Social harmony

AGENDA

• No office hours today
• Nietzsche vs. Confucius
• from the good life to the meaning of life

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click to enlarge

Nietzsche--

1. Values autonomy, self-definition, self-invention, self-affirmation, rebellion against "the herd"
2. Not egalitarian: all that is only for higher people
   

Contrasting view: Confucianism

1. On autonomy: Ideal life is lived in harmony with your community
2. On egalitarianism: harmony doesn't mean equality

 

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Important virtues and practices

Xiao = Filial piety/family reverence

• Filial piety produces harmony within the family
• children must obey parents, care for them in old age
• younger children must obey older children

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Li = ceremony, ritual, etiquette/manners, politeness, propriety, civility 

• there's a pre-existing practice--you don't choose it
• claim: it's important, not trivial, to go along, because it expresses respect for others, creates social harmony

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What does Li comprise, for us?

Etiquette, manners, politeness

• please and thank-you
• not interrupting
• opening doors for people
• waiting your turn to get off a plane
• other examples?
  

Rituals and ceremonies

• family rituals (e.g. making tea)
• religious community's rituals
• whole society's rituals: watching the Super Bowl

• Compare: Nietzsche praises "human beings with their own festivals, their own working days, and their own periods of mourning" (Gay Science 283)

Propriety, civility

• wearing appropriate clothes for the occasion
• When to swear, when not to swear

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Confucians teach us to take these things seriously instead of as trivial customs

• are they worth taking seriously?

experimenters: could observe these things over 3-4 days and ask

• Are these things trivial?
• Or are they important?
• If important, are they repressive?
• Or do they express respect and create harmony?
  

Some extra material would help--

• Amy Olberding, "The Moral Gravity of Mere Trifles"
• Podcast on Confucian ritual (start at 25:52)

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Next week we start talking about meaning, starting with the meaning of life.  Jim Holt, Why Does the World Exist. Map of issues is below.

click to enlarge

_

Live dangerously! (part 2)

AGENDA

1. Nietzsche...how to live, morality, God
2. return exams, make a few comments
3. talk to Happiness group
4. Next time: Confucius, The Analects

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Annotated PDF

HOW HE WRITES

PDF35 381 "On the question of being understandable"

He writes for the "nobler spirits" and wants to "erect barriers to 'the others'"

When we interpret we shouldn't think of what we extract as like a nut inside a shell, where the shell is simply thrown away 

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HOW TO LIVE (our main focus)

PDF8 270 (R) "What does your conscience say? You shall become the person you are."

PDF9 276  (R) "For the new year" 

Amor fati...being a yes-sayer

PDF10 283 (R) "Preparatory human beings"

    List of desirable characteristics...Nietzschean virtues!

PDF11 284 (R) "Faith in oneself"

PDF14 290 (R) "One thing is needful" 

Use all your characteristics to create who you are (Examples...Elon Musk's autism, Greta Thunberg's autism)

PDF16 324 "in media vita" 

PDF24 341 (R most of this) "The greatest weight"

How would impact you to live as if "eternal recurrence" were true?

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REJECTION OF CONVENTIONAL MORALITY

PDF3 116  "Herd instinct" 

If morality is just the code needed by a particular society, it isn't binding, it has no serious force

PDF4 117 "Herd remorse"

PDF5 119 "No altruism!"  Don't be a function

PDF16 325 (R) "What belongs to greatness" 

Read footnote!

PDF 20 338 (R) "The will to suffer and those who feel pity"

Hedonists: happiness is good, misery is bad

Nietzsche: it's more complicated. (Think back on a time when you were suffering. Did the suffering actually color your experience in some valuable way?) 

