Aristotle on Happiness
By Aristotle, an ethical life is a rational life which should be centered around the goal understood as the good. This is the central good. There are other goods in life, such as prosperity, friendship, power, health. However, they are all pointless without the central good. This good gives the other goods their point. Aristotle […]
Epicurus on Happiness
By Epicurus, happiness is pleasure. It is a state of the soul that is free of disturbances and the state of the body that is free of pain. There is a final goal and it’s name is ATARAXIA / TRANQUILITY. Epicurus argues that pleasure is natural. As soon as each animal is born, it seeks […]
The Stoic Conception of the Good
For the Stoics, self-love is our primary motivation. It is natural for us to have a concern for ourselves, to select what is conductive to our survival and avoid what is detrimental to it. As we grow, we become increasingly aware of what is about the things that attract and repulse us. The behavior of […]
The Stoics on fate
By Stoics, everything happens by fate. Everything is causally determined, which is fate. Fate is the connecting cause of the things which exist, or a rational principle according to which the cosmos is arranged. Cosmos is a chain of events, a chain which is inescapable. It is determined by God. Then what I am doing […]
The Stoics on Agent Autonomy
There were two opinions of the older philosophers regarding the fate. One belonging to those men who believed that everything occured by fate in such a way that everything necessitated (The Fate Principle Argument). The others held that there were voluntary motions of the mind without fate. Chrysippus, a Greek Stoic philosopher, rejected necessity but […]