Prof Washington Watson Only

Prof Washington Watson Only 

By: Talal Munawwer

Thesis:

You can’t have happiness with wealth, fame, or power. You can only find happiness by your virtue. If you have the most wealth, you would want more and more and never achieve happiness, but if your poor you will work so hard to sacrifice some of your happiness and will take a long time. If you have all the fame and power, you can easily go down because everyone is watching your every single move which will never achieve happiness. If you develop your virtue however, you will feel happy that you did something good and develop more virtue.

Connections:

The connects to Philosophy because Buddha said that in order to achieve true happiness you must give up everything and be one with nature, be a good person and help one another. This is a virtue ethics where you do good to others to achieve something even greater, which is happiness. Aristotle said that It is also necessary to practice prudence of character and have a good “daimon,” meaning good fate or good luck in order to lead a full and truly happy life. It is like karama, do good so then you get back the good in a different form.

Aristotle and metaphysical happiness 

For Aristotle, the most notable of the metaphysical philosophers, happiness is the highest desire and ambition of all human beings. In his opinion, the way to reach it is through 

virtue

. In other words, if one cultivates within oneself the highest virtues, he or she will reach happiness.

More than just a tangible state, Aristotle believed that it is more a lifestyle. The key characteristic of this way of life is to constantly exercise and extract the best of each individual.

It is also necessary to practice prudence of character and have a good “daimon,” meaning good fate or good luck in order to lead a full and truly happy life. For this reason, his thesis on happiness is known by the name “Eudaimonia” or “Eudaemonism.”

Aristotle provided the philosophical base on which the Christian church was built. Considering this, great similarities can be found between this great thinker’s ideas and the principles of Judeo-Christian religions.

Epicurus and hedonistic happiness 

Epicurus

 was a Greek philosopher who contradicted metaphysical philosophers. In contrast to their beliefs, he did not believe that happiness came only from the spiritual world, but rather that it also had a great deal to do with more earthly dimensions.

In fact, Epicurus founded a school of thought called Epicureanism, and actually had his own school which he called “The Garden.” Many interesting ideas and conclusions come from Epicureanism.

He proposed the principle that 

balance

 and temperance were what created space for happiness. This idea is captured in one of his greatest maxims: “He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing.”

Epicurus thought that love had little to do with happiness, and that friendship, instead, was more important. He also insisted in the idea that one should not work for money to be able to buy goods, but rather for the love of the work.

Slavoj Zizek and happiness as a paradox 

This philosopher indicates that being truly happy is a matter of opinion, and not of truth. He considered satisfaction and contentment a product of capitalist values which implicitly promise eternal satisfaction through consumption.

However, dissatisfaction reigns within humans because in reality, they do not know what they want.