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Five Powerful Steps to Feel Happy

Five Powerful Steps To Feel Happy

1- Be Honest.

2- Forgive.

3- Forget the Past.

4- Focus on what you CAN do NOW.

5- Be Empathic.

Are Men Helpful?

Are Men Helpful?

Apathy An introduction to the stoic theory of emotions

Apathy

An introduction to the stoic theory of emotions

Apathy is derived from (Greek a, not + patheia, affection, passion, emotion). Apathy is a state of indifference to pleasure or pain in which one gains peace of mind or tranquillity by being emotionally unaffected by the external sensible world. In apathy, the control of emotion by reason is justified on the grounds that emotion is irrational, and it therefore stands in contrast to ordinary indifference or insensitivity. For Stoicism, apathy is the highest virtue, with the Stoic sage characterized as being emotionally detached and acting purely out of reason. 

The Stoics argued that the good for man is not health, wealth or anything that identifies happiness with worldly success. Virtue is beneficial and consists in a wholesome state of mind whereas vice is harmful and involves an unwholesome state of mind. 

Everything that doesn’t involve the pursuit of virtue and the avoidance of vice is indifferent or unnecessary to our happiness. Thus, wealth or health, for example, can be used well or badly. Virtue gives us all that we need for happiness. 

Happiness and unhappiness don’t depend on our genes, upbringing, or other chance occurrences of life. Our reasoning powers give us all we need to live well. Giving way to our emotions is an unhealthy state of mind. 

The virtuous person doesn’t give way to fear, desire, grief, despair or other emotions because they are always in complete possession of their faculties. In being virtuous we are impregnable to the vicissitudes of fortune.

Letter to Menoeceus An introduction to the philosophy of Epicurus

Letter to Menoeceus  An introduction to the philosophy of Epicurus   

I. Introduction 

Let no young man delay the study of philosophy, and let no old man become weary of it; for it is never too early nor too late to care for the well-being of the soul. The man who says that the season for this study has not yet come or is already past is like the man who says it is too early or too late for happiness. Therefore, both the young and the old should study philosophy, the former so that as he grows old he may still retain the happiness of youth in his pleasant memories of the past, the latter so that although he is old he may at the same time be young by virtue of his fearlessness of the future. We must therefore study the means of securing happiness, since if we have it we have everything, but if we lack it we do everything in order to gain it. 

II. Basic Teachings 

A. THE GODS 

The gods exist; but it is impious to accept the common beliefs about them. They have no concern with men 

Practice and study without ceasing that which I was always teaching you, being assured that these are the first principles of the good life. After accepting god as the immortal and blessed being depicted by popular opinion, do not ascribe to him anything in addition that is alien to immortality or foreign to blessedness, but rather believe about him whatever can uphold his blessed immortality. The gods do indeed exist, for our perception of them is clear; but they are not such as the picture of the gods that they first receive. It is not the man who destroys the gods of popular belief who is 

impious, but he who describes the gods in the terms accepted by the many. 

For the opinions of the many about the gods are not perceptions but false suppositions. According to these popular suppositions, the gods send great evils to the wicked, great blessings (to the righteous), for they, being always well disposed to their own virtues, approve those who are like themselves, regarding as foreign all that is different. 

B. DEATH 

Philosophy, showing that death is the end of all consciousness, relieves us of all fear of death A life that is happy is better than one that is merely long. Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. 

For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. 

Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living. And the dead no longer are. 

But men in general sometimes flee death as the greatest of evils, sometimes (long for it) as a relief from (the evils) of life. (The wise man neither renounces life) nor fears its end; for living does not offend him, nor does he suppose that not to live is in any way an evil. As he does not choose the food that is most in quantity but that which is most pleasant, so he does not seek the enjoyment of the longest life but of the happiest. 

He who advises the young man to live well, the old man to die well, is foolish, not only because life is desirable, but also because the art of living well and the art of dying well are one. Yet much worse is he who says that it is well not to have been born, but once born, be swift to pass through Hades' gates. If a man says this and really believes it, why does he not depart from life? 

Certainly the means are at hand for doing so if this really be his firm conviction. If he says it in mockery, he is regarded as a fool among those who do not accept his teaching. 

Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count on it as sure to come nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be. 

III. The Moral Theory 

A. PLEASURE AS THE MOTIVE 

The necessary desires are for health of body and peace of mind; if these are satisfied, that is enough for the happy life. 