PDF28 345 (R) "Morality as a problem"

PDF 31 352 (R) "How morality is scarcely dispensable"

Morality is like fancy clothing that hides people's imperfections

PDF 33 359 (R) "The revenge against the spirit and other ulterior motives of morality"

Higher people can throw off the clothing of morality; lower people have nothing to put in its place

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EMANCIPATION FROM RELIGION (we didn't discuss)

PDF6 125 "The madman"

Madman runs through the street saying we have killed God....and then says "I have come too early...my time is not yet."  Why is it too early for this news?  What does the whole section mean?

PDF11 285 (R) "Excelsior"

"perhaps man will rise even higher as soon as he ceases to flow out into a god" 

PDF26 343 (R) "The meaning of our cheerfulness"

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Exams

On the whole, really impressive!

Preparing for Exam 2 -- all the elements of this course get you ready to do well

1. Do the reading
2. Do the reading response...yourself, no AI!
3. Come to class...including on Fridays!
4. Review the blog posts before exam
5. Review your own RRs before exam, including comments
6. Get ready to write with specificity

Live Dangerously!

 AGENDA

1. Nietzsche intro
2. we will discuss passages -- see Workbook

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Nietzsche, Edvard Munch (1906)

The Gay Science (topics, passages)

1. Morality: 116-117 (herd morality), 118-119 (being a function), 325 (inflicting suffering)
2. God is dead: 125, 285, 343  didn't discuss
3. How to live: 276, 283 (live dangerously), 284, 289, 290 (style), 324, 327, 339, 382
4. How not to live: 326, 328 (pity), 338, 345 (selflessness)
5. Higher and lower people: 352, 359, 381

Virtue presentation/Is reading Nietzsche dangerous?

AGENDA

1. Presentation
2. Module 4 -- the big picture
3. Reading Nietzsche
4. Note: more books will be at SMU bookstore Monday...a link to the PDF is in Canvas

Presentation--trying out Stoicism

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Module 4

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900 (German)

KNEE-CHA

Watch up to 1:52

THE GAY [i.e. cheerful] SCIENCE (published in 1882)

Nietzsche's writing style

381 (para 1)

• exhorting, like a preacher
• ranting
• aphorisms--short paragraphs, memorable sentences
  
• deliberately opaque--hard to understand

Topics

1. The nature of morality
2. God, religion
3. How we should live

Is reading Nietzsche dangerous?

• Leopold and Loeb murder (1924)
• University of Chicago students
• had been reading Nietzsche
• Nietzsche would have felt like a recent writer (only as remote as a 1980s author is for us)

Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948) -- full movie on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, etc.

• Philip and Brandon are holding a party and they murder the first guest and stuff him in a chest in the middle of the living room
• Rupert, their philosophy teacher, comes to the party (played by Jimmy Stewart)
• Lots of other party guests arrive and chat happily about various topics
• Rupert figures it out

• Brandon's Nietzschean defense of murder: 2:45-3:46 of first clip; 2:49-3:28 of second clip
• To what extent does Nietzsche have the ideas used to defend this crime?

Review for Exam 1

PREVIEW

• Wednesday: exam
• Friday: our first presentation, also we will start talking about Nietzsche
• Next week: need Nietzsche, The Gay Science
• Week after that: we will start talking about meaning, you will need Tolstoy

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QUIZ

• feedback page
• most did well...could you do as well on other questions?
• if you didn't do well...need to make better use of class blog
• need to cover advice with specificity, not just express stoic outlook in a vague way
• stay on topic, clarify, elaborate, give examples

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EXAM 1 REVIEW

Use the workbook, add a question, use Exam 1 review page

(1) Explaining arguments

• Not just a controversial thing someone says--"virtue is the only thing that matters"
• Reasoning FROM premises TO conclusion
• Sometimes useful to set up in list form

            PREMISE 1

            PREMISE 2

            CONCLUSION

(2) The experience machine argument

• The conclusion is that happiness is not all that matters
• Nozick says that over and over again in the readings
• Should be able to state the two premises
• OBJECTIONS
• Should understand how the objections relate to the premises
• Vitrano's escapism objection
• What would be an objection to premise 1?

