Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Bentham: Be Happy!!!! (H1) Group 3

(H1) Group 3 (also known by the alias "Philosoraptors") Jake Goza, Nate Tilton, Michelle Kelley, Chloe Madigan, and Matthew Pyles

Today in class, my group had the pleasure (no pun intended) of discussing how to have pleasure in your life.





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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was a social reformist. He designed more efficient prisons and committed himself to philanthropy during his life (which was during the Industrial Revolution). Bentham created a philosophical dogma that has become known today as utilitarianism or the Greatest Happiness Principle. In contrast to Kant's theory of morality, Bentham believed that the decisive factor on whether your actions are moral or not is the amount of happiness it brings. His idea was that a moral action would a) lessen pain and suffering (an idea no doubt inspired by his settings, the atrocities of child labor, poor working conditions, no minimum wage, limits on hours in a work day, etc.) and b) increase the total happiness of the world. Do what makes you happy! :) Bentham defined happiness as the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain, a very simplistic view, but one that served his general purpose. He also supported being able to quantify happiness and apply it to a scale. He used his Felicific Calculus equations to determine whether or not an action would bring more happy or pain points. For Bentham, the mode of achieving happiness was irrelevant; so no matter what you do (masterbate, read a nice book, play in the mud, etc.), as long as this brings you happiness, the action is morally upright and ethically sound!

Our group started our discussion by agreeing that Bentham's definition of happiness is very subject to change. People rate happiness differently, people are made happy by different things, and that it's impossible to umbrella the term happiness as the vacancy of pain and the ubiquity of pleasure: People's emotions run deeper than these.

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We also discussed the problem of individuality. What if one person's pleasure causes another pain? Does this justify humans doing whatever they want without repercussions? Dr. Oliver brought up an interesting point of Bentham's "frame of reference" (the point of me giving his short bio above). We can extrapolate that Bentham valued eliminating pain over gaining pleasure because he was a social reformists trying to create laws and ideals to help eradicate the suffering of the poor during the Industrial Revolution. Nate Tilton brought up the Colluseum and gladiators to demonstrate this: the gladiators suffered, but thousands of people were brought pleasure through the gladiators' deaths. We decided that Bentham would have believed this wrong because he values the reduction of pain over promoting pleasure. Chloe Madigan also brought up a point saying that it's important not only to find pleasure in life, but pleasure that can be sustained and is fulfilling, not just instant gratification. Chloe used a metaphor of having a bag of happiness, the heaviest and most stable of objects in your bag of happiness should be things you can depend on and will be lasting (for Chloe, her family, friends, and hobbies give pleasure and happiness).

Our group then began trying to define what happiness is. Through conversation, we thought about the differences in individuals, and how the way a person finds happiness can be strongly based upon how they were raised. Nate, Chloe, and Michelle all talked about the Southern tendency to suppress emotions. Politeness is preached in most Southern homes, and at funerals, you are expected to keep your mourning to yourself. In many ways, America has less physical pains than most countries, but emotional and psychological pains are abundant. The South being only one example, there are many suppressed groups in America that deal with this kind of pain, and we agreed that Bentham's policy of pain annihilation would be a much appreciated policy for Americans.

I've probably left out a lot of points (my notes are hastily scribbled, deciphering them was hard, and bits were probably left out in translation), so Philosoraptors please comment and bring up anything I missed!

-Jake Goza

10 comments:

  1. Haha, these posts just get better and better. I fell like that first meme should be the advertisement for "Die Hard: Nursery Edition." I thought this was a really good summary Jake.

    An issue that we were beginning to explore at the end of this discussion (Southern culture) was whether happiness is achieved through the elimination or avoidance of pain. Though I know my own tendency, and the tendency people in general unless you are a masochist, is to avoid or eliminate pain, I think this produces a life of ease, not necessarily happiness (Rephrase: fulfillment, or as Aristotle would say, eudaimonia). Pain, at its core, is a healthy thing, because it is an indication that something is wrong.

    FQ: What is John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle?

    DQ: Is there intrinsic value in different kinds of pleasure?

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  2. This seems like this was a great discussion in this group as well.

