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General Ludd
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Minion of the Dominion
Aug 2001
time: 05:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuciwalker
quote:
Originally posted by General Ludd
That's pretty dodgy math.
When utility equals usefullness, for happiness to equal supreme utility it would also have to equal supreme usefullness. What is the usefullness of happiness? Very little, it is simply an emotion - a reward for your actions. |
Utility and usefulness, unless you specifically say towards some specific end (like, say, killing people; a weapon has a high "usefulness" there), is happiness. I challenge you to find any other meaningful (ie non-arbitrary) definition of the term. |
And I challange you to explain how your definition is meaningful and non-arbitrary. Ask a goth version of yourself and he'll tell you that misery is utility.
quote:
quote:
Of course, none of this changes the fact that happiness can be derived through things which are not in your own self interest. |
No it can't! It's in your self-interest to be happier! Nothing more! |
Still stuck in the feedback loop, I see. 
How is it in your self interest to stop someone elses suffering? it makes you happy
How is that happiness in your self interest?
it makes you happy
How is that happiness in your self interest?
it makes you happy
How is that happiness in your self interest?
it makes you happy
So i'll just point up to the post before where I say that if you're going to use happiness as an end all be all reason for everything, you have to look at the cause of the happiness itself to get any true meaning, otherwise you're just saying "it is, cause it is!".
An action is the cause and happiness is the effect. You do not stop someone elses suffering because you are happy, you become happy that you have stoped someone elses suffering.
quote:
Is doing selfless acts for happiness which is derived through selflessness somehow selfish?  |
You're the only one talking about selfishness. Self-interest != selfishness. [/quote]
Kucinich - the walking, talking, self-morphic dictionary.
Selfishness is doing something for yourself, and that is what self interest is. Selfishness does not imply doing something at the expense of others any more than doing something that is in your self interest.
The words are the same, I just feel like a tool saying self-interest 50 times in every post.
quote:
No, but I have to wait for my parents to fall asleep to get back on the computer  |
Ah, so you don't sleep at all. that makes even more sense. 
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Natalinasmpf
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There is a sort of feedback loop in happiness.
Happiness is originally formed by the fulfillment of whatever higher virtue...but then if happiness itself starts to form that virtue, it will create a feedback loop but only slightly.
Then perhaps its the overall assessment. After all, quote from Nicomachean Ethics - "the happy life is thought to be of excellence...now an excellent life does not consist of amusement". If you follow the whole happiness is the absence of sorrow (being the state of content when there are no threats to whatever threats our sentience perceives), that there will be less sorrow later on if we suffer a bit now. Then that, if the sorrow torments us too much, it will co-erce us into resolving it - immediately.
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22-07-2004 09:17
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