Understanding Ethics and the Pursuit of Happiness
Week 1: Understanding Ethics
1. Definition of Ethics
Men are free. This means that if a man understands what to do and chooses to do it, he can be happy. Freedom, therefore, is the path to happiness.1 The path is not easy, but every man, relying on his perceptions, intuitions, and everyday thoughts, can use his intelligence to discover which path to follow to achieve happiness. The life of every person is full of complexities that are difficult to solve. “What do I do?” and “What should I do?” are questions that have been repeated as many times as there have been problems.
1 Those who act differently than you think is best are a slave; they depend on something other than what they think. Therefore, the only way to be free is to act rationally. He who acts on his desire, despite his intelligence, loses his freedom.
Jorge Luis Borges imagined a map so detailed that it was exactly the size of the country it represented, so that it extended over the entire territory. The choice of an ethics manual that covers all possibilities is even more difficult, since in this case, not only must we note what has happened in history, but all the problems that could ever happen.
Ethics does not specifically talk of values, because each person can appreciate what they want, and this may not lead to happiness.
And worst of all, each one must decide for himself. It is impossible to write a manual that has in itself the answer to all possible scenarios. Such a manual would be long… as long as life itself. So, here is something that ethics is not: a book or manual of solutions to all of life’s questions.
2. What is Ethics?
Man has to devote time and effort to better understand the path that will lead to happiness. This effort should be systematic and orderly. The knowledge that results from this effort, we call ethics.
Ethics: the science whose object is to guide human actions in relation to achieving the ultimate goal.
This definition means several things:
- It is a science. Put another way, it is knowledge that understands the causes of the things it studies, obtaining safe and reliable knowledge. These are not opinions, not about taste. Ethics is objective knowledge, i.e., it can be tested (and accepted even if we do not like the results). That it is a science also means that it is orderly and systematic.
- Its purpose relates to human actions. What it studies, which distinguishes it from other sciences, are human actions. But human actions can be studied from many perspectives. Economics will do so from the standpoint of meeting needs, psychology by trying to understand the mental processes that originated them, history by studying them as part of the past, etc. Thus, ethics studies human actions to guide them, and thus enable us to achieve happiness.
- It is a practical science; it seeks to guide human actions. It is, therefore, a science that becomes all-purpose in practice. It is possible to know a lot about ethics and not be any closer to happiness than before studying it, if we do not put it into practice. In this respect it differs from mathematics, which is theoretical and studied in order to know itself (although it can be applied in other disciplines such as physics or engineering) and is similar to medicine, which is practical and is studied to heal people. Just like medicine, if ethics is not applied, it is not complete.
- Guidance in relation to achieving the ultimate goal. Any guidance is oriented in some sense and, in the case of ethics, this sense is happiness. Ethics guides us towards that which moves us always, whether we know it or not, and that is our fulfillment as persons. To be properly what we are. Put another way, ethics examines how we can develop fully as real people. Man, being free, can be happy or not. Ethics is the science which directs us to really fulfill the meaning of that freedom and to become fully human.
Therefore, to speak of ethics is not only a general theoretical consideration, but rather a way to understand the meaning of what we do and how we can optimize it in practice and thus become happy. Here is the original sense of ethics. The word ethics comes from the Greek word ethos which means character or way of being and the concept has its roots in an even older word, which means habit or custom. Ethics is not just knowledge but one that guides the way of doing things. Ethics is a kind of knowledge that aims to guide action in a rational sense, unlike preferably contemplative knowledge, which does not seek to modify the actions of human beings.
2. The End of Man
However, following the precepts, duties, and obligations of the law makes sense as long as we get something by doing so, and it is a huge effort. What is the meaning?
The acts men perform freely have a purpose. Now if we consider that these ends are themselves means to achieve other more important ends, we see that the daily acts take on a more transcendent meaning. So, running to catch the bus makes sense to arrive on time to class. The class makes sense for the course and this for the degree and this for the work we can do if we graduate, etc.4 There is an ultimate end, by which our actions have a general sense. The ultimate goal is common to all men: happiness. It can be achieved in many ways, through different vocations, in the company of different people, in different places, etc. However, to achieve this, one should live life by following the precepts of natural law and positive law.
4 Although it is important to appreciate the good times that life has, we cannot think that happiness is a series of momentary pleasures, as is commonly stated, as man aspires to stability. In fact, if we know that an important asset is coming to an end, we usually fear that time.
Man’s happiness is the fulfillment of his capacities: the will, which is complete love, and intelligence, which is the contemplation of truth. This is achieved through the exercise of freedom and adherence to natural law and positive law.