Does Skepticism Bring Tranquility?

Silence is an important factor in life and can be encountered in different ways, silence can be seen as peace, harmony and can also be viewed as a negative effect such as depression, sadness or even as evil. Silence also gives time to reflect on life and society and when silence there is time to reflect on faith and religion, this would allow to decide on or question religion. When silence is demonstrated it implicates the importance of peace and the chance for revival.

When having good experiences, most people, if asked, would claim that they feel happy. However, if one decided to ask Martha Nussbaum, author of “Who is the Happy Warrior? Philosophy Poses Questions to Psychology,” she would most likely respond that she was feeling pleasured. In her article, she draws a restrictive line between pleasure and happiness. She introduces the viewpoints of many intellectuals who have spoken on the definition of happiness, and then offers her own opinions in regards to theirs. Her thoughts generally align with those of Aristotle, Plato, and the ancient Greek thinkers – the very ones she spent much of her higher education studying. Her main ideas, that happiness is too complex to be concretely defined and that pleasure is a feeling that we may experience while doing certain things, are well-explained and supported. She offers the idea that happiness is not an emotion – rather, it is a state of being that we should all hope to attain as a result of self-reflection. Nussbaum continually counters the beliefs proposed by psychologists, like the notion that happiness is a one-note feeling, or the concept that happiness is only influenced by positive emotions. In my essay, I will explain how Martha Nussbaum’s explanation of the complexities of happiness is superior, as well as how the ideas of two psychologists, Sonja Lyubomirsky and Daniel Gilbert, are faulty and disreputable. However, it is important to note that just because Nussbaum is the least wrong

In his essay, “Freedom and Resentment”, Strawson aims to prove human freedom by evaluating two opposing viewpoints, the optimist and the pessimist toward determinism, and discrediting various ideas within each argument in order to arrive at his own conclusion. It is necessary to understand that the basis of Strawson’s argument focuses on human psychology. He believes that innate tendencies engrained in our dispositions develop our subjective reactive attitudes and we are too attached to interpersonal relationships to consider changing all attitudes to objective ones. While I find Strawson’s points to be relevant and compelling, there are flaws in his argument that cannot be ignored.

Within The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, he mentions that there are two ancient truths concerning how the mind works. The first truth is the foundational idea of the book: the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict with each other. The second truth is Shakespeare’s idea about how “thinking makes it so.” (or, as Buddha said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”) Like a rider, on the back of an elephant, the conscious, reasoning part of the mind has only limited control of what the elephant does. Nowadays, we know the cause of these divisions, and a few ways to help the rider and the elephant work as a better team. We can improve this ancient idea today by explaining why most people’s minds have a bias toward seeing threats and engaging in useless worry. To change this bias, we can use three techniques to increase happiness, one ancient, and two very new.

Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions on general happiness, I admit or rather earnestly maintain.

The main idea of the text The Dangers of Moral Certainty, is to review the ideas/conclusions of Professor Crellin’s on the nature of moral values, and how they might lead to something negative. “One of the threats to world peace is from people who share Professor Innes Crellin’s views of the nature of moral values. By this, I do not mean that Professor Crellin’s intentions are wicked. Far from it. His good intentions shine through, but my fear is that those good intentions may pave a road to the wrong destination”. In this text the author will be refuting and agreeing with Professor Crellin’s concepts.

Quotes: An interesting quote that I definitely agree with is “For now no one knows how to solve the mind-body problem” (82).Another quote that caught my attention and that I disagree with is “Each of us, Descartes said, is infallible when it comes to the contents of our own mind. If you think you are feeling pain, then you are” (68). I believe that our mind is very fallible, especially in concepts of emotions and thoughts. A person may think that he is not feeling rancor when his/her behaviors clearly demonstrate the contrary.

Morality is a complicated matter, one which requires rationality, but is often driven by emotions. A person’s behavior is almost completely driven by emotions and often times emotions are what tell us when something might be wrong or right. Motivation also comes from emotions, so without feelings of anger, depression, frustration and the like we would hardly ever do anything in order to change things in our lives (Shafer-Landau, 2015, p. 258). Virtue ethics then is concerned with what makes a person virtuous versus vicious when it comes to making moral decisions, with emotions playing an important role. In this paper, I support Aristotle’s emphasis on emotions as a key to being virtuous, especially since emotions tell us what is important and motivate us to act (Shafer-Landau, 2015, p. 257-258).

In the excerpt by Deborah Tannen entitled, The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue Tannen speaks about the oppositional nature of public discourse. She expressed her thoughts on how we are determined to seek certainty by using arguments from two different standpoints, as if there are no additional angles that can be examined. Oftentimes, there are more than two sides of an issue, but due to the way society has taught us, we only look at issues from two extreme perspectives. I find Dr. Tannen to be extremely intelligent in her observations of how people communicate using debates and opposition as a means to express what we believe to be true. Although Americans habitually view issues from only two extreme points of view, dialogue solves more problems than debates because it does not cause division among people as frequently as debates does.

Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right;

The first section of this paper should properly be named: “The Happy Ending,” as it seems fitting for this point of success for religion. It is not unfair to assert that one of humans greatest fears is death, the thought of become nothingness. Honestly, is there ever a point in ones own life that they can think, or even experience nothingness? Evidently the answer should be no, as we are always something, always being. For a human this is an overwhelming, and at times frightening thought. Especially when science and many atheist comes to the conclusion that when a human dies nothing happens, there is no happy ending -- sadly, nothingness seems to be the answer.

Man experiences the same impulsion but recognizes that he is free to comply or resist (Rousseau, 33).”

Central to any study of the humanities is the human condition – our nature, which has historically shown that it is equally capable of both good and evil deeds – and the problem that arises from it; specifically, why do humans suffer? Many philosophies and religions have their own account for this aspect of humanity, and we find that what the accounts have in common is each explains the human condition in terms that are similar to how that institution of thought explains the true nature of reality.

Life is like a journey through the mountains; it consists of emotional ups and downs and the very next decision we make can determine the immediate as well as the long-term position we stand on. As human beings who are naturally prone to impulsive decision makings, we often suffer rather than being content with the past choices we make. In order to prevent such regrets in life and to feel satisfactory, we need to strive to live in tranquility, which prevents us from rash behaviors and enables us to make proper decisions given various situations, and thus, tranquility is the ideal mind-set in decision making.

Candidates have a chance to present their ideas to the citizens through debates and other platforms that are available for the candidates. It provides a platform for the citizens to debate important issues with the candidates and among themselves.