Happiness GENED Midterm Review

What are the three parts of the Soul According to Plato?

-Appetitive

-Spirit

-Reason

In the Republic the Appetitive faculty corresponds to

-The crafts people

In the republic the spirited faculty corresponds to

-The soldiers/police

In the republic the reasoning faculty corresponds to

-The ruler/philospher kings

Claims about the good life according to Plato

1) The Soul and mind have distinct parts that are in harmony or disharmony (descriptive claim)

2) The ideal life occurs when the different faculties are in harmony, not opposition 

3) Harmony is determined by the rational/reasoning faculty that rules all other faculties (spirit and appetitive). 

What does the appetitive faculty love

-Pleasure above all else

What does the spirited faculty love

-Honor and virtue above all else

What does the reasoning faculty love above all else

-Wisdom and goodness

Two scenarios to show the love of goodness in the republic

-The Ring of Gyges: The ideal human being, according to Plato, would act well, even if they had the ring and hence could act badly without anyone ever knowing.

-Consider the question: Would you rather be good, and believed to be bad, or be bad, and believed to be good? The ideal human, according to Plato, would choose the former because they love goodness above all else (above reputation, how they are treated by others, etc. etc.)

What is Eudaemonia

-Phenomenon described by Aristotle, direct translation is “happiness or flourishing,” which leads to a well-lived life that embodies virtue and reason.

-Fulfilling your human function in an excellent way

How does Aristotle come to the conclusion that that to be excellent as a human is to excel at reason?

1) Ask what kind of thing are we talking about

-A human being

2) What is the essence of that kind of thing ← what makes it different from other things

-the ability to reason

3) If living well is the cultivation of arete (virtue/excellence) in your essence, then a human being to excel at reason

What is arete according to Aristotle

-Excellence/virtue

Artistole belives that all good qualities are found between….Aristotle

extremes

What does Artistole believe is necessary to achieve the “good life?”

-A good upbringing

-Basic needs met (food, water, shelter, safety)

What problem does Stoicism solve?

Problem: Unsatified desire due to not being able to control your external circumstances and being highly reactive to things you cannot obtain/control

Solution: Make your inner world match your outer world and be at peace with your desire, “Want things to happen as they do.”

What are the two parts of living well according to Epictetus?

1) Properly manage the things in your control

2) Don’t afford mental energy to the things you cannot control

Stoic sage

-Ideal practitioner of stoicism with full control over their faculty of judgement. Fully un-reactive towards things outside their control.

Epictetus’ argument for true freedom

(1) In life, some things are within our control, and some things are not.

(2) Our body (and by extension enslavement), possessions, reputation, and social status are not within our ultimate control.

(3) Our faculty of judgment is always within our control.

(4) A person becomes "enslaved" when their faculty of judgment is controlled externally.

(5) If one maintains sovereignty over their judgment, no one can truly be their master.

(6) Thus, a Stoic sage can never truly be owned or imprisoned by someone else

Stoic view of death

-Death is a state of complete sensory deprivation and therefore you experience no pain

-You don’t need to fear death because once you are dead you can’t feel anything anyway ← there is no suffering

-Death is not in your control

The way to the good life according to Epicurus

1) Pursue freedom from pain of the body

2) Pursue freedom from pain of the mind

If you do this you will unmask the calm/peaceful standard human state of ataraxia in which you will have full claim/bliss//fulfillment. 

True or False? Epicureanism and Hedonism are synonyms

FALSE. Epicurus is actually against trying to chase expensive or difficult to attain pleasures as they are not long-lasting and do not bring true satisfaction

How to free yourself from pain of the mind

1)Have confidence that basic needs to the body will be met

2) Free yourself from all fears and anxieties 

How to free yourself from pain of the body

-Attain basic needs: food, water, shelter, safety

What is Ataraxia?

-Freedom from pain of the mind and body which is actually the default state of human existence

-Without external pains (of body/mind) you would naturally be in this state

Death is nothing argument

Fear of death is a pain of the mind that must be adressed

1) Epicurians are materialists and believe that there is no divine world or that if there are gods, they are uninterested in human affairs. Therefore,there is no afterlife or judgment to fear.

2) People worried about death have not internalized it as simply as the time before you were born, which was not painful

3) Death cannot harm you as you are already gone and don’t exist by the time it takes hold

Epicureans are ______’s when it comes to their view of the natural world/reality

materialists/physicalists 

Epicurean 4 part cure

1) Don’t fear god

2) Don’t worry about death

3) What is good is easy to get

4) What is bad is easy to endure

What is Atman

Your true self apart from superficial reality

What is brahman

-Brahman is ineffable (cannot be fully described) in language and only felt.

