Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
defining happiness
the definition of happiness
jean-paul sartre, “existentialism”
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: defining happiness
The skill of questioning has a long history and is a part of every makeup of every human living on Earth. The result of any inquisition can show that the individual of any society is not fully the same as his co-inhabitor. People can have different definitions about what makes a happy life. Some will lean towards the financially materialistic end with money, toys, and electronics, among other things. Others will travel to another level and say examples that can include family, health, faith, and morality. In order to provide concrete confidence to the understanding of both sides, one must consider two areas. The first is accountability to the own humankind of a person and the second is forced selections that are on the road to a complete existence for an individual. The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker and “Existentialism Is a Humanism” by Jean-Paul Sartre examine these realms by using two different branches of knowledge. The result of this comparison is a sector that has the greatest amount of influence over a vast number of people.
The theme of psychology is prevalent in The Denial of Death. Becker highlights The Oedipal Project by Sigmund Freud to make note that becoming the originator of a personal connotation is the central aim for any child (Becker 36). The road to this goal is paved with many choices and obligations. "If the child is to be truly causa sui, then he must aggressively defy the parents in some way, move beyond them and the threats and temptations they embody" (Becker 39). This selection is rooted in Freud and his Castration Complex theory. No growth and development of a child can take place without external influences being held at a respectable distance away to allow the maturation process to transpire. One of...
... middle of paper ...
...ust individuals of great power and influence but anyone regardless of status or makeup makes the Sartre argument all the more inquisitive and alluring.
The societies of earth are involved in an infinite cycle that affects all people. Everyone strives to be the best people possible and the journey to achieving that feeling involves making easy and difficult choices based on individual, social, and environmental conditions. The obligations place upon us by our humanness gives great influence in our personal choices. Ultimately, the conclusions that can be drawn to our choices come from ethics. What may be right and sound to one person could be immoral and wrong to another person. It is these differences in opinion that helps shape our worldviews. The widest perspective is most ideal to give fair assessments to the people, places, and events that exist in this world.
It is hard to pinpoint the true definition of ethics. Although it could be defined, in simple terms, as what the society approves of right and wrong, defining ethics as simple as that is “unethical”. In fact, since centuries, several philosophers have disputed with the definition of ethics and several have come up with their own philosophical ideas of ethics. But, for the time-being, the definition of ethics can be expanded to “well-founded standards of right or wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues” (Velasquez et. al). Because the definition of ethics is so confusing and conflicting, at times, it arose to a branch of ethics that investigates
There are two basic kinds of ethical judgments. The first have to do with duty and obligation. For example: "Thou shalt not kill, lie, or steal." "You just keep your promises." These judgments often uphold minimal standards of onduct and (partly for that reason) assert or imply a moral ‘ought.’ The second kind of judgment focuses on human excellence and the nature of the good life. These judgments employ as their most general terms "happiness," "excellence," and perhaps "flourishing" (in addition to "the good life"). For example: "Happiness requires activity and not mere passive consumption." "The good life includes pleasure, friendship, intellectual development and physical health." I take these to be the two general types of ethical judgment, and all particular ethical judgments to be examples of these. The main contention of this paper is that we must carefully distinguish these two types of judgments, and not try to understand the one as a special case of the other.
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
Pastan has created a vivid example of the difficulty of making choices in "Ethics." People seldom realize the repercussions their choices may make. As people grow older and learn more, they tend to see how ignorant some of their choices were. The same can be said of society. Although a great many wrong choices have been made along the way, it is not too late for society to once again put value on what it already has instead of what it might have.
Every day, in a plethora of different situations, virtually every person has to make a multitude of decisions regarding how to interact with other people. Despite many centuries of intense study and theorizing by some of the most brilliant philosophers in the world, there is no single consensus on how people should choose to act towards others. What have been developed, however, are different systems of ethics describing idealized ideas of how human beings should treat themselves, treat others, and what they should strive for both personally and for society as a whole. In addition, many people cobble together their own personal systems of ethics based on personal experience and various degrees of formal ethical education.
It is only natural for humans to question why we have been put on this wonderful earth of ours. What does it mean to be these lucky ones called humans? Do we really have a human nature that is all our own? Are there really living beings that kind find something within this world to call our life purpose? And if there are, how do may we achieve it? It is happiness or simple the drive to survive that propel us forward? These are just some of the types of questions that philosophers have been wrestling with for centuries. Some argue that human nature is very much a real thing and that it is essential to living a happy fulfilled life, while others reject that idea completely. However, despite the completely opposite stances that philosophers can take when it comes to human nature, it’s not uncommon to see some surprising similarities between those who support it, and those who do not. One of the biggest examples of this, would be in regards to the Aristotle and his books on Nicomachean Ethics and Sartre with his writing of Existentialism Is a Humanism. When it comes to these two philosophers in particular it would appear on the surface that they are nothing alike. Aristotle being quite the supporter of human nature and it’s ability to give humans fulfilling lives, and Sartre who rejects the human nature completely for the idea that we as humans are essentially just going through life and making choices. Having said this, I would now like to discuss the individual views and arguments that both men have in regards to their views on human nature, it’s relationship to purpose, free will, and politics, and show that within these both Aristotle and Sartre give us the ability to see, that maybe to a certain that we are in fact responsible fo...