You must consider that of the desires some are natural, some are vain, and of those that are natural, some are necessary, others only natural. Of the necessary desires, some are necessary for happiness, some for the ease of the body, some for life itself. The man who has a perfect knowledge of this will know how to make his every choice or rejection tend toward gaining health of body and peace (of mind), since this is the final end of the blessed life. For to gain this end, namely freedom from pain and fear, we do everything. When once this condition is reached, all the storm of the soul is stilled, since the creature need make no move in search of anything that is not lacking, nor seek after anything else to make complete the welfare of the soul and the body. For we only feel the lack of pleasure when from its absence we suffer pain; (but when we do not suffer pain,) we no longer in need of pleasure. For this reason we say that pleasure is the beginning and the end of the blessed life. We recognize pleasure as the first and natural good; starting from pleasure we accept or reject; and we return to this as we judge every good thing, trusting this feeling of pleasure as our guide. 

B. PLEASURES AND PAINS 

Pleasure is the greatest good; but some pleasures bring pain, and in choosing, we must consider this. 

For the very reason that pleasure is the chief and the natural good, we do not choose every pleasure, but there are times when we pass by pleasures if they are outweighed by the hardships that follow; and many pains we think better than pleasures when a greater pleasure will come to us once we have undergone the long-continued pains. Every pleasure is a good since it has a nature akin to ours; nevertheless, not every pleasure is to be chosen. Just so, every pain is an evil, yet not every pain is of a nature to be avoided on all occasions. By measuring and by looking at advantages and disadvantages, it is proper to decide all these things; for under certain circumstances we treat the good as evil, and again, the evil as good. 

C. SELF-SUFFICIENCY 

The truly wise man is the one who can be happy with a little. 

We regard self-sufficiency as a great good, not so that we may enjoy only a few things, but so that, if we do not have many, we may be satisfied with the few, being firmly persuaded that they take the greatest pleasure in luxury who regard it as least needed, and that everything that is natural is easily provided, while vain pleasures are hard to obtain. Indeed, simple sauces bring a pleasure equal to that of lavish banquets if once the pain due to need is removed; and bread and water give the greatest pleasure when one who is in need consumes them. To be accustomed to simple and plain living is conducive to health and makes a man ready for the necessary tasks of life. It also makes us more ready for the enjoyment of luxury if at intervals we chance to meet with it, and it renders us fearless against fortune. 

D. TRUE PLEASURE 

The truest happiness does not come from enjoyment of physical pleasures but from a simple life, free from anxiety, with the normal physical needs satisfied. 

When we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasure of the profligate or that which depends on physical enjoyment — as some think who do not understand our teachings, disagree with them, or give them an evil interpretation — but by pleasure we mean the state wherein the body is free from pain and the mind from anxiety. Neither continual drinking and 

dancing, nor sexual love, nor the enjoyment of fish and whatever else the luxurious table offers brings about the pleasant life; rather, it is produced by the reason which is sober, which examines the motive for every choice and rejection, and which drives away all those opinions through which the greatest tumult lays hold of the mind. 

E. PRUDENCE 

Prudence or practical wisdom should be our guide. 

Of all this the beginning and the chief good is prudence. For this reason prudence is more precious than philosophy itself. All the other virtues spring from it. It teaches that it is not possible to live pleasantly without at the same time living prudently, nobly, and justly, (nor to live prudently, nobly, and justly) without living pleasantly; for the virtues have grown up in close union with the pleasant life, and the pleasant life cannot be separated from the virtues.

Philosophy and Suicide

Philosophy and Suicide

Suicide has always been one of the most important philosophical problems through the history of philosophy. The ethical debates about the permissibility of suicide have its own history, beginning with the Ancient Greece to our own age. 

The Pythagoreans thought that suicide is disrespect to the gods and therefore they rejected it. Like them, Plato opposed suicide and discussed the issue in The Phaedo. For him, we are properties of Gods and that’s why, we have no right to kill ourselves against their will.

After Plato, Aristotle opposed suicide since it was “contrary to the rule of life” for him, suicide was an offense against the state and an act of social irresponsibility because the city was thus weakened since, while you destroy yourself, you also destroy a useful citizen.

With the decline of the power of Greece and with changing values, and with the rise of individualism, the meaning of suicide also changed. It became an approved act as the right of each person to decide whether he should continue to live or not.

