5HC : Skinner, Turing and happiness

maru · 20 Feb 2005, 21:05 · from 2005-February.txt.gz

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From: marudubshinki at gmail.com (maru)
Date: Sun Feb 20 21:05:30 2005
Subject: (urth) 5HC : Skinner, Turing and happiness
In-Reply-To: <BAY102-F41349CD4BF761EDDCD6DF2B96C0 at phx.gbl>
References: <BAY102-F41349CD4BF761EDDCD6DF2B96C0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <42196C0D.4070803 at gmail.com>

That is interesting; I remember you bringing up virtue ethics earlier, 
in a more alien context. It seems to fit; )
I can't say I really like that philosphy: it seems to boil down to 
selfishness, and I've always been more of a greater
good -guy.
I know a few people who can't be really happy while anyone around them 
is unhappy.  Could that be a less-extreme
example of what your dissident is doing?  More religiously, that seems 
very much like the bodhisattva idea, but if that's
a bad connection, a misreading of intent, please tell me.

~Maru
Your fortune is: I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; 
and I like less
than half of you half as well as you deserve.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien

Iorwerth Thomas wrote:

> Aristotle appears to have started his ethics along similar lines, but 
> his definition of happiness winds up pretty different from the 
> common-or-garden definition.  And he'd agree with you on the value of 
> knowledge :)
>
> (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/  if you really care 
> about how this approach has been recently developed; it's one of the 
> less dry entries.  The bit on whether virtue is suffiecient or 
> necessary for eudaemonia [flourishing] has some relevance to what I'm 
> about to say.)
>
> 'Happiness' in the common sense might have problems being defined as 
> the aim of a prisoner of conscience in a Third-World country who 
> refuses to back down on his or her beliefs in full knowledge of the 
> consequences; while such a person might be described as 'morally 
> fulfilled' - and may even feel so, on occasion - describing someone 
> who is being frequently beaten, in solitary confinement, and/or 
> tortured as 'happy' does feel like an abuse of the term, I'm afraid.  
> Though I may be misunderstanding your intent.  (Which is something I'm 
> good at doing, so please forgive me if I have!)
>
> Iorwerth

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