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Right, but the core principle underlying all that is that human happiness is a good in and of itself, and a virtuous and stable society is good only in that it
by hguant 10y ago
Right, but the core principle underlying all that is that human happiness is a good in and of itself, and a virtuous and stable society is good only in that it allows for the greatest potential growth of human happiness.
- forthefuture 10y agoWell I'd much rather have Advancement over Happiness. We can be happy our entire lives but if everyones dies before 100 and humanity never goes anywhere I wouldn't consider that a successful society. Happiness is masturbating 24/7 until you die. If you truly believe that is the goal of humanity I can't help but disagree.
- metaphorm 10y agoare you serious? that reads like satire.
- forthefuture 10y agoI guess I'm coming from the wrong side. I think happiness for its own sake is really meaningless. I'd much rather struggle and advance than be happy doing nothing until I die, but I guess I'm in the minority. Happiness, to me, is a choice to not let negative things make you unhappy. You can acknowledge negativities and not be consumed by them. Fighting for happiness is like fighting for peace. You win by not fighting anymore. I'm sorry if this opinion somehow reads like satire.
- metaphorm 10y agowell, that's not what you said. you said "Advancement over Happiness". I think most people would agree with "to be happy, don't struggle for it, just be". Your original post, the one that seemed satirical to me, sounded like it was endorsing some notion of material accumulation at the expense of human fulfillment.
- forthefuture 10y agoOh, yeah I didn't mean it to sound that way. In that context I'd say that I believe that moving humanity forward provides more fulfillment than just being happy.
- bhandziuk 10y agoI didn't get the impression that Advancement == material accumulation. Advancement could be making the world better, gaining knowledge, or maybe advancement to a depressed person is finding happiness. Pretty broad meaning. But the same could be said for happiness. Some people find happiness in gaining knowledge.
- DavidWanjiru 10y agoI would argue advancement ultimately begets happiness, eg, you cure cancer, you save lives, which makes those lives, and the lives that love them, happy. If the advancement does not serve a purpose that brings happiness, what's the point of advancing?
- r-w 10y ago> I'd much rather struggle and advance than be happy doing nothing until I die Clearly you’re not capable of being happy doing nothing; otherwise, you would prefer it over anything else.
- nugga 10y agoI read it as totally sincere show of support for continuous technological advancement. My belief is that ultimately humanity will take full control of their existence. Science & technology is what will lead us there.
- duaneb 10y agoHow do you define "advancement" without happiness? What are you advancing toward?
- Urbanxassassin 10y agoAdvancement is masturbating 24/7 until you die, apparently.
- pharrington 10y ago> Happiness is masturbating 24/7 until you die Try it for one week and report back on how happy that made you. My assertion is that most people, just like you, actually enjoy doing shit! Of course, your one week fapathon may provoke data to the contrary.
- avindroth 10y agoThat's plain-old hedonism you are describing. Real happiness is from enlightened hedonism. Take into account the physical tire and emptiness of masturbating 24/7.
- guelo 10y agoIf your grandkids are less happy because you destroyed the environment in order to increase your happiness is that a negative or a positive in this philosophical framework?
- metaphorm 10y agoit was unthinkable in the original Aristotelean framework. They had no notion of being capable of destroying the environment in the way that we can now.
- maratd 10y agoI don't think that's true at all. They could have easily over-fished, exhausted the land through improper farming, or cut down all the trees in a particular area. And they had a very good idea that they could do this and screw over future generations.
- r-w 10y agoI don’t think that model takes ignorance into account. You would be unhappy if you knew you were doing a disservice to future generations, but you might accidentally do something stupid that screws things up for generations to come.
- clock_tower 10y agoThat sounds intuitively plausible; Aristotle's systems in general tended to be bad about modeling human ignorance.
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoMy grandparents did everything within their power to "destroy" the environment, and I'm perfectly fine.
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoI see that we're not that familiar with various versions of the anthropic principle. Okay then.