Happiness is a state of being that depends on the subjective perception of the individuals. That subjectivity in perception makes happiness an abstract state of mind which is easily influenced through basic peripheral pleasures. Pleasure may be instant or prospective in nature, but the emotion that is derived out of that pleasure is what makes one happy. Happiness may be a goal that is set by a person to be achieved or it may be the feeling that comes after he/she achieves a target. Most of the times it is the latter option that drives an individual to attain the state of happiness. The world has evolved to be so materialistic in nature that the individuals draw pleasure from material things. Happiness for them is to satisfy their instant …show more content…
Happiness comes from internal peace and acceptance. People who are not at peace or those who have not accepted their self are always devoid of internal happiness. An optimistic nature is inherently required for internal peace and happiness. The goal of an individual should always be a motivated purpose rather than momentary satisfaction of desires because the achievement of that goal makes people happy not the transitory deflection that they opt to equate with happiness. All human beings naturally desire happiness in their lives. Socrates said that happiness is attainable through human effort. It depends not on external senses, but how those senses are used. He further says that happiness is the redirecting of bodily desires to the knowledge of love and virtue. Virtue and happiness are intimately linked, such that it would be impossible to have one without the other. The pleasures that result from pursuing virtue and knowledge are of a higher quality than the pleasures resulting from satisfying mere animal desires.
Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, said that the ultimate or supreme goal of life is the ‘happiness’. According to him, every individual has a purpose of life and this purpose that he has to achieve is happiness. A person may on his path of this attainment come across other ends that are pleasurable and may in a way give him happiness but is
Perhaps it is safe to say that most everyone in the deranged world that we live in today aims for happiness. Some would even say we are simply slaves to our primal passions, shackled in our endless pursuit of fulfillments and shaping our existence around them. Gravitating towards the things in life that bring us pleasure, and recoiling away from those that could cause us pain. A lot of individuals think of happiness as an overall end goal, while others consider happiness the starting point of being great. Nevertheless, happiness is drawn from different things based off the individual.
Happiness is a key to everybodys life. Even the most depressed man on earth has a little happiness deep down inside. Its what keeps us striving to fulfil our needs and wants on an everyday basis. There is not one kid who does not get excited over a dollar to spend at the candy shop. What about the feeling of getting a promotion at your job, or even finding the cure for cancer. Being happy is not just healthy, but it is also rewarding for each and every individual. We strive to find anything that will turn a bad day to a good one. Individuals will compromise to attain their happiness. You can not get what you want without giving something first.
Aristotle believes that happiness is an activity “in accord with virtue.” Happiness is in accord with the most excellent virtue. All men agreed that happiness is to “live well”, but Aristotle expands this further into a whole
According to the Dictionary, “happiness is the mental or emotional state of well being which can be defined by others. A pleasurable or satisfying experience.”. Of course that’s true, the feeling of happiness is what it’s scientifically defined as, but happiness is much more than that. Happiness could be a certain sound, a smell, even feeling a certain piece of clothing or a thick warm blanket. People spend hours even years trying to work for what they think is happiness. They work for hours to get large amounts of money, but they never find the happiness their looking for. That’s because happiness isn't materialistic, happiness isn't something you can buy with expensive items. Even though some people believe you can buy happiness, that’s
This paper will focus on Aristotle’s claim that happiness is an activity and not just a momentary pleasure. Skeptics claim happiness is a state of mind and Aristotle is wrong to claim that happiness is an ongoing pursuit a person must actively strive for during one’s life. This paper argues that Aristotle is correct when he states that happiness is an activity, the central purpose of human life and a goal in itself that individuals strive for throughout the entirety of their lifetime and ultimately attain rather than a feeling a person experiences at any given moment. First, Aristotle’s view of happiness will be explained and then I will present objections to Aristotle’s claim that happiness is an activity. Lastly, I will address the
Happiness is a result that we deserved, furthermore, it becomes a motivation for us to keep trying and getting success in life.
