The Dignity Of Human Life By John Swenson

874 Words2 Pages

My grandmother always says, “You kids better stop fooling around, you are the future”. In Swenson’s article titled “The Dignity of Human Life”, He takes a more religious approach and argues that the true meaning of life is for one to be happy, and to achieve happiness one has to get to know themselves through their values through an ethical conscious. He starts off with “As a preparation for an existence, in the present, the youth of a nation are trained in various skills and along devious lines, according to their capacities and circumstances…But, in addition to this, which we may call a preparation for the external life, a something else is urgently needed” (Swenson 17). Swenson expresses that as we age, we are trained to contribute to life, …show more content…

He continues on saying “A view of life” is not something you can learn in school, at the library, or something which is acquired within a short time period, rather it is an individual’s knowledge of themselves as a person, of his or her own capabilities and aspirations (Swenson 17). In the eyes of Swenson, everyone yearns to be happy, and if you are not happy, then you have failed in life. Swenson talks about Aristotle’s belief in that true happiness comes from not only virtue, but also from goods and friends (Swenson 20). Swenson does not agree with Aristotle’s views on happiness and comes up with four reasons to justify his decision. The first one is, one who is self who is dependent on external objects and relies on them to bring happiness to one’s self is “self-captive to the diverse world of its desires”(Swenson 20). Which means you are not an independent person, you rely on objects to bring you happiness, and when that object is scarce, you are unhappy. Secondly, happiness found through materialistic things is uncertain. “This happiness is subject to the law of uncertainty, to the qualification of an unyielding, mysterious perhaps” (Swenson

Open Document