    In happiness, I think a person needs to look at what will make them happy, and also see if their happiness might disturb others or make people look at you differently. I guess what I am saying is a cause-and-effect situation. However, in the other perspective, I do believe that not everyone is going to be happy with each person's way of happiness because we are all diverse in our own way. We all have things that make us happy that others may not like. Although, we should not go overboard on what makes us happy (e.g. murders, robbery, etc.).

    I agree with Chloe that we need to find something that sustains our happiness for a long time. We need this for times that we may be depressed, sad, weak, etc. This would be the best "go-to" for happiness. It might be singing in the shower every day to Adele (not saying I do this!) or driving along the coast in California (which I wish I could do!). Whatever it may be, we all need to find something that always makes us happy.

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    1. This was my comment meant for Keaton's post, but I put it here on accident.

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  4. I think that we should strive to be happy people,joyful even. This is different, I believe, than using Felicific Calculus to chose actions that minimize pain. If we live life as happy people, then no matter the circumstances, we are not without any happiness even though we might have momentary pain.

    We sort of related this back to the fact that if you eat too much ice cream, it ceases to be enjoyable. Life is full of little pleasures, and parallel pain as well. However if we live our lives as happy people, we can take the pain and "roll with the punches".

    FQ: Was John Stuart Mill a feminist?
    DQ: Does elevating your education limit your range of pleasure?

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  5. Nate brought up a great point: if we eliminate pain, can we know what the absence of pain feels like? Can we be happy if we don't know what being unhappy feels like? That's an awesome point, and he even expounded the topic to pain being necessary to alert your mind or body that something is wrong. I think that's what Bentham's morality was hinting at. Maybe he meant that pain is a result of doing wrong, therefore eleminating pain from your life is essentially eliminating wrong from your life. Of course, not all pain stems from doing wrong: we don't get sick because we behaved badly or did something wrong. However, external forces excluded, psychological pain is usually engendered from some wrong doing on either your part, or from someone else's wrongdoing towards you. So, what I'm trying to say is, when we feel pain, we should try to assess why we feels emotionally distraught about something, and maybe diagnose the mistake or wrongdoing we have committed (or that has been committed against us) and try to figure out a way to fix the problem and keep from repeating the same mistakes. In this way pain is a valuable indicator, but it is still our goal in morality and ethics to reduce pain; therefore reducing immorality and unethical behavior.
    -Jake

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  6. DQ: Most Christians would say that happiness comes from material and worldly things, and is short and fleeting. While joy comes directly from God and is a combination of serenity (from the peace of knowing your salvation), and general, continuous happiness (joy) that comes from your soul. So I guess my DQ is what is the true difference between joy and happiness? Can one have both without God? Which is better?

    FQ: Hegel says, "The owl of Minerva flies only at dusk." Who is Minerva, and what is this allusion's relevance?
    Answer: Minerva is the Roman embodiment of the Greek goddess Athena. In both cultures, these women (interestingly women represent wisdom in both of these cultures: women being an oppressed, belittled, and denounced contingent of these societies, I find this interestingly odd) were the goddesses of wisdom, and strategical planning and victory in war. The relevance is clearly in that they represent logical reasoning, an attribute necessary for philosophy.

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  7. I also thought this link was interesting: Confucianism nature of God!
    http://www.reference.com/motif/society/confucianism-nature-of-god

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  8. Jake, to answer (or attempt to answer) your DQ about joy versus happiness: I don't think joy is something reserved just for the religious. I do believe there is a difference between joy and happiness but I think there are many different contributing factors to both.
    Happiness, for example, may be cooking a big meal with your family, sitting down to eat it, and sharing good conversation.
    Joy is something bigger, I think, But I don't believe it has to come from religion.
    To clarify, this is my idea of joy:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kGt0udeqyxg

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  9. I agree Chloe! And I loved the link, it helped me to see your point. I think, like with group 4's discussion on tolerance, it's interesting how many connotations one word can have. I think there are very many different meaning for the word Joy. It can come from God, from eudaimonia, or even from other aspects of life.
    DQ: What is YOUR definition of Joy, and how does it differ from your definition of happiness?

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