kant and Mill debate regarding happiness being the standard of value, is very interesting. Kant deontological ethics focus not on the consequences of actions, but on the actions themselves. This is a little bit radical because it does not apply to every single situation. Sometimes you have to take action in order to find out the consequences of that action, otherwise you will never be able to explore new things if the action is never permissible. Some…

The search for the greatest way to reduce suffering and increase happiness has been a search that has confused and inspired philosophers all the way down to Aristotle and beyond. Each proposed a system that supposedly if implemented would create a utopia like world. One such implementation is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an efficient way that if implemented would accomplish its goal. However, it is brutal, enable the act of racism, and does not take into account the feelings of minorities.…

(Some) issues that arose from the full implementation of utilitarian principles to society were (many things) I couldn’t imagine to be real issues in our current society. The issue of very high suicide rates (58) was talked about but Gregory didn’t seem too concerned with this issue because the suicide rates, in other words, can benefit the society because the overall sum of happiness is greater. While I suppose this may be true, I wouldn’t think high suicide rates are a good thing just because…

Mill aims to show that happiness is the only thing that humans ever desire. He acknowledges, though, that humans desire virtue just as authentically as we desire happiness, although less frequently than we desire happiness. This appears to reveal a problem with the kind of utilitarianism that Mill is presenting. If humans desire virtue and if virtue is something other than happiness, then happiness is not the sole object of human desire. Mill attempts to solve this problem by considering virtue…

Someone once said, “Happiness is like chasing a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. You will never find it if you look for it.” John Stuart Mill’s autobiography, “A Crisis in My Mental History: One Stage Onward” (1909) argues that in order to be happy, one must secure their mind on something other than their own happiness. Under the realization that one's happiness is only attained by not making it the direct end, Mill approaches this subject by first giving examples of what makes one happy and…

There are many things in this world worth waiting for. Love, surprises, and rare occasions are among these cherished things that we as humans wait for. Even though I believe Edie made the wrong decision in waiting for Mr. Watters’s letter, somehow by a twist of fate she found her true love while waiting for a false one. The list of things in this world that are worth waiting for is quite a lengthly one, but I have three main things that I feel are at the top of the list. Love is something…

The Meaning of Happiness Mills indicates that one is in fact happy when they are in absent of pain. He describes how in life you have two options when it comes to happiness; prolonged or temporary happiness. When he describes both, and uses the term “classes” because of that fact that one you will earn and one is just simply there to hold you over until the next time you want to get that temporary set of happiness. It is well known in today’s society, that we are all choosing the temporary…

Martin Seligman shares how people can become happier by discussing three different life styles in which individuals are happy. After sharing how happy people differ from the average person, — they are more social— he goes on to describe the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life. In the pleasant life, individuals seek what makes them happy and surround their life around those items. The good life consists of individuals finding what their strengths are and integrating those…