For a quick review, look here:
Shifting Gears #3: Smile Like You Mean It
+ “Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” -- Immanuel Kant
Is Kant on the right path? Is everyone worthy of happiness (which would mean Kant was wrong), or should we be doing something in order to deserve our good fortune (karma, caution, compassion, etc.)?
+ “We are always getting ready to live but never living.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Has Emerson observed the human condition correctly? Were we always the way Emerson suggests we are, or does this shift with age?
+ Do you prefer Kant’s system, or Aristotle’s? Which school best reflects your beliefs – teleology, deontology, or something you created yourself? Which beliefs have you established?
+ Is there more to happiness than the simple fulfillment of moral imperatives – which seem to be the basis of both systems?
+ We contrasted what made you happy when you were five versus what makes you happy now. Was it easier to be happier when you were younger? Which happiness was "better"?
+ Are you more concerned with the well-being of others now that you’re older? When did you think more about your own happiness – then, or now? How has your attitude towards happiness changed, and why?
+ Is a life spent waiting for intermittent pleasant surprises worth living?
+ If happiness is such an important human concern – and if great minds seem to have devised ways to find it – why do we still sabotage ourselves?
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