-Brahman is all encompassing, unchanging, fully pure and good

-It is DIVINE

What is the claim about ultimate reality in the Upanishads 

-Atman = Brahman

-All humans are the same and divine

Ocean metaphor

-Qualitative

-We are all drops of water in the ocean that are the same in terms of makeup (qualitatively) but aren’t literally the same (in different places)

Actor metaphor

-Quantitative and Qualitative 

-We are all characters in a play that are played by Brahman. Our Atman (true selves) is Brahman as he manifests himself in all roles. Brahman plays all roles at once

Metaphors for Atman = Brahman

-Ocean metaphor

-Actor Metaphor

The Ocean metaphor is…

Qualitative

The Actor Metaphor is…

Quantitative and Qualitative

The two paths explored in the Upanishads are

1) The path of pleasure

2) The path of joy

The path of pleasure

-Pursue short term pleasures

-Pleasure is caused by external sources and is not long-lasting

The path of joy

-Sacrifice short term pleasures in favor of joy

-Joy is the opposite of pleasure and is caused by internal sources. It is also undirected (itsnot about anything in particular)

-“Joy is billions to the pennies of pleasure)

-You can experience joy even when unenlightened

How to experience lasting joy

-Find an experienced/enlightened teacher

-Meditation <- later its added  in the Bhagavad Gita that you can practice meditation through focused work in competition with Jainism and Buddhism

To pursue please is the same as pursuing pain

Pleasure - Enjoyment that has an external source <- ex: eating, friends, drink, praise

To pursue pleasure is the same as pursuing pain. Why?

-To get a pleasure, you must first pay with prior pain (since you didn’t have it

before/suffered)

-The pleasure you have is not guaranteed, and now you have the pain of being fearful of losing it

-You suffer before you have it and you suffer once you’ve gotten it

The Bhagavad Gita says to lose the _____self in favor of the ____self. 

superficial; divine

Why is work as meditation worth it?

1) Its more enjoyable when you fully focus on the task at hand

2) Its more productive

3) Work done in this manner is progress towards enlightenment 

How do do work meditatively

Approach:

Perform duties without being consumed by desires or anxieties.

Work with steadiness of mind, treating action as a form of worship.

What are the sources of distraction while working according to the Bhagavad Gita

1. Worrying about outcome.← being fixated on the outcome, hence being attached to results
   
   

2) Rushing through tasks.

What does the Bhagavad Gita claim about work?

• Enjoyment and satisfaction may depend less on the kind of task, more on the quality of attention.
  Example: Washing dishes vs. painting — both can be deeply fulfilling with the right mindset.
  

What is non-attatchment to work in the Bhagavad Gita?

• Don’t be motivated solely by reward.
  
  

• Don’t be upset by failure.

This is another form of “loss of self” that it progress towards enlightenment

Specific examples of obstacles against diligent/focused work

• Split attention – dividing focus across tasks.
  
  

• Monkey mind – restless, wandering thoughts.

4 noble truths

1) Suffering exists (disease)

2) Desire causes suffering (Cause)

3) Eliminate desire, eliminate suffering (Cure)

4) Eightfold Path ← steps to eliminate desire (Path)

Preference

-Disposition to do something that you are not a slave to

-If you lose the ability to do/have this thing it would not cause suffering

Attachment/Clinging

-Craving,

-losing this thing will cause you suffering and even when you have it, you are anxious about losing it.

How do you reduce clingings?

1) Observe the actions of your mind

2) Notice what you fixate on/worry about

3) Meditatively practice letting go of the hand of the mind that holds onto things tightly without releasing them

Is pushing something away equivalent to letting it go?

NO. pushing something away from you is as bad as pulling it towards you in buddhism. It is also a form of clinging

Lake metaphor (Can also be viewed as a mirror)

Be like a clear reflective lack as thoughts come across your mind (Ex: bird flying over) let them come across your mind but afterwards let go and allow yourself to return to a meditative state.

How do you get started in reducing desire?

-Begin with minor clinging and then work your way up

-Avoid worsening your “disease” by adding more clingings on-top of the ones you already have. 

Principles of mediation

• Don’t cling or repel

• Don’t ignore

• Reflect and be at peace with your mind

Confucian view from Mencius

“All humans have an “innate tendency” towards goodness”

Egoist view

“Human beings are innately selfish”

Mencius’ rebuttal to the egoist, saying that people do wrong things all the time, how could they be innately good?

• Out of sight, out of mind, 

  • The king saves the ox because he saw the atrocity, but if a sheep was going to be slaughtered and he didn’t see ,it then he wouldn’t save it.

Mencius's rebuttal to the egoist, saying that there are people who never do good

-Analogy of a hill/mountain that is overgrazed/goes through devastation

-Being in a bad environment or having a bad upbringing can lead to the sprout of goodness being fully extinguished

Two scenarios emphasizing human tendency to do good/innate benevolence 

1) Saving the child from the well

2) The king saving the Ox from slaughter

Mencius replies to the Egoist saying good is to feel good/is self serving.