At the time of his death on the fifteenth of April, 1980, at the age of seventy-four, Jean-Paul Sartre’s greatest literary and philosophical works were twenty-five years in the past. Although the small man existed in the popular mind as the politically inconsistent champion of unpopular causes and had spent the last seven years of his life in relative stagnation, his influence was still great enough to draw a crowd of over fifty thousand people – admirers or otherwise – for his funeral procession. Sartre was eminently quotable, a favorite in the press, because his statements were always controversial. He was the leader of the shortly popular Existential movement in philosophy which turned quickly into a fad for the disillusioned post-World War I generation, so even when the ideas criticized were not the ideas of Sartre’s Existentialism, he still came to the public mind. Sartre was alternately celebrated and vilified, depending on which side of the issue the speaker or writer was on, and whether or not Sartre had early espoused – and possibly later turned against – the ideals in question. Despite Sartre’s many political and philosophical about-faces, fellow Marxist political philosopher Herbert Marcuse said of him, “He may not want to be the world’s conscience, but he is.” [Hayman, 458]
What is ethics? Ethics are the philosophical principles of good verses bad moral behavior. It is a guideline to help people make decisions or make a judgment calls. There are two main types of ethical principles that will be discussed in this paper, and how they are applied to the decision making process. They are Deontological and Utilitarian. Deontological ethics are based on the righteousness or wrongness of the action-taking place. It does not base itself on the bad or good consequences that come from the action. Immanuel Kant introduced deontological ethics in the 18th century. Kant believed that every decision or action made by a person had to be evaluated by his or her moral duty. He stated that humanity shouldn’t side on its
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
Thanatology is derived from the Greek word Thanatos, which means death; Death of the physical self and death of the internal self. As Sigmund Freud institutes in his work Beyond the Pleasure Principle there are two drives in the brain that both coincide and conflict within the individual and one of these drives is death itself. Eros is the drive of life, love, creativity, sexuality, self-satisfaction, and species preservation. Thanatos consists of aggression, sadism, destruction, violence and the unknown thoughts of death (Freud, 1953). These self-destructive characteristics are present in all human beings, but they are in the unconscious part of the mind that can be accessed but can also be repressed in order to survive (Freud, 1953). The purpose of this essay is to examine the history of Thanatology, what it is, and the correlations of Sigmund’s Freud’s understanding of the unconscious death instinct that has infiltrated into today 's society.
Sigmund Freud believed that he “occupies a special place in the history of psychoanalysis and marks a turning point, it was with it that analysis took the step from being a psychotherapeutic procedure to being in depth-psychology” (Jones). Psychoanalysis is a theory or therapy to decode the puzzle of neurotic disorders like hysteria. During the therapy sessions, the patients would talk about their dreams. Freud would analyze not only the manifest content (what the dreamer remembers) of the dreams, but the disguise that caused the repressions of the idea. During our dreams, the decision making part of personality’s defenses are lowered allowing some of the repressed material to become more aware in a distorted form. He distinguished between
The universe, and what it means to be alive is almost impossible to define; yet that does not stop humanity from trying. “Lonergan’s philosophy of the human person reveals that being human means having an unlimited number and variety of questions about life and the universe.” (Morgan, 1996). There is no limit on the number and variety of questions the human person will ask, "the most subversive people are those who ask questions” (Gaarder), as a result there are many varied and opinionated answers. This essay will explore three different theories on how one might find answers to life's ultimate questions. At one point or another, every human being has asked the question why: Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is the point? It is in our nature as human beings to reason, to think, to ask, it is what separates us from the rest of creation, and with this ability to reason, we are left with one question: Why? Throughout history many have tried to answer this question, some have come to the conclusion that meaning is found through God, and one’s faith. Others feel that life begins meaningless, and it is up to the individual to give life meaning; then there are those who believe that life has no meaning, and we are all essentially, just waiting to die, "The meaning of life is that it ends." (Kafka).
Ethics plays a very important role in one social system and basically on how the people will make their actions or decide on a particular thing on whether it is the right or the wrong thing. Ethical consideration is very important. It helps a person or a group of person understands whether the actions are right or wrong. Ethics is a very critical factor most especially when considering where the ethical standards are to applied. Aside from it, weighing results of actions or decision is also another major concern because of the fact that a person has critically analyze whose side is needed to satisfied. There are instances that moral obligations are also considered, in which moral is defined as a universal accepted personal human behavior that allows a person to decide whether an action or decision is good or bad.
Sigmund Freud created strong theories in science and medicine that are still studied today. Freud was a neurologist who proposed many distinctive theories in psychiatry, all based upon the method of psychoanalysis. Some of his key concepts include the ego/superego/id, free association, trauma/fantasy, dream interpretation, and jokes and the unconscious. “Freud remained a determinist throughout his life, believing that all vital phenomena, including psychological phenomena like thoughts, feelings and phantasies, are rigidly determined by the principle of cause and effect” (Storr, 1989, p. 2). Through the discussion of those central concepts, Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis becomes clear as to how he construed human character.
Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his multiple case studies, Freud managed to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control (Guerin 127). One of Freud’s most important contributions to the study of the psyche is his theory of repression: the unconscious mind is a repository of repressed desires, feelings, memories, wishes and instinctual drives; many of which have to do with sexuality and violence. These unconscious wishes, according to Freud, can find expression in dreams because dreams distort the unconscious material and make it appear different from itself and more acceptable to consciousness. They may also appear in other disguised forms, like in language (sometimes called the Freudian slips), in creative art and in neurotic behavior. One of the unconscious desires Freud believed that all human beings supposedly suppress is the childhood desire to displace the parent of the same sex and to take his or her place in the affections of the parent of the opposite sex. This so-called “Oedipus Complex,” which all children experience as a rite of passage to adult gender identity, lies at the core of Freud’s sexual theory (Murfin 114-5).