(3) Eudaimonia

• Eudaimonism (Aristotle, Epictetus)
• Happiness is the supreme good, but it is NOT a feeling
• Better translation of "eudaimonia": human flourishing, doing well, the good life
• Aristotle: you have it by living an active life of reason, with virtue & also having some external goods
• Epictetus: you have it just by having virtue
• Feeling good is merely a byproduct, not what it is to have eudaimonia
  

(4) Arguments in Aristotle -- the PDF is helpful!

(5) Aristotle challenge -- all those virtues 

• Memorize a few in the list

(6) Epictetus challenge -- all that advice 

• Stoics 1, Stoics 2
• Memorize some based on themes

(7) Mill -- Utilitarianism vs. hedonism

• Utilitarianism: we are morally obligated to maximize total happiness for all
• Hedonism: what makes my life good is nothing but happiness
• Evil happy people...

(8) Mill -- higher and lower pleasures

• list of higher, lower pleasures
• intellect, feelings, imagination, moral sentiments
• mere sensation
• How does he know that the first sent of pleasures are higher quality?
• What is Mill saying about Socrates, the fool, the pig?
• How would Vitrano see them?

(9) Tricky things in Vitrano -- life satisfaction post

• why LS theory is better than pleasure theory
• Haybron's objection to LS
• Vitrano's reply to Haybron

(10) More Nozick points-- post

• What else matters?
• Nozick's life contour argument

The experience machine (and other objections to Hedonism)

AGENDA

1. Hedonism defined (recap)
2. The experience machine objection against hedonism
3. Vitrano's objection
4. Other objections to Hedonism
5. Return quizzes

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Hedonism (definition)

Hedonism is the view that feeling happy is all that matters; a life is good to the extent it is happy. Details:

1. All that matters is "subjective wellbeing"--how you feel from the inside
2. Other things can be instrumentally valuable (health, education, virtue, financial success, friendship, parenthood, etc.), but only to the extent they increase happiness
3. When comparing two lives, one can be better only if it's happier

What is "feeling happy"? multiple views

1. John Stuart Mill--feeling pleasure, which varies in both quantity and quality
2. Christine Vitrano--life satisfaction, which includes both a judgment and a feeling
3. Other views

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The experience machine objection 

(Robert Nozick, 1974 & 1989) 

The experience machine thought experiment (p. 28)

Picture credit: Helen DeCruz, Philosophy Illustrated

Experience machine Argument 

1. If we plugged in to the experience machine, we would feel as happy as possible. 
2. We wouldn't choose to plug in. 
3. Therefore, feeling happy is not all that matters  (i.e. hedonism is false)

Notice--

• We would feel as much pleasure as possible
• We would also have as much life satisfaction as possible
• So the argument is against both versions of hedonism

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What else matters?

pg. 28 

• we want to do certain things, but in the EM we wouldn't be doing anything 
• we want to be a certain kind of person, but in the EM we would just be a blob 
• we want to have contact with reality and even a deeper reality

p. 32 (from The Examined Life, 1989) - great page!

"We care about more than just how things feel to us from the inside; there is more to life than feeling happy. We care about what is actually the case. We want certain situations we value, prize, and think important to actually hold and be so. We want our beliefs, or certain of them, to be true and accurate; we want our emotions, or certain important ones, to be based upon facts that hold and to be fitting. We want to be importantly connected to reality, not to live in a delusion."

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Interpreting Nozick

Christine Vitrano's interpretation of Nozick's argument is a bit different.  This is partly due the way she defines some key terms like "hedonism" and "happiness." Further discussion of that is here, if you're interested.

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Vitrano's Escapist Behavior Objection (p. 139-140)

1. People pursue enjoyments that are divorced from reality
2. Therefore,
• they might actually plug into the experience machine
• they may really only care about feeling happy, not contact with reality.

