Thesis advisor: Susan Meld Shell / This essay provides an overview of the nature of happiness in Kant’s system of philosophy. It is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the conflict between virtue and happiness, and begins by examining the nature of happiness itself. In the first section, we will learn that happiness, for Kant, is wholly empirically. Happiness is but an idea of the imagination, which is incited by experience. As a result, principles of happiness, or laws to which the end is the acquisition of happiness, can never be unconditional. One can never say that what must be done for the acquisition of happiness ought to be done under any condition, for to the extent that the idea of happiness is subject to constant change, the means to its acquisition are also subject to change. Section two examines happiness in the constitution of the highest good. As we will learn, happiness, for Kant, despite not being the unconditional good, not only belongs to, but also completes the highest good that human beings can enjoy. For while morality is the unconditional good that all human beings ought to strive for, morality alone is insufficient. There is nothing desirable in seeing a good man suffer. To complete the attainment of the highest good, morality must be conjoined with the enjoyment of happiness. In the last section, this essay examines the opponents of Kant’s moral theory, which are the Stoics and the Epicureans. Here, we will discuss what Kant believes to be the arguments of both sides, and how he proceeds to refute them. For Kant, the Stoics and the Epicureans made a theoretical mistake when they took virtue and happiness to be identical. Both schools believe that the highest good can be attained by the pursuit of either virtue or happiness alone, but disagrees as to which of the two must be attained first. For the Stoics, virtue contains happiness, for the Epicureans, the rational understanding of the pursuit of happiness is virtue. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_108771 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Wang, Jeff |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. |
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