Appiah And Dewey's Essay: Education And Happiness

Education and happiness are like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Both peanut butter and jelly are necessary to make a sandwich. The same goes with education and happiness, both are needed to make up personal standards. These traits relate to the two essays “Education and Morality” and “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. In the essay, “Education and Morality” the author, John Dewy talks about how the moral issues involved in education were always evident in the experience of those who had achieved an education. In “If You’re Happy and You Know it”, Kwame Anthony Appiah explains the standards or morals that people might set for themselves to aim for happiness. Both Appiah and Dewey’s ideas help make up the concept that education and happiness

Many people who set their moral standards low don’t experience true happiness because they were not taught to set high goals. This happens particularly to parents and teachers who don’t push their children to seek greater aims in life during their education experience. Education teaches the individual to grow on their aim and reach for higher aims to be happy. Dewey agreed growth was necessary when it comes to setting higher standards in education. He writes “Acquisition of skill, possession of knowledge, attainment of culture are not ends: they are marks of growth and means to its continuing” (John Dewey 402). He means that growth never really ends, and that people should continuously set up high goals to be happier. This is similar to the idea that happiness is achieved when your goals are high. Appiah writes, “It also true that some aims, however genuinely desired, are not significant enough to add to the value of life” (Kwame Anthony Appiah 450). This means that people who set themselves low for happiness will have no value in life at all. Education helps people set and grow high goals because that is what is taught to them. For example, people in school are taught that getting a college degree is a great goal to strive for because it makes their life a lot happier since they are setting their standards high. Thus, an education makes people set higher

People who work hard for their goals experience true happiness. True happiness is the feeling you get when you try to complete your ultimate aim in life. People in the pursuit of education experience this greatly because they are striving to pass their classes to succeed academically. Anthony writes, “No doubt some of the experience I have in my relationships are part of what is good about them, part of what makes the relationship contribute to my flourishing, to what is good in my life” (Kwame Anthony Appiah 450). The experience, he feels during a relationship is what makes him happy in life not the relationship itself. This is similar to how education experience works because many people enjoy the hard work they put into their academics rather than the grades they receive. Dewey believed that education was a way for someone to complete their goal in life. He states, “If a few words are added upon the topic of education, it is only for the sake of suggesting that the educative process is all one with moral process, since the latter is a continuous passage of experience from worse to better” (John Dewey 401). Dewey is explaining that the experience of education allows people to develop their moral process and happiness. Dewey’s ideas on education combined with Anthony’s views on happiness support the idea that one’s experience in education directly influences their happiness. In short, the pursuit of education is an