Enjoyments divorced from reality (p. 139-140)

• reading novels
• watching movies
• playing video games
• participating in civil war reenactments
• attending Renaissance festivals
• visiting Disney world
• new example: having relationships with AIs

Having an AI friend (NYT article)

• Chat GPT and other bots are designed to feel like companions
• 72% of teenagers have used chat bots as companions (lots of data)
• Specialized companion bots are also being developed
• the "Friend" pendant

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Nozick's life contour argument against hedonism

1. We prefer the uphill life to the downhill lives.
2. The downhill lives deliver equal or greater total happiness. 
3. Therefore, total happiness is not all that matters.  

Life Satisfaction

AGENDA

1. Mill's advice
2. Life satisfaction view
3. Preview: exam coming up Feb 18

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Epictetus--basically a life coach, lots of advice

Mill --if he were a life coach, what would he advise?

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Famous passage

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides." (Mill, para 6)

Mill: don't be distracted by satisfaction.  THAT isn't happiness.

Leads us to the next view....

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Christine Vitrano--

• contemporary philosopher, author of The Nature and Value of Happiness
• Happiness is all that matters (so she's a hedonist, like Mill)
• But what is happiness? Not pleasure, but rather feeling satisfied with your life

Many formulations (p. 104)--

1. A person is happy if "she is disposed, when she considers her life, to feel satisfied, which means she judges that her expectations are being attained" 
2. One is happy if "one likes those parts of one's total life patterns and circumstances that one thinks are important" 
3. Happiness is "having a favorable attitude toward whatever relationship one happens to have to one's circumstances" 
4. Happiness is "being pleased with one's happiness as a whole" 
5. "The happy person has a favorable impression, attitude, or perception of her life" 

Vitrano--life satisfaction is both a judgment and a feeling

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Why does she prefer the life satisfaction view instead of the pleasure view? (earlier in her book)

• pleasure goes up and down all the time
• life satisfaction is more stable
• happiness is something pretty stable
• so happiness = life satisfaction
• is this persuasive?

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If you say you are very satisfied with your life, could you be wrong about that?

1. Mistaken if you're lying
2. Mistaken if you didn't understand the question
3. Would you be mistaken if your satisfaction is due to errors ????

Should we add a no-errors condition?

CASES (p. 114-116)

Susie the Grad Student. She's in graduate school and looks forward to her career in her field. She says she's very satisfied with her life. In reality, her professors think she's doing bad work and her chances of getting a job are very low. (p. 114-115)

1. Some say--not actually satisfied because she isn't actually fulfilling her own plans for life
2. Vitrano--Susie really is satisfied with her life

Tom the vanilla ice cream lover. He's thrilled that he gets to eat vanilla ice cream all the time and says he has a wonderful life, but doesn't know there are 100 other flavors other people are enjoying. 

1. Some others--Tom isn't really satisfied because he's making a "faulty comparison" 
2. Vitrano--Tom is satisfied with his life

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The Arbitrariness Objection (Daniel Haybron)

Life satisfaction fluctuates in strange ways, so happiness shouldn't be identified with it

Experiments Cited by Haybron

1. 
   people report higher life satisfaction when....
• the weather is good
• they have just found a lucky dime
• they first eat a candy bar
• they are in a pleasant room 
2. people report different amounts of life satisfaction depending on question order

Vitrano's response

1. Life satisfaction may in fact have some strange causes. It doesn't matter.
2. The experiments may not actually show that life satisfaction fluctuates based on these arbitrary factors. 
• Another interpretation is that the arbitrary factors  distract people and prevent them from focusing on the question of life satisfaction. Like assessing food in a restaurant while hearing a baby cry.)

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Next time: an objection to ALL hedonist views (both pleasure and life satisfaction)

The Happy Life

AGENDA

1. the big picture
2. what is happiness? (Mill)

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Module 2: The virtue-centered life

• core of "eduaimonia" is virtue
• Aristotle (virtue plus)
• Epictetus (just virtue)
• Joseph Marshall & Peter Singer (read to explore specific virtues)

Module 3: The happy life 

• To live a good life we need to feel happy...period
• How is this different from the virtue views?

