Fall 2013 Happiness Grade norming exercise

Return to Happiness

Class,

You can log into the wiki anonymously as username "student" and password "bulldog". Then edit this page to add your answer as follows:

(pseudomyn)

kit

(answer)

Try to answer the question in about 7-8 minutes. The recommended due date is Wednesday at 5pm.

Alfino

Epicureans are often regarded as indulgers who focus on the senses and satisfying them as a means to happiness. Though partially correct, this is often the interpretation of those who use the term pleasure in a modern context. The key idea of Epicureanism of pursuing pleasure is based on the ancient world’s understanding of pleasure rather than that of today (and noting the difference is central to understanding the philosophy). In order to achieve pleasure, one must also re-orient one’s notion of what pleasure is to find the more basic things satisfying. A key criticism of this idea is that in re-orienting our notion of pleasure we are really just settling for something less than we are capable of experiencing. An insight, however, is that we can truly be happy with the more basic things, and thus find happiness more readily (i.e. when we are extremely thirsty and plain water is the best thirst-quencher).