Our search for Happiness

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Our search for Happiness

• Some re-runs, new folks and virtues

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Plato (427-347BC)

• Plato He is all about the City State (His work
  The Republic)
• Cant find The Good, look for the good in things
• Closest to The Good..contemplation
• A philosopher would make the best king
• Those against him The Sophists is no truth
  (Callicles a sophist)

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Aristotle (Him again? Yep.)

• 1. The GoodGod
• 2. God plants good in all things
• 3. Everything has purpose
• 4. We should act virtuously
• 5. Live middle way
• 6. Our purpose is to act reasonably and
  rationally
• 7. Ethics comes from following above purpose
• 8. HappinessEthical life

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Thomas Aquinas

• Borrowed much of his thoughts from Aristotle,
  someone he called THE PHILOSOPHER.
• Natural Law
• Wrote Summa Theologica and Summa Gentiles
• At the core of a person is a desire for the good
• People live the good life by using their
  intelligence
• Wrote much and spoke much of the Cardinal Virtues
  and Theological virtuesmore to come on this..

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Immanuel Kant (Manny to his friends)
It is all about duty Goodonly thing good in
itself, a good will Only good if provides no
personal gain Not moral act if you enjoy
doing it Reason dictates what is good
Remember Categorical Imperative
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Emmanuel Levinas (Manny to his friends)

• All about The Other
•  

Truthfully, nobody has ever called me Manny.
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So, for review, or if you have not figured it out
yetThree ways to pursue the good.

• Teleological
• Deontological
• Impact of the Gospels

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Cardinal Virtues

• The cardinal virtues are the four principal moral
  virtues. The English word cardinal comes from the
  Latin word cardo, which means "hinge." They are
  called Cardinal because all other virtues hinge
  on them. They are Prudence, Temperance,
  Fortitude and Justice.
• Plato first discussed the Cardinal virtues (he
  did so in his great work, The Republic).
  Aristotle then wrote about them and then Aquinas
  expanded on them (as he did about much of
  Aristotles thoughtsremember, he was a big fan
  of Aristotle). http//catholicism.about.com/od/bel
  iefsteachings/tp/Cardinal_Virtues.htm

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Prudence
Dear Prudence

• St. Thomas Aquinas ranked prudence as the first
  cardinal virtue, because it is concerned with the
  intellect. Aristotle defined prudence as recta
  ratio agibilium, "right reason applied to
  practice." It is the virtue that allows us to
  judge correctly what is right and what is wrong
  in any given situation. When we mistake the evil
  for the good, we are not exercising prudencein
  fact, we are showing our lack of it.
• Because it is so easy to fall into error,
  prudence requires us to seek the counsel of
  others, particularly those we know to be sound
  judges of morality. Disregarding the advice or
  warnings of others whose judgment does not
  coincide with ours is a sign of imprudence.
•   http//catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings
  /tp/Cardinal_Virtues.htm

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Justice

• How to act well in relation to others
• Justice, according to Saint Thomas, is the second
  cardinal virtue, because it is concerned with the
  will. As Fr. John A. Hardon notes in his Modern
  Catholic Dictionary, it is "the constant and
  permanent determination to give everyone his or
  her rightful due." We say that "justice is
  blind," because it should not matter what we
  think of a particular person. If we owe him a
  debt, we must repay exactly what we owe.
• Justice is connected to the idea of rights. While
  we often use justice in a negative sense ("He got
  what he deserved"), justice in its proper sense
  is positive. Injustice occurs when we as
  individuals or by law deprive someone of that
  which he is owed. Legal rights can never outweigh
  natural ones. http//catholicism.about.com/od/beli
  efsteachings/tp/Cardinal_Virtues.htm

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Fortitude

• The third cardinal virtue, according to St.
  Thomas Aquinas, is fortitude. While this virtue
  is commonly called courage, it is different from
  what much of what we think of as courage today.
  Fortitude allows us to overcome fear and to
  remain steady in our will in the face of
  obstacles, but it is always reasoned and
  reasonable the person exercising fortitude does
  not seek danger for danger's sake. Prudence and
  justice are the virtues through which we decide
  what needs to be done fortitude gives us the
  strength to do it. http//catholicism.about.com/od
  /beliefsteachings/tp/Cardinal_Virtues.htm

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Temperance

• Temperance, Saint Thomas declared, is the fourth
  and final cardinal virtue. While fortitude is
  concerned with the restraint of fear so that we
  can act, temperance is the restraint of our
  desires or passions. Food, drink, and sex are all
  necessary for our survival, individually and as a
  species yet a disordered desire for any of these
  goods can have disastrous consequences, physical
  and moral. Temperance is the virtue that attempts
  to keep us from excess, and, as such, requires
  the balancing of legitimate goods against our
  inordinate desire for them. Our legitimate use of
  such goods may be different at different times
  temperance is the "golden mean" that helps us
  determine how far we can act on our desires.
• http//catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/t
  p/Cardinal_Virtues.htm

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For Aquinas

• Abstinence humanizes our desire for food
• Sobriety humanizes the pleasure of drinking
• Chastity humanizes our desire for sexual
  pleasure
• Chastity means the integration of sexuality
  within the person. It includes an apprenticeship
  in self-mastery From CCC 2395
• Chastity is the virtue which excludes or
  moderates the indulgence of the sexual appetite.
  It is a form of the virtue of temperance, which
  controls according to right reason the desire for
  and use of those things which afford the greatest
  sensual pleasures. http//www.newadvent.org/cathen
  /03637d.htm

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Now it is time for a movie..

• Cry Freedom.starring.
• Kevin Kline and Denzel Washington

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Now it is time for a musical break.by this guy.
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Solicitude

• Anxious concern for another
• The Good Life Needs Just Institutions
• The good life goes beyond individualsit
  includes the social structure of institutionsWe
  see this in such institutions as the family, the
  state, health care, churches, and the market
  economy. Ethics is very much interested in the
  way that these institutions promote and stabilize
  our search for the good.