Question.2888 - Write through the five steps of the Socratic Method with the question inspired by Epicurus: What is the key to happiness? Write out answers to all the questions/steps of the process. Number them as you go, don’t worry about paragraph construction. 1. Think of a commonplace idea in answer to the question: “What is the key to happiness?” 2. Try to think of an exception 3. If you can find an exception, then your first statement is false or imprecise. Do you find your first statement to be false? Or imprecise? 4. Nuance or adjust your first statement to accommodate the exception you found. 5. Repeat the process by going through steps 2-4 again, then stop at step 2 on the third time around. So your journal will take the following form: Steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 4, 2. 300-400 words
Answer Below:
The key to happiness, he argues, is to turn attention away from the body and towards the soul. A moral life is to be preferred to an immoral one, primarily because it leads to a happier life. Now answering the question and following the five steps of the Socratic Method The key to happiness will be earning lots of money. When we try to think of an exception, I thought that will money be the only reason for my happiness. Suppose if I earn a lot of money but my family leaves me, will I still be happy. Thus the idea that earning money will give me happiness is false. Thus if we look at an alternative statement we think that Money and Family together is the key to happiness. But again there is an exception. Suppose I earn a lot of money and have a balance in my personal as well as professional life but my health is on a down trend and either I or my family is suffering from a disease for which no cure exists. Will I still be happy? Even though I have the money to buy all pleasures of life, but I am unable to buy the health of the unwell. Thus again the above statement is said to be false. Now an alternative statement could be Earning money and a healthy family is the key to happiness. Can this said to be 100% true. No, still there is a chance that this statement can be proved false. Suppose I am earning money and have a healthy family but even after earning money, in the current state I am not at ease in regards to my mental peace. Though I am earning enough money and have a healthy family but my mind is not at peace because of the work load. Thus the above statement is also false. As per Epicurus, Positive pleasure depends on pain because it is nothing but the removal of pain: you are thirsty so you drink a glass of water to get some relief. Negative pleasure, however, is that state of harmony where you no longer feel any pain and hence no longer need a positive pleasure to get rid of the pain. Epicurus concludes from this that the true state of happiness is the state of negative pleasure, which is basically the state of not experiencing any unfulfilled desires.More Articles From Philosophy
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