Questions we'll be asking:

1. What, more precisely, is feeling happy?
2. What sort of life is happiest?
3. Is feeling happy really the only thing that matters? 

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Mill: excerpt from Utilitarianism  (1861) -- we will read passages

Para 1: morality, happiness, pleasure

1. Foundation of morals (A)
• The Greatest Happiness Principle -- the right action produces the greatest TOTAL happiness
• Also known as: Principle of Utility, Utilitarianism
2. Only happiness has intrinsic value (view known as Hedonism)  
3. What is happiness? just pleasure! (B, C)
• next time: a competing view

Models of the good life on this view....a life of physical indulgence?

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Para 2:  The accusation that hedonism is a doctrine "worthy of swine"

• Mill often refers to Epicurus, a post-Aristotelian who was a hedonist
• Epicurus was also castigated for having a view worthy of swine
• Mill's defense: higher vs. lower pleasures

Para 3: Higher vs. lower pleasures (A&B)

Para 4: Preference argument

1. The qualitatively better of two pleasures is the one preferred by "all or almost all" people  who have experienced both "irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it." (p. 23)
2. People who have experienced all of these pleasures prefer 1-4 to 5.  THEREFORE,
3. 1-4 are qualitatively superior

Para 5: People really do prefer 1-4 to 5

• you wouldn't trade places with an animal or a fool to have more pleasures of "mere sensation

WORKBOOK

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Para 6: don't confuse pleasure with contentment/satisfaction (A&B)

Socrates: high quality & quantity pleasure, BUT dissatisfied   better off  
Fool: lower quality & quantity pleasure BUT more likely satisfied

Any human: higher quality & quantity pleasure, BUT dissatisfied  better off
Animal: lower quality & quantity pleasure BUT more likely satisfied

Christine Vitrano (next):  happiness IS satisfaction!

The Altruistic Life

AGENDA

1. Quiz
2. The virtue-centered life (recap)
3. What are the virtues? Who are models of a virtue-centered life?
4. Preview of happiness module

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Virtue-centered views 

1. Virtue-plus View (Aristotle)
• To live a good life, you must live an active life of reason, with moral and intellectual virtue, plus secure external goods and do all of this for a whole life
• Argument: the active life of reason is our uniquely human function
2. Virtue View (Stoics: Epictetus, Cicero)
• To live a good life, you simply need virtue
• Argument: Nothing but virtue is inherently good, so nothing but virtue can make your life good

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What are the virtues? Who is a model of virtue?

1. Aristotle 
• courage, righteous indignation, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness..
• Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross, Barack Obama, Greta Thunberg?
2. Epictetus
•  courage, justice, moderation, wisdom...but also playing one's role.and generally living "in accordance with nature" 
• Models of virtue?
3. Joseph Marshall (contemporary, Native American)
• includes quietness and humility
• No Moccasins, Crazy Horse
4. Peter Singer (contemporary)
• should adopt Utilitarian Ethics, should be an effective altruist
• models in video 

• Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet
• Toby Ord -- Giving What We Can
• Charlie Bresler and Diana Schott
• Will Crouch -- recommends careers in business, finance
• Matt Weiger -- finance -- The Life You Can Save
• Give Well
• Effective Animal Activism
• Chris Croy, donated kidney

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Module 3 – The good life and being happy (preview)

• Virtue views--virtue is what matters (but it might make you feel happy)
• Happiness views -- feeling happy is what matters (but you might get it from being virtuous)

   

The Stoic Approach to Life (2)

AGENDA

1. Quiz
2. Epictetus, 1-24 (recap)
3. Epictetus, 25-51

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EPICTETUS, THE HANDBOOK 1-25 (PDF)

From 1: keep your focus on what is "up to us"

Stoic view: 

•  only virtue matters, and it's up to us
•  four main virtues: wisdom, justice, courage, moderation

From 2: "And for the time being eliminate desire completely...."

