Ethics: Happiness, Duty, Discourse, and Scientific Methods

Posted on Dec 14, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Ethics of Happiness

1. Being happy is to self-actualize, to achieve those goals specific to a human being. (Aristotle)

Aristotle’s ethics: Considers that being happy is being a human in the fullest sense of the word. If there is an activity that distinguishes us as humans, it is considered exercise to be happy. Every human activity that is pursued is for a good, therefore, an end. According to Aristotle, all human activities tend to an end, and all purposes, in turn, tend to an ultimate goal.

Happiness is:

  • A perfect good is wanted for itself and not for something else above it.
  • A good, enough in itself, for which one no longer wishes to pose otherwise.
  • The good is achieved by carrying out the activities most characteristic of the human.
  • The good that is achieved with a continuous activity.

In the community, everyone has a proper function of the human being as such; if there were, happiness and virtue would be more perfect. Theoretical intelligence, which is more typical of a human being as himself and nothing else and may be exercised continuously, and the satisfaction it provides is in the same year. Hence, Aristotle constitutes the exercise of theoretical activity in contemplation is happiness.

Practical Wisdom

Those who live according to their practical intellect, that is, to dominate their passions to achieve happiness, are helped in this task by virtues that may be of two types:

  1. Dianoetic (caution) or intelligence.
  2. Ethics or character. (Requires the policy).

Aristotelianism: Aristotle’s ethics are continued by Thomas Aquinas. It is essential to find out what the ultimate goal of human actions is, and it is found in contemplative life. In Thomism, the end of man is sought in theology.

2. Being happy is to be self-sufficient, to stand on one’s own without relying on anyone or anything. (Cynical Ethics)

Personal happiness, avoiding concerns.

3. Being happy is to experience pleasure and avoid pain to get it.

Hedonism: Epicurus of Samos is the founder of Epicureanism. He said what drives men to act to achieve happiness is pleasure. Moral hedonists believe that because men seek pleasure and flee from pain, the moral intellect is a calculating intellect.

Individualistic Hedonism: Epicureanism:

Wanted:

  • Searching for pleasure, eliminating pain.
  • Finding the maximum level of pleasure and eliminating pain.
  • Intelligence functions as a calculator.

Recipe for happiness: Do not fear death, nor the gods or fate, and have no desire to devote some time to philosophizing.

Social Hedonism: Utilitarianism:

Consider that men are endowed with social feelings, the satisfaction of which is a source of pleasure. These feelings of sympathy account. Sympathy leads us to extend our wishes for others to obtain happiness. The goal of morality is to attain the greatest happiness (the greatest pleasure) for the greatest number of living beings. This principle of morality is both a criterion for making rational decisions.

Jeremy Bentham introduces an arithmetic of pleasures that lie in two assumptions:

  1. Pleasure is susceptible to measurement because all pleasures are equal in quality.
  2. The pleasures of different people can be compared to reach a total maximum of pleasure.

Stuart Mill rejects these assumptions and claims that pleasures differ not only in quantity but also in quality.

Consumerist Hedonism:

They believe that happiness is to consume all the products that provide pleasure, without limits or calculations. It is immoral from the perspective of utilitarianism.

Two forms of utilitarianism:

  • Act utilitarianism: Correction of every action by its consequences.
  • Rule utilitarianism: Consider whether the action to which we are subjected to some of the rules and consider the moral goodness of its consequences.

Ethical Duty

Kantian Ethics:

The practical reason: We are aware that there are certain commands that we must follow, whether they make us happy or not. Our own reason is the law that gives us how to behave and is expressed as commands (imperatives). What makes a man act in one way or another is his will. We distinguish 3 types of rules:

  • Maximum: Rules used for myself.
  • Hypothetical imperative: Conditioned mandate. (If you want, you) is subject to being unwilling to meet the end. It is a posteriori. It is an interested and materialistic ethic that uses man as a medium.
  • Categorical imperative: Duty: Morality should be a set of rules binding on all individuals and all situations. It is a formal and selfless ethic. It is a priori. It uses man as an end, not as a means. It is said to be self-guided by its own criteria, who does not get carried away by their desires, which does not depend on other criteria. It is a priori and selfish. Humans do not have a price; they have dignity. They are worthy of all respect.

Discourse Ethics

Arguing that moral norms must be the result of an agreement based on argumentative dialogue on an equal footing between rational and free individuals. Dialogical ethics are, therefore, ethical communication, speech, which mandates that the rules placed on duty are the agreement they have reached, rationally argued after each of them in defense of his position. The justification comes from moral norms of rational agreement and is set according to two principles:

  • Universal: Dialogic is a reformulation of the Kantian imperative of universality.
  • Discourse ethics: A dialogical reformulation of Kantian autonomy.

Thus, a standard is acceptable only if all those affected by it agree to give consent because it meets universal interests.

Rules of Discourse

  1. Any subject capable of speech and action can participate in the discourse.
  2. Anyone can problematize any assertion.
  3. Anyone can enter any information in the speech.
  4. Anyone can express their positions, desires, and needs.
  5. No speaker can be prevented from asserting their rights set out in the above rules, by internal or external coercion.

Experimental Method

In the natural sciences, it is based on experience and uses experimental verification or monitoring the experiment as a criterion to validate its conclusions. It is characterized by the degree of control that allows you to manipulate and treat certain situational factors. It develops in 4 steps:

  1. Careful observation and measurement; we must isolate the problem and define it.
  2. Adoption of the hypothesis.
  3. Justification of results.
  4. Theories.

Axiomatic Method

Method (formal sciences) is responsible for the forms (2 + 2) consists of symbols and connectors. An axiom is a fundamental truth that cannot be doubted. A theorem is a fact deducted by the axioms. An axiomatic system is:

  • Independence: Cannot be inferred or proven from another.
  • Consciousness: You cannot deduct an axiom something and its opposite. It must be demonstrated.
  • Completeness and decidability: Power to know if an axiom or a theorem is true or false.