Many
think that the pursuit to understand and heal the mind will give humans more insight into how to perpetuate their contentment and happiness.
More students are entering the field every year to help in this pursuit
and earning a psychology degree on-line - something once unheard of - is
now allowing for advancements within the growing community. Every day
more types of therapy are developed and discoveries made that are
helping people revolutionize their lives. It appears the perpetual
pursuit of happiness has, at the very least, piqued the interest of
humanity in general.
George Washington said: "Happiness and
moral duty are inseparably connected." Therefore, if you know how to
apply the objective moral law to yourself, you must be very happy: right
or wrong? Wrong, according to the 18th-century Prussian philosopher
Immanuel Kant. He argued that moral
requirements are based on a standard
of rationality called the Categorical Imperative. Morality is thus
achieved through reason, whereas happiness is achieved through the
instincts. There is not necessarily any virtue in happiness. English
philosopher John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, on the other hand, links
morality with happiness. It is possible to argue that some forms of
morality make us happy, while others do not, so each philosopher is both
right and wrong.
The difference lies, to some extent, in
differing views of what is right and wrong. Murder is universally
considered wrong, and generally speaking, only a morally depraved or
psychopathic person would achieve happiness by committing it. A person
who murders another to get rich -- to collect on a life insurance
policy, for example -- might think that the wealth acquired will make
him happy. But the blood money wouldn’t give the killer the same satisfaction as wealth acquired legally, and there would be an
ever-present chance of getting caught and spending life in prison, which
forfeits access to the wealth and can’t possibly make anyone happy. In
this case, the overwhelming majority of people would be made happier by
moral behaviour, i.e. refraining from murder.
For Mill,
moral behaviour increases the overall happiness of the world. For Kant,
however, the highest good is not happiness. Inclinations are the opponent of moral disposition in Kant’s synthesis of virtue. Virtue is fortitude, or the ability to withstand the vigorous and unfair enemy
that inclination is. A person engages in many types of behaviour because
of inclination. If a person calls in sick to work when he is not really
sick, he is following an inclination. It may very well make him happy to
stay home from work or school like Ferris Bueller; he may engage in all
sorts of stimulating, fun activities instead of subjecting himself to
the drudgery of work. Will he be contributing to the overall happiness
of the world? What if, during his day off, he rescues a child from a
burning building? Here, Mill would be conflicted, but it would be a case
in point for Kant: the right thing, going to work, would have been the
less happy thing.
When it comes to those moral directives about
which huge swaths of society disagree, from abortion to gay marriage,
Kant probably would have been on the conservative side. Morally, he
would say, by a process of reason, only a man and a woman should marry.
If two men do, they will be following a base inclination, and they may
well be happy. Mill might have found that gay marriage was a moral
possibility because it increased the overall happiness in the
world.
Clearly, in some areas, Americans, who love happiness, don’t
agree about what causes it.
A guest post, most welcome ................
It's not a small majority, it's overwhelming, and the topic is ......... oil.
