Does it make any sense for someone to acheive their values and still be unhappy?
If your values are arbitrary and don’t coalesce with each other to meet some grand goal, then yes, achieving individual values might not be enough to make you happy.
Does it make any sense for someone to acheive their values and still be unhappy?
Consult -Nicomachean Ethics- by Aristotle. He had some things to say about this very question.
PS: I am taking a course in Aristotle’s philosophy this semester and the first five weeks will be on his -Ethics-. Aristotle was sharp on everything but matter, motion and anatomy. His -Ethics- is first rate. His -Physics- and -On the Heavens- is useless.
Bob Kolker
Yeah, what she said; more precisely, I’d say “if your goals are not rational”, which would typically mean if you were evading an important fact. Note that “evading” means “knowing but willfuly disregarding”: then the unhappiness comes in the realization (subconscious, meaning “not focused”) that you are embracing a contradiction, which is nutso.
If your values are arbitrary and don’t coalesce with each other to meet some grand goal, then yes, achieving individual values might not be enough to make you happy.
Let’s say that they aren’t arbitrary and the do coalesce. Is it possible to be unhappy then?
I am wondering what exactly happiness is. Is it a state of being? Is it simply like a linguistical medal tha tyou get after achieving your values as a runner would get at the end of a race?
What about if your goals are truncated by factors beyond your control?
That is, you have a rational understanding of yourself and your potential, but also of the society in which you live. Knowing that you will never be able to achieve them in a lasting, secure, or unadulterated sense, you conciously choose lesser values, cultivate an authentic appreciation and contentment with them, and simultaneously repress the knowledge that you’re being short-changed.
This scenario certainly seems like a candidate for being happy, but I’m not convinced it is. It is possible to successfully treat the man-made as the metaphysical? And if you fail and you’re still unhappy, is it some pessimistic disposition that prevents you from making A into non-A?
What about if your goals are truncated by factors beyond your control?
Like what? And the rest of your post doesn’t make any sense.
Let’s say you decide to make it your goal to be a star basketball player. Then you are paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. If some existential problem has made achieving your goals impossible, then it is *no longer rational to hold that as a goal*. Goals don’t exist in a vacuum; major changes in your personal capabilities may require you to re-evaluate what your goals are. Part of the reason why this is true is that lesser goals only matter in the context of your ultimate goal.
Now, is it possible to achieve your (rational) goals and still be unhappy? Sure, but it’s a sign of neurosis. All those people that whine about how they went out and go the fame/fortune/whatever they wanted and now they’re more miserable than ever: nuts. Plain nuts. Either that, or they just absorbed their values passively like a sponge and now they’re paying the price for their wishful thinking.
Consult -Nicomachean Ethics- by Aristotle. He had some things to say about this very question.
PS: I am taking a course in Aristotle’s philosophy this semester and the first five weeks will be on his -Ethics-. Aristotle was sharp on everything but matter, motion and anatomy. His -Ethics- is first rate. His -Physics- and -On the Heavens- is useless.
Bob Kolker
Where does Aristotle’s ethics deviate from Ayn Rand’s ethics?
Does it make any sense for someone to acheive their values and still be unhappy?
Yes because it is often that we find, once we’ve achieved our pre-set goals, that we didn’t set the bar quite high enough to start with, forcing us to re-evaluate just whom we are/have become at that point in our lives and consider just whom it is that we actually hope to eventually be in this life…positive introspection is a good thing and is merely a part of the growth process, be it in mind, spirit, or body.