G'day,
My name is Bruce Robertson and this is Pirate Philosophy, the channel in which I describe the Pattern Paradigm; a new, rigorous and exciting approach to philosophy.
Welcome.
In previous videos, I have described in some detail the fundamentals of the Pattern Paradigm and how it is an accurate fit to the facts of the world. So now I want to show how the Pattern Paradigm can suggest new insights into some of the classical questions of philosophy. Today's theme is happiness.
So let's get started. Today's questions are
1. What is the function of happiness?
2. What does it mean to be happy? What brings true happiness?
3. Is it really necessary to pursue happiness?
4. Do humans need other people in order to live? Does anyone else's happiness affect our own?
5. Is there anything wrong with being selfish?
Question 1. What is the function of happiness?
Happiness is fundamental to life.
The function of happiness is to provide a direction for the decisions that we make and also to provide motivation for actions.
Decision making is fundamental to life. The brain is the decision-making organ of the body, making decisions is what the brain does in much the same way that pumping blood is what the heart does.
Decision-making requires direction and for the brain that direction is happiness. In this way happiness is more of a direction than a destination.
People make decisions with the aim of maximising their happiness. Then the experience of pleasure is the reward one gets from making a good decision and achieving success in one's endeavours.
When I talk about happiness, I am generally referring to long-term happiness rather than just short term pleasure.
And when I assert that people seek happiness I am saying this as a description of what people do rather than a proscription of what people should do. People can no less pursue happiness that a dropped pebble can do anything except fall towards the ground.
This can be useful for understanding other people and their motivations, especially if they purport to be entirely unselfish in their actions and claim that they only want to do things for other people. Ultimately and invariably people always do things which they consider will benefit themselves in some way and bring them happiness.
I describe this in more detail in an earlier video PP13 The logic of decision-making.
Question 2. What does it mean to be happy? What brings true happiness?
Happiness means having one's basic needs met of warmth, food and shelter. And also perhaps a feeling of security, so one does not have to worry unduly about the future.
Happiness comes with having enjoyable things to do or perhaps simply enjoying what one does.
Question 3. Is it really necessary to pursue happiness?
As already mentioned, the pursuit of happiness is intrinsic to decision-making. But how people go about pursuing happiness is subject to their personal characteristics and also their personal situation. Also people will use sub goals in making decisions rather than using the ultimate goal of happiness. So for example, people may decide at an early age that their path to happiness lies in being part of their community, so later on they will use this sub-goal of being part of the community as a direction for their decision making and hence make decisions to ensure that they remain secure within their community and abide by its mores.
Other people might decide that their happiness lies in climbing mountains or becoming a nurse or playing music. It is their choice. It may be important in one's youth to try out different things and activities so that one can find out what it is that one enjoys and which brings happiness.
Question 4. Do humans need other people in order to live? Does anyone else's happiness affect our own?
We are social animals and in the modern world we rely upon other people for the provision of goods and services to meet our basic needs. We also rely on people to generate the modern technology that we find so useful. There are only a few groups of hunter gatherers left in remote parts of the world who are not reliant on modern technology. And even for them they need the other people in their community in order to survive.
In an ideal world there would be a culture of respect and goodwill to all others with everyone knowing that being nice to other people will eventually be returned to themselves when the other people are nice to them in return. This would make everyone happy. It is what some might call 'karma'. This would certainly be preferable to living within a culture where people do not respect others nor treat them with kindness. In such a culture people might even resort to violence and everyone would be unhappy.
Perhaps the most important group of people that one should try to ensure are happy are one's children. For ensuring that one's children have a happy childhood gives them a firm foundation for facing the tribulations and troubles of adulthood. In this way, they would be more capable of reciprocating happiness to their parents in later life.
Question 5. Is there anything wrong with being selfish?
For this question, I will take the meaning of selfishness as being: 'not considering how the consequences of one's actions might impede upon other people'. In other words one only considers the immediate benefits tat one might receive from a particular action and disregards its possible adverse consequences upon other people.
However if one does not take into consideration all the consequences of one's actions then they may be unpredictable and possibly dire.And this might come back to oneself as unhappiness.
But that said, it is more important to ensure one's own personal happiness than that of other people. This is because one cannot make other people happy if one is not happy oneself. Also one cannot always predict what might other people happy. So one's first interest is always to make decisions that one hopes will make oneself happy in the long-term and then secondly to make decisions that will make other people happy as this will facilitate us all living in a harmonious culture where everybody is happy.
So there is nothing wrong with being selfish, it is just that it is not always a good strategy.
Well, that is all I have for you today. I hope you have enjoyed this video. If you have any comments or if there is a question you would like me to answer, then leave them in the section below. Also please subscribe to my channel, give it a thumbs up and ring the bell.
Thank you.
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