Category
Happiness & well-being
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What exactly is Aristotle’s “function argument” in Nicomachean Ethics I.7?
I teach this every year and I always feel I fumble it. My summary for students goes roughly like this: the good of anything that has a function lies in performing that function well human beings have a function it isn't nutrition…
Started by Giulia Ferrante5 replies143 views -
Epictetus says some things are up to us. What did that depend on for him?
I drive a city bus in Ankara and I listen to lectures between stops. Epictetus is my favourite. The Handbook begins by saying some things are up to us and some are not: our opinions, desires and aversions are up to us;…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu5 replies176 views -
Do capabilities measure a good life better than happiness surveys do?
I advise NGOs on making public buildings accessible. The donors I work with want outcomes, and increasingly the outcome they ask for is "satisfaction": did people report being happier after the ramp was built? I find this maddening, and Amartya Sen's work…
Started by Dima Nasser5 replies148 views -
Epicureans and Cārvākas: two ancient materialisms, two ideas of pleasure?
I teach physics in Mangaluru and have spent years arguing that the Cārvāka or Lokāyata materialists deserved a fairer hearing than their opponents gave them. Reading Epicurus, I keep seeing the comparison, and I want to test it. Both schools hold that…
Started by Arvind Poojary4 replies230 views -
Preferred indifferents: a real distinction, or having your health and despising it too?
I'm a nurse in palliative care and my own sympathies are Epicurean, so I come to this a little sceptical. The Stoics say virtue is the only good. Health, wealth, reputation, even life itself, are "indifferent": neither good nor bad. But then,…
Started by Nadia Haddad4 replies138 views -
What are the three kinds of theory of well-being that Parfit distinguished?
I ran a startup in Mumbai for six years and burnt out last year. For most of that time I thought I was optimising for happiness, mine and the team's. Now I'm not sure what I was optimising for. A friend pointed…
Started by Rohan Desai4 replies192 views