Fall 2013 Happiness Grade norming exercise

Return to Happiness

Class,

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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).

Robert Paulsen

The basis of the Epicurean view is that pleasure is the key to happiness. Unfortunately for Epicurus, perhaps, picturing the practice of this philosophy can make us think of such adjectives as selfish, lazy, and immature. As Epicurean philosophy progresses, however, we can see that this picture of how to unlock happiness is not as superfluous as it seems at first glance. The pursuit of pleasure, Epicurus elaborates, is simply an attempt to fulfill one's desires--just as we all do every day, working towards some future goal or desire. In order to get more happiness, then, we must either fulfill more desires (difficult) or take the easier road proposed: desire less and simpler things. According to an Epicurist, the latter path makes us happier because simpler desires are easier to fill, thus we will have more pleasure and more happiness. A criticism of this solution is that simplifying our desires takes away the element of reaching and risk-taking inherent in progress and invention, perhaps making us happier in a simple little way but preventing us from reaching our full potential and greater joy at higher achievement. Epicureanism does however shed light on the fact that much of our unhappiness comes from yearning for things we do not yet have and the anxiety that we may never have them, and that desiring things that come easier dispels much of that anxiety allowing us greater satisfaction.