Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Chris Dillow — Happiness Vs Options

Utility is not the same as happiness.
In Book I of Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle asserts that every rational agent acts for an end and humans generally agree that this end is happiness. He goes on to observe that people disagree over what happiness is. He then consider various options, including what we now call utility, and rejects them as insufficient to meet his criteria because they engage only a partial aspect of human capacity.

Aristotle then elaborates his own view: While happiness is desired as an end, that is, for itself and not for anything else, it cannot be sought directly because it is a byproduct of excellence in living, that is, unfolding  human potential over the course of one's life by perfecting one's inherent capacity as human being, as well as one's individual talents.

The view of perennial wisdom is similar, but it includes only Aristotle's first criterion, that of perfecting one's capacity as a human being by realizing the full potential of consciousness, the outcome of which the abiding happiness of transcendental bliss. It is said to be "transcendental" because it is of the nature of consciousness and is not dependent on mind, body, or environment.

This view was expressed in a similar vein but more in terms of personal experience by Socrates in describing the method his teacher, the priestess Diotima, had taught him in the famous "ladder of love" passage in the dialogue called The Symposium  210a-212b.

Stumbling and Mumbling
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle (UK)

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