Philosophical Theories of Happiness and Justice
Happiness: The Core of Moral Action
The good life has different philosophical interpretations. Philosophical theories that identify the highest good as happiness are called hedonistic (possession of a good demon).
Aristotle
Humans always pursue some purpose, which is understood as good. These purposes can usually be:
- Related purposes that we pursue to achieve aims and ultimate goods (work to get money to buy food and so afford a home).
- End-all ultimate and supreme end to which all human action tends (I pursue happiness because I want to be happy).
Aristotle considered the highest good and the utter end of all action is happiness.
The Ultimate Good
For Aristotle, the highest good of humans is in the development of what distinguishes humans from the rest of beings: the activity and the cultivation of reason. Only here can we find that a person can achieve happiness. To dedicate oneself to this intellectual activity, one must have sufficient material resources and tranquility. The polis is responsible for providing such security for the development of tranquility and virtue. This is why ethics is dependent on politics, and the ultimate aim of development is to facilitate our virtue in society.
Ethical Virtues
They derive from the usual habits of acting. Their function is to guide behavior toward the irrational instincts. This control is performed by placing our acts at a happy medium between excess and defect. Examples include:
- Valor – golden mean between rashness and cowardice.
- Temperance (debauchery and insensitivity).
- Generosity (prodigality and avarice).
- Justice – respect for the law of the state.
Dianoetic Virtues
Prudence – the intellectual ability to distinguish necessary things from unnecessary ones, as well as knowing how to choose good and reject what is bad. This is under the guidance of the other virtues, morals, and tells us what means are necessary for the desired ends and to achieve the highest good.
Stoicism
Stoic ethics can be summarized as: living by nature. We can only achieve happiness if we accept the natural laws that govern our destination and do so with serenity. This serenity comes when we exercise control over our passions (apatheia). Once passions are controlled and this natural order is understood, the sage achieves ataraxia (imperturbability of the spirit). By tuning in well with nature, one enters a state of being happy.
Epicurus
Hedonism, also known as Epicureanism, defends that happiness lies in enjoyment and pleasure, both of the soul and the body. It takes into account both the corporeal and the spiritual as means of access to happiness.
Limits of Stoicism and Epicureanism
In the emphasis placed so much on living according to nature, they leave in the background the social character that human nature has. In its proposed solutions, hedonism becomes individualistic and subjectivist.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism emerged in the late eighteenth century in England. Utilitarians identify happiness and justice with the social good (that everyone has access to education is just, as it improves society). Our acts must be done taking into account that they will produce the most good possible, minimizing the evil for more people. This moral purpose is called the principle of utility or benefit. In everything we do, the greatest excess of good over bad is pursued.
Limits
There are two main issues to consider:
- The problem of finding an objective criterion to measure pleasures or pain.
- Lack of agreement on which pleasures should be measured: physical, intellectual, etc.
To add to this, there is no ethical stance that notes what the supreme good is to which humans tend. According to many, the limitation of utilitarian philosophy is that the principle of utility is insufficient to guide our choices when acting.
Justice as an End
Justice as a quality of a particular type of social order is understood as a necessary condition for a good life.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
An example of a medieval theory of justice.
General or Legal Justice
Everyone has the right to receive the goods from society needed for personal development, but they also have obligations to others. There is a legal framework that ensures that everyone assumes their responsibility in this social order. For this, we count on virtue, understood as legality. This justice, called justice by Saint Thomas, is generally understood as a synonym for general justice or law. It must reach all members of society, rulers and the ruled. For Saint Thomas, authority resides in the rulers, whose primary duty is to organize social life and meet common needs.
Justice Including
It regulates the rights of all beings against other individuals or the community. There are two types:
- Commutative Justice: It is mathematical, based on arithmetic proportion and distribution.
- Distributive Justice: It implies certain criteria for its application (necessity, merits, dignity).
Justice requires stuck organs to ensure the smooth fulfillment of the principle and its correct application. Ethics is subject to politics.
Limits
Aristotelian philosophy is compatible with Christian thought. This means that the highest good is not the happiness of the community, but human life endowed with divine law.
John Rawls
He gives justice the capacity not only to distribute rights and legal duties, but also everything that results from social cooperation, and that is what allows humans to achieve a better life. He proposes a theory of social justice in which justice is synonymous with impartiality.
The veil of ignorance is a hypothetical situation in which all men, from a position of absolute equality, would decide freely. Rawls calls this the original position.
Principles of Justice
They can never restrict the freedom of individuals:
- Political liberty (the right to vote).
- Freedom of conscience (freedom of belief and thought).
- Individual freedom and property rights.
- Freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure.
Justice and Freedom
They are the primary social goods that justice must distribute. The principles guide us on how to do it. For them to be fulfilled, the intervention of a just political system is necessary. The action of governments must have clear boundaries, marked by the freedoms enunciated by Rawls. No government can quash freedom.