Egoist Reply: People do good things to feel good about themselves

-Reply 1: By motivation and outcome are not always

equivalent, you can be motivated to do something good without that

being tied to the outcome

Egoist Reply: All good acts are inherently self-serving

-If we do good things to be self-serving, why do we have this internal feeling of goodness when doing the right thing? And shame if we do the wrong thing <- evidence of internal goodness

What are Mencius’ views about career and goodness

-You should pick a career that nurtures your sprout of goodness 

-Ex: Doing the occupation of making arrows shapes

your mind to constantly think of harming someone while being a shield maker you are constantly thinking of protecting someone else.

What does the Dao de Jing say to do before acting

Before you act

1) Understand the situation

2) Think of how you can use the existing tendencies to make a change ← steering instead of pushing

3) Stifle any immediate extreme reactions (anger, frustration, shame etc.) so you can see the situation clearly

Daoist values

-passivity

-openness

-responsiveness 

-Spontaneity

passivity

-Think before you act and control your immediate reactions/emotions to see a situation unbiasedly

Responsiveness

-Be open-minded and don’t stick to pre-existing biases

Do Taoists outlaw all conflict?

No! Some conflict is necessary but it should never be the first solution considered.

How can rules and pushing backfire?

1) The contrarian impulse

a) When a rule is defined as prescriptive because its the “right” thing to do this

implies the existence of something that is “wrong” to do. It is human nature to

become curious about “the wrong thing” and to want to deviate from rules that are

stated too strictly

2) Intrinsic vs Extrinsic motivation

a) When we are given external reasons to act well, it can interfere with our innate

reasons/motivation to do good

i) Ex: Without grades in classes, people might do the work out of passion but

having the external grade can make people only do the work necessary to

achieve a certain grade

3) Can solidify disagreements

a) If you try to change someone's mind through logic and not understanding it can

solidify them in standing against you and actually make them more set in their

ways

Spontaneity

-”going with the flow” and acting without forcing being flexible and not over-thinking

Taoist Vices

-Rigidity

-Being Stuck or blocked

-Inattentiveness

What is mean by aligning oneself with the Dao or “the way”

Acting with naturalness, authenticity, and effortless ease, aligning with the natural flow of the Tao (the Way) rather than forcing one's will upon it

What two things are guarenteed in life according to Zhuangzi,

-Change/Transformation

-unpredicatability 

How should one accept death in Taoism?

-Accept that death is just a form of change/transformation and is a beautiful thing

-Surrender to the natural processes/cycles and possibility of what you can be used to create next

-You are simply composed of building blocks used my nature (Like Legos)

Why shouldn’t you make rigid plans?

-The unpredictability of life makes them unlikely to come true

-A zig-zag wandering path through life is better than a straight, deterministic path

Sincerity

Self collapses into the role “You become your job”

-You sincerly ARE your job

Authenticity

Collapse role into self “Find the perfect fit of a job focused on who you “really”

are”

●Issues <- Should we neglect a role if we feel it does not fit with our true self?

You want to be more authentic and find a job that matches you and your values

Does the Zhuangzi advocate for Authenticity or Sincerity in the search for purpose.

No! It suggests a 3rd option: being a genuine pretender

Genuine pretending

-You are not your job (Sincerity) and your job doesn’t need to be like you (authenticity)

-Have the ability to play ANY role

-Play the role well but don’t identify with it

-Be a multifaceted player of many roles and play with pleasure.

-Remaining selfless in your occupation brings the most pleasure

What are the hindu texts?

-The Upanishads

-The Bhagavad Gita

What is the Buddhist Text?

-The Pali Cannon

Who is the Confucianism thinker?

Mencious

What are the Taoist Texts/Thinkers

-Dao De Jing

-Zhuangzi

Who wrote the republic?

-Plato

In the Republic Plato compares the human soul to…

A city

Why does the Bhagavad Gita advocate for losing the superficial self in favor of the ultimate self?

-The Bhagavad Gita advocates for losing the superficial self in favor of the ultimate self because the ego-driven, false identity is the root of all suffering and bondage. The pursuit of the ultimate self, or Atman, leads to lasting peace, freedom, and ****union with the Divine****

Objection to sincerity

-Collapsing yourself into your role could come at the expense of yourself and what is truly good for you. You could be neglecting yourself or what you think is good for you might not actually be good for you.

Objection to authenticity

-Risk performing poorly at your role due due to not viewing it as in alignment with yourself

-This “true self” that you are looking for may not even exist in reality and may be a distraction towards moving forward in your life.

Can you have multiple roles with authenticity or sincerity?

-NO. only the mental framework of the genuine pretender allows for multiple roles.