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The Role of Happiness in a Meaningful Life by Corey Edwards

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The Role of Happiness in a Meaningful Life by Corey Edwards University of Hawai‘i at Hilo HOHONU 2015 Vol. 13 The Role of Happiness in a belief that pain seems worse than an equivalent amount of pleasure is good for us. This is not a position that I hold Meaningful Life as true. Living a life completely centered on avoiding Corey Edwards pain is extremely unhealthy and will certainly provide Personal Essay for a less meaningful life. I strongly believe we must live Fall 2014 by a positive moral code and still remain happy, to have a meaningful life. It would be hard to give examples of a meaningful The moral code one must follow in order to life without involving the idea of happiness, but just have a meaningful life excludes the harming of others how important is a person's enduring happiness while (except in self-defense, the defense of a loved one, etc.). deciding if a particular life was or is meaningful? In this Any person, who is immoral in this aspect and finds essay I will use ideas of free will and positive moral codes happiness in the wrongful harming of others, cannot to show that happiness is the only determining factor of be living a meaningful life. However, someone who is a meaningful life. I have chosen the word “happiness” immoral in other ways, can still have a meaningful life if because of its vagueness. What makes someone happy is their happiness comes from an activity, collection, duty, generally different for each individual—happiness may etc., that abides by the previously stated moral code. involve traveling the world to help people, collecting Our time on this Earth is all that we have. Science toy trains, diet and exercise, or anything else that gives does not currently acknowledge the existence of a soul; someone pleasure. However, true authentic happiness if one wishes to introduce one, they will need to provide for someone—happiness that gives meaning to the strong evidence for it first. Without a soul, there is no individual's life—cannot consist in inflicting harm or reason to believe that we will continue to live even after danger, except in very special circumstances. One all our organic processes have ceased. Our lives seem to may call my approach to the meaning of life hedonistic be limited to how long our bodies continue to function. because of its emphasis on pleasure; but I would concede It would be foolish to rely upon some imagined bonus that it is not an example of pure hedonism. round of living in some otherworld, especially when Hedonistic thinkers argue that pleasure is the doing so causes us to forget how precious, fleeting, and only fundamental good. A hedonist strives to maximize beautiful the real world is. net pleasure. A dedicated contemporary hedonist Lacking a reason to assume that we are immortal, philosopher, Michel Onfray, defines hedonism “as an we ought to live this life to the fullest rather than introspective attitude to life based on taking pleasure ungratefully throwing it away just because it is flawed. yourself and pleasuring others, without harming yourself Anything bad that happens in our lives should not be or anyone else” (Melville 2007). A few conceptions of looked upon as a setback, for only the good matters. hedonism (such as Onfray's) insist that the process of I look at life through a specific lens: when something maximizing net pleasure cannot involve the harming of bad happens, we need to push through it and remember others; however, this is not exactly accurate. Killing an that in death these bad feelings die with us. Bad things individual, for example, may occur in the process of self- only emotionally damage us and create setbacks for our defense (according to Onfray's standards, this act would perfectly happy lives. I have never been one to let deaths be seen as murder). The moral code that is required to or separations from loved ones bother me for long. These have a meaningful life in which I have suggested, is are situations that time will cure. Instead, I remember the indeed formed out of personal happiness and pleasure happiness that my loved ones have brought into my life, and if some being was trying to take this life from me and I hope that I have done the same for theirs. unjustly, I have the right to fight back. Similarly, the One common misconception of a meaningful defense of my loved ones are likely always in my best life is that a person's achievements create a significant interest and ultimately will result in happiness for those life (in a sense of personal significance, not significance and myself I am defending. to the rest of the world). A person's achievements do not I have stated in earlier essays that in my own always make them happy; take Robert Oppenheimer for life I refer to my 'happiness collection' a lot. These are example. Oppenheimer is known as “the father of the all of my happy memories, some small and some large. atomic bomb.” The creation of the atomic bomb may This collection of memories gives my life meaning and seem like the grandest achievement within the scientific quickly gets me over the bad things that get thrown my and military community; however, Oppenheimer was way. If I can provide one small memory to a person's own said to be unhappy with his contribution. I believe happiness collection (giving a child some necessities this illustrates well how one's achievement does not to live, or even a toy that will create a happy memory) necessarily create a more meaningful life because it may then I believe that I am living a meaningful life. Several not promote one's happiness. Hedonistic Utilitarians, such as Karl Popper 1945, have Earlier in this paper I connected happiness to free argued that reduction of pain should be seen as more will and I would like to expand now on this connection. important than increasing pleasure, sometimes in the We must live our lives according to our own free will. 12 University of Hawai‘i at Hilo HOHONU 2015 Vol. 13 I feel that anyone who is living his/her life according suggest that if they accept this idea of God and God's to another's will or God's will, probably cannot have a will, these people are not acting of their own free will meaningful life. when they pursue their religious activities and shun Philosopher Richard Taylor writes about a premarital sex. similar idea by using the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus. It may be easy for someone who shares my Sisyphus was punished by the gods who, for all of atheistic attitude to consider that life has no meaning; eternity, destined him to push a rock up a mountain; upon this objection may also be shared by a religious mind reaching the top, the rock would roll own again, leaving in regards to my thesis. One may say, “Well if there is Sisyphus to start over. According to Taylor's essay in no afterlife, what is the point?” I believe that the idea of The Meaning of Life (Klemke and Cahn), Sisyphus is not life being meaningless without an afterlife is not suitable. living a meaningful life. Taylor justifies this by claiming The impression that we only have the years we spend on that this endless repetition of the same task contributed this Earth and nothing more, demonstrates our need to to no greater goal or purpose and certainly did not make create a life worth living for mankind, not to give up and Sisyphus happy. Personally, I would add that Sisyphus say that life is meaningless. could not have lived a meaningful life because the gods Adding to the list of anticipated objections, I took away his free will. acknowledge Robert Nozick's “experience-machine.” Taylor later argues that all human life, as we know it In his thought experiment, Nozick asks us to envision is importantly like Sisyphus' life. Whether viewed from a that each individual has the option of plugging in to a very wide scope or at the level of a single individual, life bizarre machine that provides an amazing blend of is nothing but the succession of struggles and attempts life-long experiences. Importantly, this machine can that ultimately culminate in nothing significant—the only provide these experiences in such a way that, once was thing that endures is the repetition of the cycle. There plugged into the machine, no one can tell that their is no end point toward which the struggles are directed experiences are not real. Disregarding considerations that could confer meaning. In this way, Taylor thinks, about responsibilities to others and the problems that our lives are meaningless. In a variation on the myth, would arise if everyone plugged in, would you plug Taylor conceives that Sisyphus may have enjoyed rolling in to the machine for life? Opinions differ on what stones. Knowing this we are then able to supposedly exactly about living in reality is so much better for us project meaning onto our own lives through embracing than the additional pleasure of living in the “experience our struggles, even if they accomplish nothing lasting machine.” A common response that I have found to be and fulfilling. I would argue that regardless of how happy accurate, which is also shared by many who have read Sisyphus was during this eternal life had no free will and Nozick, suggests that a life not lived in reality is pointless he was still destined to never finish this task, which was or meaningless.
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