The Pursuit of Happiness: Virtue or Pleasure

Happiness is a complex emotion and mental state, one that has been pondered since the times of the Ancient Greeks. Many have wondered what it means to be happy and to achieve happiness through either virtue or pleasure. Is it for the good of the individual or the benefit of society? Those who believe virtue is the key to happiness argue that it is important for the well-being of both the individual and society, as touted by the Founding Fathers and the Stoics and inspired by Jeffrey Rosen's book "The Pursuit of Happiness", as one should strive for a life of moral virtue and rationality. Those who believe pleasure is the key to happiness see it as the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. Quoting philosophers such as Epicurus and John Stuart Mill and touting Roger Crisp's "Reason and the Good", they also argue that everyone should have the liberty to define their sources of happiness and seek them as they see fit.

With this background in mind, we debate the question: The Pursuit of Happiness: Virtue or Pleasure?

Arguing Virtue: Jeffrey Rosen, CEO & President of the National Constitution Center; Author of “The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America”

Arguing Pleasure: Roger Crisp, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford; Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, Oxford

Nayeema Raza, Journalist at New York Magazine and Vox, is the guest moderator

#opentodebate #debate #ethics #happiness #FoundingFathers #mentalstate #depression #philosophers #SamBankmanFried #plato

===================================

===================================

[OpentoDebate]

Are you happy? Explore our latest newsletter insights and debater editorials.

[Musonius]

Virtue or pleasure: a false dilemma? What is missing in this conversion is a third voice: Nietzsche. Although he himself was influenced by both the Stoics and Epicureans during his "free-spirit" period, he eventually comes to criticize and reject both approaches to life. The Stoic project of achieving happiness through the practice of virtue in accord with reason as well as the Epicurean pursuit of happiness through the instrumental use of reason both lead, he believes, to impoverished lives. As Nietzsche famously said: "Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does." Both approaches aim at the avoidance of risk and maximum safety. In our modern self-help culture, such approaches have become popular as ways of achieving peace of mind through self-management techniques. But what if the point of life is not happiness, but rather the expansive pursuit of creativity and novelty that requires risk and adventure. This picture, of course, is closer to Aristotle who stresses that eudaimonia is activity. But Nietzsche goes further by stressing a creative activity that involves an affirmation of life's suffering. Nietzsche's self-overcoming is not a sterile Stoic self-mastery according to reason. It is a creative overflowing that doesn't shun risk or suffering. Nietzsche, at least, invites us to ask whether the aim of life is really a life of well-being, safety and security--the life of the Last Man--or whether it is something more.

[kaykwanu]

Seeking virtue ultimately leads to happiness. Chasing happiness itself leads to no where.

[philosophy-of-science-and-law]

The ancients contrasted hedonism with cynicism. In other words, shared pleasure contrasted with self interest.

[searose]

Hedonism vs eudamonia. It truly is the eternal debate. There’s an argument that it is the struggle over human souls between God and Satan

[searose]

It depends on if you are a psychopath or not. Psychopaths can only approximate happiness through hedonic bliss. Non-psychopaths are well familiar with true happiness that is achieved through taking positive action towards improving the wellbeing of yourself and others, especially those that rely on you.

[searose]

Happiness in “increasingly elusive” because people have begun pursuing exclusively hedonic bliss rather than eudamonia and hedonism never grants “happiness” in anything but the most fleeting sense of the word.

[ericanderson]

The moderator of this one seemed biased in subtle ways in favor of the British guy