14 min
Chapter 8: Can money buy happiness: Ethics Part 1 (December 29, 2019) A Fool's Errand by Matthew D'Antuono
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Happiness is one of the words that we use without giving a clear definition. So it is really easy to equivocate with that word (use the word in more than one sense). The types of happiness discussed in the first paragraph are types of happiness, but Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and many other wise people discuss a different type of happiness. You might be wondering why we are discussing happiness in a chapter about ethics, but the Ancients, the Medievals, and the Church all say that happiness is the main point in ethics. Only since the “enlightenment” (when everybody went on a diet) has ethics become about anything else. The classical idea of happiness was when a man reached his fullest potential and is thriving.
Happiness is one of the words that we use without giving a clear definition. So it is really easy to equivocate with that word (use the word in more than one sense). The types of happiness discussed in the first paragraph are types of happiness, but Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and many other wise people discuss a different type of happiness. You might be wondering why we are discussing happiness in a chapter about ethics, but the Ancients, the Medievals, and the Church all say that happiness is the main point in ethics. Only since the “enlightenment” (when everybody went on a diet) has ethics become about anything else. The classical idea of happiness was when a man reached his fullest potential and is thriving.
14 min