Transcript Chapter 7 Part 1

Chapter 7
The good life: Our search for
happiness
What Makes You Happy?
 Watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZaIsR9seMo
While you watch the video, really listen to what makes
the different people happy.
What Makes You Happy
 Please be silent for the next two to three minutes and
really think about what makes you happy
 Write your name down on the card in front of you
 Underneath it write down one thing that makes you
happy.
 Please make it something that you feel comfortable
sharing, as I will be collecting them
 Would anyone like to share what makes them happy
with the class?
The good life: Our search for
happiness
 It is universally acknowledged that despite all set-backs,
failures, sickness, and disabilities, people want to be
happy!
 The search to be happy lies behind every human
vocation, and every choice we make
 The Christian tradition has always believed that we
were created for happiness. It recognizes this desire as
natural, insisting that God has placed it in the human
heart
 The desire for happiness is connected with ethics
and morality
 All ethical theories insist that ethics is in search of
the good
 Most ethical thinkers propose that the good life,
this is, the ethical, moral life, is also the happy life
 The good life, the ethical/moral life and the happy
life are the same thing
 There are 5 key thinkers in this chapter
 We will look at the way they understand the link
between moral goodness and happiness
Learning Goals
 By the end of this lesson, we will be able to:
 1) Identify five key thinkers and examine the way that they
understand the connection between happiness and moral
goodness.
 2) State the similarities and differences between their ideas
 3) Identify the three components of the Catholic approach to
ethics and morality, and explain which thinkers are consistent
with Catholic ethics.
Key Thinkers
 1) Plato (427-347 BC)
 2) Aristotle (384-322 BC)
 3) St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
 4) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
 5) Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995)
Three Ways of Pursuing the Good
 1) Teleological: Natural Ethics
 2)Deontological: Obligation
 3) Impact of the Gospel
Group Activity
 You will be given a number from 1 to 5. This will be your
group number
 1) Plato (pgs. 128-9)
 2) Aristotle (pgs. 129-130)
 3) St. Thomas Aquinas (pgs. 130-2)
 4) Immanuel Kant and Emmanuel Levians (pgs. 132-3)
 5) Three ways of pursuing the good (134)
 Each group will read the passage written about their
designated thinker.
 On a piece of chart paper, each student will write at least
one point regarding their thinker’s theory of the good.
 The group will answer together the question: how does this
thinker’s understanding of goodness relate to happiness?
 The last group will summarize the three ways of pursuing the
good on pg. 134.
 Each group will elect one speaker to share the group’s ideas
with the class.
 YOU WILL HAVE 30 MINUTES TO COMPLETE THE ACTIVITY
Plato (427-347 BC)
 Plato compared the good to the sun: “Just as the sun is the
source of light and through it we can see things, so the good
shines upon all our actions and is in all our actions
 We cannot actually locate the good anywhere in particular, we
only find it in good things
 The closest we come to the good is in contemplation; in
contemplation the good radiates through us
 Because philosophers are contemplators of the good they are
closest to it
 They are the happiest because they make true choices about the
value and worth of their actions; they measure their actions by
their value, not by how much they enjoy them
Plato vs. Sophism
 Plato struggled against Sophism in his time
 Sophists proclaimed there could be no truth; the truth is just an
opinion. If there is no absolute truth, there can be no universal
moral code
 They held that life is ruled by basic needs and desires and not
reason. Eg. Callicles said that the best life is one of sensual pleasure
 Refused any kind of thinking about moral principles or the good
 As a result, there was no agreement on how citizens should act
 Plato combated this crisis through Reason. Reason finds the good
that pervades everything and the highest pursuit in life is to
contemplate the good
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
 His concern for the good arose out of political
considerations
 Like Plato, he was concerned with the shortsightedness
of searching for happiness by following one’s instincts
and sensual pleasures
 The search for the good has to do with acting
intelligently. Like Plato, he thought that philosophers
were most likely to succeed
 People do not find the good, they find a good
 Absolute good can only be found in God
 God inscribes good into the nature of all things
 To find the good in anything is to find its purpose
 A person develops good character by acting virtuously
(virtues serve to control passions)
 The good is found in middle ground rather than
extremes
 The mark of humanity is the ability to act rationally
 To act ethically is to engage in our ability to reason
 To live an ethical life is the highest form of happiness
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
 Incorporated Aristotle’s thinking into theology
 Like Aristotle, he believed that the ethical is inscribed in the
nature of all creatures
 At a person’s core is the desire for the good (happiness)
 The basis of ethics is following our natural desire for the good
 Equated God with the highest good, however this God is the
Trinitarian God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
 People were made for happiness
 Because of God’s love for us as shown in Jesus, there is
a fuller happiness called blessedness that is only to be
found in the loving vision of God.
 The fullness of a good life is not found on earth. True
happiness is only found in the resurrection as God’s pure
gift
 Connection between the good life and people that act
according to reason
 To know how to use one’s intellectual and sensual
capacities one must follow 4 virtues
The Cardinal Virtues
 1) Prudence (how to reason well in moral decision making)
 2) Temperance (how to remain moderate in the exercise of
the emotions)
 3) Fortitude (how to be courageous in the face of life’s
difficulties)
 4) Justice (how to act well in relation to others)
Unlike Aristotle, Aquinas believes that Jesus changes the way we
define what is good.
Introduces three new virtues that are purely God’s gift: Faith,
Hope and Charity
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
 Lived in the time of the Enlightenment, a time
characterized by the sweeping away of any authority
that could not justify itself through reason.
 Only reason had authority
 Rejected an ethics such as proposed by Aristotle and
Aquinas, which emphasized happiness as the byproduct
of doing good
 According to Kant, people do good because it is their
duty. They must find the reason for doing good within
themselves
 Good will is the most important good in life
 Kant acknowledged the immortality of the soul by
believing that humans could not achieve the supreme
good in this life.
 Kant’s God also has a duty: to make certain that human
beings can indeed achieve the supreme good. It is no
longer the self-gift from God to us
Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995)
 God is the infinite Good. He is at the heart of all ethics
 The good/happiness is a vocation. It does not come
from ourselves
 The good is found in the faces of others
 When I am called to the other, I am called to be good
without reward
 It is the other who awakens the highest good within me
Three ways of pursuing the
good
 Which key thinker’s ideas are consistent with Catholic ethics?
 There are three components of the Catholic approach to
ethics and morality:
 1)Teleological: Natural Ethics: Aristotle’s approach as
reflected in the work of Aquinas.
 Begins with questions about human happiness
 Then explores human actions: How does evil enter them? How
are they effected by passions and emotions, and how they
gradually become habits and virtues
 Explores action from the perspective of God’s self-gift
 2) Deontological: Obligation
 Kant (duty), Levinas (call to the other)
 What is the role of obligation in our decision making?
 How do we make moral judgments?
 3) Impact of the gospel
 Impact of the gospels on our actions
 Proclaims the Son of God has entered human history as a
man to open up possibilities for actions that are
motivated by God’s love
Resources
 All information can be found in chapter 7 of In Search of
the Good: A Catholic Understanding of Moral Living.
(pgs. 127-134)