During this period, the philosophies of both Stoics and Epicureans, though through different reasons, approved suicide. Epicureans thought that after the pleasures of life were abated, there was no reason to continue living. Epicurus warned men that they should weigh carefully whether they would prefer death to come to them, or would themselves go to death.

The philosophy of Stoics, by disregarding the material values and emotions, taught that death was more worthy than living. Stoic philosopher Epictetus thinks that since what a person can endure in this life differs, when things get too intolerable, that person may wish for death and in that condition suicide is permissible. Stoicism taught that suicide is a natural way of ending life which is intolerable, that’s why, committing suicide under such conditions are accepted as an honorable and a brave act. 

During the middle ages, The Christians and The Muslims regarded suicide as a sin of the first degree;

For Muslims, they have always strongly condemned suicide. The QUR’AN, holy scriptures of Islam, expressly forbids suicide as the gravest sin, a more serious crime, in fact, than homicide. Muslims believe that each individual has his or her Kismet, or destiny, which is preordained by God and must not be defied.

For Christians, St. Augustine opposed suicide strictly and declared that it is the worst of all sins. He, too, thought that life is the gift of God and our sufferings are the will of Providence, rejecting life and shortening the decided time of suffering is a violation against God; it is not accepting the divine will. Also, believed in that God definitely forbids suicide with the commandment “not kill”. Committing suicide violates this commandment. Because, this commandment not only prohibited killing others, but it also grasped denying of oneself.

After him, Thomas Aquinas developed his anti-suicide arguments. In

The Summa Theologica, Aquinas gives three arguments against suicide.

For him, every sin is a sin against God, self or the neighbor; and suicide is a sin against three of them at the same time.

First, suicide is a sin against self because it is unnatural. His second argument against suicide is that it is a sin against your neighbor. It is a utilitarian type argument. Suicide is not justified because of the social harm that is done: it is an offense against community. That’s why, it is also against justice. The third argument is a theological one as suicide is a sin against God. Suicide is a sin because it is like stealing from God. Our lives are the properties of God and we are merely trustees of that property.

This attitude towards suicide has continued for centuries until the Renaissance. During this period, with the upheaval of the static social organization of the Middle Ages, philosophers could discuss the issue in a relatively free sphere. By the rising importance of freedom and individualism during Renaissance, some philosophers could even advocate the right to suicide.

In his essay “On Suicide”, David Hume took up the Aquinas’ argument “Every sin is against self, God or Neighbor,” and discussed whether suicide is a crime through these three cases. Hume followed these arguments against suicide and by refuting them one by one; he demonstrated that suicide is not a violation of our duties against God, society and oneself. He says that: “If suicide be criminal, it must be a transgression of our duty, either to God, our neighbor, or our selves”. Since it is not, suicide can be neither crime nor sin. 

He is also opposed to St. Augustine in that the commandment ‘not kill’ bans only killing others, and, there are no statements about the prohibition of suicide in the Bible. For him, under some conditions, human beings have the right to kill themselves. 

Like Hume, Schopenhauer considered the problem in a different manner: he regarded suicide as a personal right. In his view, a person who commits suicide doesn’t intend to rebel against God or violate something, but he only prefers death because the terrors of life outweigh the terrors of death.

The importance of Hume’s essay is that it shows the permissibility or impermissibility of suicide is not completely a matter of theology.

Unlike Hume, Kant provided an original anti-suicide argument. He opposed it in the name of freedom and autonomy. In his view, individual autonomy is the most important value and suicide is wrong because it is the loss of freedom.

In1895, William James the American Philosopher Psychologist, provided another anti-suicide argument. He delivered a now-famous address to the Harvard YMCA and spoke of what he called “the nightmare view of life.” entitled “Is life worth living?” James’s lecture was a classic example of positive thinking. He answered the title question with a resounding “Yes,” and told his audience: “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help to create the fact.”

Today, the moral permissibility of suicide is accepted as an important applied ethical issue. It generally focuses on the problems of permissibility of suicide and of suicide intervention. Moreover, the discussions about morality of suicide has value since it gives new perspectives to the more contemporary and essential subjects like euthanasia and suicide bombers.

Euthanasia and suicide bombers are the most important issues of ethics under today’s conditions although their meanings are unrelated. While euthanasia is committed for merciful reasons, the latter is committed for destruction in the name of faith; still, both of them are voluntary acts to die. 

These issues need to be discussed by philosophers so that an ethical ground for them can be constructed. That’s why; studying the history of philosophical discussions about voluntary death will be beneficial for further discussions.