Ben-Shahar defines happiness as “the overall experience of pleasure and meaning” (33). It means that people obtain positive emotion from their action while they feel their life as purposeful. Simply, pleasure is the experience of positive emotion about the present benefit. Meaning which has the purpose about the future benefit comes from people’s action. But people have either pleasure or meaning is not enough for happiness. People consume ecstasy-inducing drugs or spend their free time lay down on the beach. They cannot get the happiness even though they experience positive emotions. Therefore, people’s action requires having both pleasure and meaning in order to reach the happiness
Aristotle makes a number of claims in Book I of Nicomachean Ethics that deal with the idea of Happiness and how to obtain it. His stance can be seen when he makes the claim, “Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.” Aristotle is stating that the end goal of life is to achieve true happiness. We do not work any further towards something else once we are truly happy. We also see this when he says “Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.” Aristotle thought that our end goal was happiness. It shows how highly he regarded it. Another idea he brings to light is that happiness cannot be obtained in the short term. Aristotle says, “For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed or happy.” Here he argues that just as the birds singing doesn’t make a perfect summer, happiness is not true in a temporary or daily setting, only at the end of our lives can we determine true happiness. Aristotle believes that short term goals can be okay, but we need a rational and virtuous life in order to obtain the real idea of happiness.
From reading the works of Aristotle and Quintilian, I have developed insights on philosophical examinations such as the underlying meaning of happiness, virtues, oration, and rhetoric. Aristotle argues, “happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue” (1102a5-6). While dissecting his point, I noted that every action we pursue has an end goal, and that end goal will lead us to strive for another goal, and so on and so forth. So, what is the end goal? Aristotle believes it is happiness, as we subconsciously seek out pleasures in life that bring us happiness. I agree completely, as every inquiry will ultimately lead to our own feeling of complete contentment. As students, we study hard to earn good grades and help us graduate.
Happiness is what all human beings/rational beings desire. It is always the end (goal) of our activities, it is an unconditional good.
In the pursuit of defining happiness, ancient Greek philosopher made a huge progress, but it is clear that nor all the progress made by different perspectives are always in parallel with each other. In fact, Aristotle and Epicurus are two philosophers that were in conflict with each other in the search of defining happiness. For Aristotle, happiness, in its simples terms, “a happy man, Aristotle would say, is the man who has everything he really needs. He has those things which he needs to realize his potentials. That is why Aristotle says that the happy man wants for nothing.” (Adler 4). In other words, Aristotle would define happiness as the state that the life of a person has reached its completeness, which means nothing that the nature of the man desires is lacking and all that the man pursued in his whole life is fulfilled.For Epicurus, however, the definition of happiness is different. As defined by Epicurus himself, for an Epicurean
Happiness is the central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. All action is goal oriented and the goal of every action, is to reach happiness. According to Aristotle, happiness is “living well
The everlasting question of "What is Happiness?" has been inquired since the creation of men. Unfortunately, the only agreed answer that humanity came up with is that all the creatures seek happiness, but no one has the concrete directions for achieving it. Our libraries are overwhelmed with books about happiness, but no dictionary definition explains which path men must take to be happy. No mathematician gave us the axiom which we could use to solve the problem of living in bliss. No scientist brought up the formula of fusing certain ingredients to produce the "drink of happiness". Still almost all the people consider that their ultimate purport in
“For we may be said to desire all things as means to something else except indeed happiness, as happiness is the end or perfect state” (page 230, Mayfield). As Aristotle said that our ultimate goal is happiness but in order to reach happiness you have to succeed. “Relaxation then is not an end. We enjoy it as a means to activity; but it seems that the happy life is a life of virtue, and such a life is serious, it is not one of mere amusement. We speak of serious things too as better than things which are ridiculous and amusing, and of the activity of
Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of all time created an idea that happiness is the ultimate end goal. This world renowned philosopher argues that exercising a fulfilling life will lead to happiness. Likewise, happiness is said to be the ultimate end goal of all activities in life. Basically, Aristotle portrays every activity as a subordinate to becoming happy. He argues that being self sufficient, and leading a fulfilling life will create happiness through virtue. A virtuous person is noble and possess the ability to rationalize. In order to be noble one must posses the ability to create equilibrium of the soul. That is, staying within the mean. Similar to the mean, Aristotle depicts