How many times have we fantasized about having a perfect life, and in that fantasy, we dreamt that we are extremely happy living that life? According to Daniel Gilbert, in his essay “Immune to Reality”, “because we ignore how our psychological immune system works, we cannot predict how happy our choices will make us”. Therefore, it gets us away from the perfect life that we wish so much. At the end, can we learn how to control the Psychological Immune System to achieve happiness in our life? We would be in a better standing position if we can take advantage of the knowledge how our psychological immune system works, identify what kind of happiness we want to experience, and recognize that we cannot be always happy.
Josh Mouzer Ethics 25th January 2015 Explain a Utilitarian approach to war pacifism is immoral. Discuss. The principle of utilitarianism is what will cause the most happiness for the majority of people. When a utilitarian approaches the topic of war they will use the hedonic calculus to decide which will result in the most happiness. The general thinking is that if war will result in greater happiness than the current situation then it is fine.
Some rhetorical devices Jefferson uses are so subtle that the average reader does not recognize them as obvious forms of rhetoric. The audience is only left with the powerful message that he intended to convey. Alliteration, one of the simplest devices he uses is fairly subtle yet effective in creating mood or tone through out the Declaration. In breaking down the phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” the words “Life” and “Liberty” sort of roll off the tongue together. This could be applied to make a point that life and liberty are one in the same; that with life comes a given freedom, and the right to pursue ones own happiness is branched under that freedom.
Since the true path to happiness, according to Epictetus, is the attainment of virtue, we can all become happier by improving ourselves, whether morally or intellectually. Furthermore, Epictetus' philosophy of happiness would lead us to live less stressful lives if we came to worry about only that which we can control. Still, while I admire Epictetus and his philosophy, I do not believe that most of us could be happy purely through the attainment of virtue. I believe that social support and some level of material possessions are necessary for happiness; we cannot forever strive only for virtue. I do, however, believe that Epictetus had a strong point when he asserted that we should only, rationally-speaking, worry about what we can change -- what good is there in worrying about things we cannot
Stimuli that is rewarding produces positive feelings in us, and stimuli that is punishing produces negative feelings. As some of the stimuli are other people it follows that some people make us happy, while others do not. According to the principles of operant conditioning, we are likely to repeat any behaviour that leads to a desirable outcome and avoid behaviour that leads to an undesirable outcome. This theory suggests that we enter into relationships because the presence of some individuals in directly associated with reinforcement – they produce a positive feeling for us – which makes them more attractive to us. As well as being attracted to someone who directly makes us happy, we also like people who we associate with a pleasant experience.
We are more likely to form a relationship with those people who are associated with pleasant event e.g. we are more likely to like someone when we are in a happy mood opposed to unhappy. Support for this theory comes from Griffitt and Guay, they found that higher ratings were given when the experimenter had positively evaluated the participants, thus showing the importance of positive stimuli in relationship formation. Although, the reward / need satisfaction theory doesn’t take into account cultural and gender differences in the formation of romantic relationships. Lott suggests that in many cultures are more focused on the needs of others rather than receiving reinforcement.
As Thomas Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence “that [all men] are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions (Dalai Lama XIV),” it is a feeling that humans strive for, but this great feeling does not last forever and it is the journey to get to this occasional feeling is what Americans are entitled to. As humans we are not defined by who we are currently but how we got there. This is what the American dream is all about, the things you did and the measures you took to achieve your dream and to pursue your
From the language and personalised tone he used in his writing, Rogers may be targeting an audience of young nerds, who are unsure of being proud of themselves. Rogers claims that nerds should embrace their nerdiness and not conform to societal stereotypes of them because of the success they will gain later in their lives. In paragraph 1, he dismisses society’s perceptions of nerds as “narrow-minded and thoughtless” and defines two key features of nerdiness as the “obsession with mastering every insane detail of their interest” and the “inability to understand… societal norms”, which nerds should embrace. He moves on to attributes that “virtually every modern blessing… originated with a nerd”, providing successful examples of nerds like Einstein and Newton in paragraph 3. Stating too their successes are acknowledged by society, who perceives them as “geniuses”, albeit only later in life.
1) Summarize the “Ted” talk or selected video. Shawn Anchor talked about positive psychology and the way we tend to look at success and happiness backwards. Most people follow a success then happiness formula but after success if the goalposts of success keep changing, it’s hard to find happiness. Instead of assuming that future achievement will bring happiness into our lives, we need to change our frame of mind to be happier and more positive. This happier and more positive way of thinking will contribute considerably to the likelihood that we will actually achieve that success.
“HAPPINESS COMES FROM OUTSIDE AND WITHIN” Within this essay I will be attempting to explain the above statement which is attributed to Richard Layard by Spors et al (2007). Happiness can be quite difficult to quantify as it is very subjective. Spoors et al define happiness as a positive feeling covering a range of emotions from joy to contentment. Within the context of the essay title “outside” is a reference to our social identities. I will be looking at the ways in which the roles that we play, the impact of groups which we belong to and our cultural identity can impact on us positively.