Browsing by Subject "Happiness."
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Item Like the green bay tree : the necessity of virtue for happiness.(2009-06-01T20:17:59Z) Wise, Jonathan D. Sands.; Roberts, Robert Campbell, 1942-; Philosophy.; Baylor University. Dept. of Philosophy.It is a generally accepted truth that the wicked flourish, as the psalmist has it, "like the green bay tree": their evil ways, far from hurting them, actually contribute to their well-being and vicious contentedness. From Socrates till Kant, on the other hand, every major moral philosopher believed that a person had to be virtuous to be happy. I explore why Aristotle accepted this thesis and the role that it played in his account of the good life, then turn to our contemporary accounts of happiness to determine if our concept shares any similarities with that employed by Aristotle. Happiness, most contemporary accounts would have it, is nothing more than a psychological state; I argue that this is reductive and that we still share much of Aristotle’s perspective wherein happiness tracks objective features of our character and fit with our environment as well. Even if I am right about happiness, why should we accept that virtue is necessary for happiness? Joseph Butler, though often misunderstood, provides significant support for this thesis using specific theistic premises, which, unfortunately, are no longer available to us today. Bernard Williams and Alasdair MacIntyre, on the other hand, provide a complex account of ethics that allows us to respond to the serious challenges our central thesis still faces, most notably cultural relativism and the apparent counterexamples provided by the green bay trees that surround us all. I conclude that there is substantial support for the thesis that some list of virtues, explorable but not entirely known by us, is necessary for the sort of happiness that we are concerned to plan for and achieve in our ethical lives, and that virtue ethics should accept this thesis as it has several important roles to play, especially in education and reflective endorsement. Justice, as a personal virtue, proves an interesting test case as I explore whether it particularly is necessary for happiness.Item Reclaiming happiness of the city and the soul : Augustine's engagement with Cicero and Porphyry in the City of God.(2014-09-05) Jangho, Jo.; Williams, Daniel H.; Religion.; Baylor University. Dept. of Religion.The present dissertation argues that Augustine's City of God demonstrates the superiority of the Christian faith to pagan philosophy in the attainment of happiness and, ultimately, seeks to turn the Roman intellectuals to the Christian faith. The study investigates Augustine's correspondence with educated Romans and shows that the target audience of the City of God is primarily those who are interested in the Christian faith, yet under the sway of pagan philosophies and their criticisms of the Christian teachings. Since Cicero and Porphyry were the major philosophers who taught a way to happiness on socio-political and contemplative levels respectively, Augustine presents the Christian faith as the single way to the true commonwealth and the beatific vision which these two philosophers desired to achieve. In other words, he presents the Christian faith as completing the goal of pagan philosophy, especially the goal of Plato's philosophy: happiness on both the political and contemplative dimensions. The dissertation concludes that Augustine integrates these two main eudaemonistic components in Platonism through the City of God.The dissertation also claims that Augustine identifies Rome with Nineveh in the Book of Jonah, and that such re-conceptualization reflects the evangelistic attitude toward his contemporary intellectuals.Item Tragic philosophy and human desire : bringing Nietzsche and Plato into conversation with contemporary ethics.(2013-05-15) Coblentz, William Travis.; Schultz, Anne-Marie, 1966-; Philosophy.; Baylor University. Dept. of Philosophy.In his Retrieval of Ethics, Talbot Brewer complains of a fundamentally inadequate moral psychology within contemporary ethics, most importantly the limitation of human desire to the instrumental. In response, Brewer, drawing primarily from Aristotle, develops an account of human desire that finds fulfillment-without-ceasing within “dialectical” activity, that is, activity that has an object irreducible to a propositionally describable state of affairs. In this work, I pursue interpretations of Nietzsche and Plato, arguing that they both practice tragic philosophies, implying in turn that that they both held that fundamental human desire can be fulfilled only in dialectical activity. In chapters two through four, I trace Nietzsche’s development from a metaphysical description of tragedy to the practice of tragic philosophy that rejects any metaphysics from which one may derive a telos or morality. This allows a fulfillment of human desire in the constant failure of knowledge to grant the state of affairs necessary to fulfill desires-that is, disappointment. And out of disappointment, one may fulfill-without-ceasing the will to power in ever new forms of creation, thus affirming the activity that is life. Chapters five through seven offer an interpretation of Plato, in which he presents a Socrates who practices an erotic and tragic philosophy that shows a complementary relationship between the aporetic and constructive dialogues. Socrates’ ironic claim to ignorance expresses both the human inability to acquire knowledge of metaphysics and the possibility of the practice of dialectic to bring one into the presence of the Good/Beauty. Socrates’ practice of philosophy is both tragic and erotic, in that it expresses constant striving without the claiming of its goal (lack), and yet achieves the fulfillment-without-ceasing that can be the only “object” of eros. Both Nietzsche and Plato expose a rich view of human desire, fulfilled only in dialectical activity. Their tragic philosophies reflect their views of desire, and so offer resources for contemporary ethics both in terms of philosophical method and more adequate accounts of human desire. In terms of fullness and lack, an important distinction arises between eros and the will to power that may encourage further discussion.