Initial goal: indifference and imperturbability about external things

How to achieve?  Change the way you think.

5. "What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things." (etc)

8. "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well."

10. "At each thing that happens to you, remember to turn to yourself and ask what capacity you have for dealing with it." (etc.)

17. "Remember that you are an actor in a play...." (etc.)

Indifference about everyday annoyances

3. The broken jug is just A jug, not MY jug

4. The annoying things that happen at the baths are to be expected

Indifference even about death

    3, 5, 11, 14, 16, 21, 26

Indifference about illness and disability

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HANDBOOK 24 - 51

Beyond just being indifferent...how to cope with goals, ambitions ... also, having a social life, pursuing pleasure

• Is it good or bad advice?
• asterisks indicate sections people discussed for RR6

Goals and ambitions -- 

• ok to pursue external things as long as they're not bad ...
• and as long as your first priority is always virtue
• some of the advice helps you achieve your goals
• some of the advice helps you cope with failure

24. Lack of honors, making money (read A and B)

25. Not being a social success (read C and D)

29. Doing what it takes to succeed (read E and F) 

33. Conducting yourself at banquets (read G) 

Social life, pleasures, roles

27. Handing over your faculty of judgment  

30.  Playing roles 

34. Pleasures  

37. Insults  

40. Pleasures, women  

41. Pleasures (read H)  

44. Being judgmental 

46 General (read I)

The Stoic Approach to Life

AGENDA

1. Quiz Friday (tab)
2. Presentations
3. Aristotle recap
4. Stoicism

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Aristotle recap

Supreme good = eudaimonia (happiness) = uniquely human life = virtue (plus external goods)

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Stoicism 

1. One of the many schools of philosophy after Aristotle
2. Stoicism popular for 500 years and beyond
3. Other famous Stoics: Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius
4. Epictetus-- writing around 100 CE -- a popularizer of Stoic ideas
5. Stoicism today -- The Daily Stoic
6. Stoic meet-ups today

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Stoicism, compared to Aristotle

1. Both say
• main question of ethics is about the good life
• chief good is eudaimonia
• eudaimonia achieved through virtue
2. Stoics only
• only four virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation, justice
• we have no need for external goods
• this is clearer in other writings of other Stoics -- e.g. see here
• practical orientation -- Epictetus is giving advice

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The Handbook of Epictetus (pdfshared during class)

Goal is to help you cope with external ups and downs so you can focus just on what really matters (your own virtue)

GENERAL ADVICE

1 & 2

UP TO US -- our opinions, impulses, desires, aversions; whatever is our doing 

• NATURAL (should care, should pursue)
• AGAINST NATURE (should care, should avoid)

NOT UP TO US -- our bodies, possessions, reputations, public offices; whatever is not our doing (Beginners: totally stop caring! don't desire/avoid!)

5. "What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things." read the rest, apply

6. "Do not be joyful about any superiority that is not your own." read the rest, apply

8. "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well."

10. "At each thing that happens to you, remember to turn to yourself and ask what capacity you have for dealing with it." read the rest, apply

15. "Remember, you must behave as you do at a banquet." read the rest

17. "Remember that you are an actor in a play...." read the rest

19. "You can be invincible if you do not enter any contest in which victory is not up to you." 

20. Read

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SPECIFIC SITUATIONS

everyday annoyances 

    4 baths

    12 spilled oil, slave boy

    20  abusive person 

death 

    3 fond of A jug, kissing A human being

    5 death is nothing dreadful

    11 we don't lose people, we give them back

    14 foolish to want things that are not up to you

    16 when other people are grieving

illness and disability 

    9 illness interferes just with the body

envy, competitiveness 

    24 not being invited to banquet

    25 not receiving honors