Happiness Is a Result of Pain?
Evan Myers
Dr. Michael D. Merritt
Introduction to Ethics
September 18th, 2016
Happiness is a Result of Pain?
If you were told that a good life meant that you just had to be happy, would you believe me? Let me give you an example, you are a man in the big city of Chicago. You lost both your parents at a very young age, and throughout your life you have been bounced around between foster cares. After basically taking care of yourself your whole life, you finally graduate high school. Without much guidance, you immediately enlist into the army feeling as if there isn’t much more for you out there. Time goes on and you’re serving your third term overseas, an IED dismembers one leg and one arm completely off your body and you feel as if your life can’t get much worse. After restless days and nights of surgeries and rigorous rehabilitation, you went on three years later to start helping other veterans at the VA hospital. You start living your life from day to day, and have no worries about your future, but you keep a smile on your face because the impact you are making on other people’s lives at the VA hospital is ultimately helping your own. In the end, did you have a good life? Do your strengths become your weaknesses?
To begin, according to the definition of Hedonism, it’s a philosophical view created by Epieurus that says, “On this view there is only a single thing that is intrinsically valuable: happiness. Everything else is valuable only to the extent that it makes us happy.” (P.24 Shafer-Landau) Now with that being said, did this guy have a good life? I would say with where he is right now, he has experience more trauma, pain, and fear than pleasure. He’s working with his lows, to help to make highs in the end which creates pleasure. With this example, in my opinion, he is working at the VA hospital to work with people with knowledge on what he’s been through. Especially if some have been through the same experiences. It’s more of a comfort thing, he is staying with his fellow veterans and ignoring the fear of the outside world. The fear of what others would say if they saw what had happened to his body, the fear of what questions they will ask, or even the fear of the looks these outside people will give him. On another hand, he could be living through his fear and helping others as pleasure to reach the happiness he feels. There is no right or wrong answer, it’s all at which way you look at it.
Moving on, we go through life wanting the best for ourselves. We want other people to acknowledge the good we don’t see in ourselves. We never want to face fears and/or pain. Our realistic life is to be nothing but happy and feel pleasure all the time. Is that really realistic though? We can only hope! But does this actually happen? I would say no. We all go through rough times in our lives, there’s not a person on this earth who hasn’t. We all have to face problems and obstacles at some point, it’s a part of life. The paradox of Hedonism is an argument that says, if happiness is the only thing that creates pleasure why worry about anything else and pursue it and only it. (P.33 Shafer-Landau) I can see where this would be nice if it only worked, this is the least realistic argument. There are many things that don’t bring me pleasure or happiness but I have to do anyways. For example, Going to school. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be going to school or even writing this paper. We do it because of the outcome. Do you think I would be going to school if it didn’t lead to a job? Do you think I would get a job if it didn’t lead to money? These examples don’t bring me any type of happiness except for after it’s all over and I receive my check, that’s when the pleasure starts to kick in.
Next, there is the evil pleasures argument. This argument states that all happiness even when it comes from an evil or bad mind set is as good as the ones with a good or kind mind set. (P.34 Shafer-Landau) Basically they’re saying that if murdering
people makes you just as happy as receiving Christmas gifts does, then keep on keeping on. As long as it makes you happy, doesn’t matter if you have good or bad intentions. More of a selfish mindset. We may say the law helps us divide the selfish, but people break the law daily. Let’s take a school shooting for example, everybody would agree that it is an evil situation. What people don’t see is that kid, or that parent, or that convict, is doing the act in fear. They could have something psychologically wrong and be afraid of someone at the school, or be afraid of what he thinks these people in the school are doing. Most of the time killers end up killing themselves because they’re afraid of their own actions, and crimes they just committed. Most killers don’t just wake up one day and decide to murder half an elementary school, there’s usually a tragic back story. This fear and pain that has been building up inside of them turns into anger, and gives them a motive to make bad decisions. By acting out on this horrific thought, they might find pleasure knowing there is no reason to be fearful or no way to be hurt anymore.