Alain de Botton says that while previous philosophers wanted to know how to be good, Epicurus wanted to know how to be happy. “Even today, Epicurus remains an indispensable guide to life in advanced consumer capitalist societies because advertising – on which this system is based – functions on cleverly muddling people up about what they think they need to be happy. An extraordinary number of adverts focus on the three very things that Epicurus identified as false lures of happiness: romantic love, professional status and luxury.”
E3: What makes a good person good?
How to make hard choices.
Are you a drifter or do you choose your life? Philosopher Ruth Chang explains in this TED talk.
Marcus Aurelius to the rescue
How Stoicism saved burnt out ad-man Jeremy Scott when he was up to his eyeballs in debt. “The wisdom of the Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius in his masterpiece Meditations is as effective in dealing with the problems of today as it was 1,800 years ago.”
Jerkitude
Eric Schwitzgebel’s philosophical theory of jerks. “Are you surrounded by fools? Are you the only reasonable person around? Then maybe you’re the one with the jerkitude.”
Anorexia, brain activity, and hormones in the womb.
Anorexia visible with brain scans and womb hormones ‘lead to anorexia’. These two articles are of interest with respect to the mind-body problem and the question of how much is up to you. Are the brains of persons with eating disorders different because they have eating disorders, or do they have eating disorders because their brains are different? Or is this a confused question because there is only the brain? And is your brain programmed in the womb?
Punishment and belief in free will
The surprising link between homicide rates and belief in free will. Do we punish criminals because we believe they freely chose to commit the crimes and so deserve punishment? Or do we believe criminals acted freely because we desire to punish them? A reason to think we believe in free will because we desire to punish: “more crime-ridden places … also tend to believe more strongly in free will, presumably out of a desire to see criminals punished.”
Fight your fate
Does neuroscience disprove free will? Julian Baggini’s very nice review of four books about free will, responsibility, and neuroscience. “But perhaps the greatest mystery of free will is how it can be that on both major axes of the debate – whether it exists and whether it matters if it does – intelligent, informed opinion can be found at both ends. That might be a clue that this is a question without a definitive, factual answer.” And that could mean we are asking the wrong questions about free will. “… [E]ven if you want to insist that we don’t have free will, we still have recognisable, if subtly altered, forms of many of the cherished notions we assume depend on it, like love, responsibility and morality. … That’s what matters, and if you don’t want to call it free will, feel free to call it what you will.”
Do you have free will? You’d better believe it
Do you have free will? It’s the only choice. Nice review by John Tierney of ideas about free will.
How do philosophers’ and scientists’ theories about free will line up with what people actually think about it? “Intellectual concepts of free will can vary enormously, but there seems to be a fairly universal gut belief in the concept starting at a young age. … Whatever their cultural differences, people tend to reject the notion that they live in a deterministic world without free will.”
Does it make any practical difference whether you believe you have free will? We “pragmatically intuit that regardless of whether free will exists, our society depends on everyone’s believing it does. The benefits of this belief have been demonstrated in other research showing that when people doubt free will, they do worse at their jobs and are less honest.”
How does self-control work? FSU will find out
FSU professor of philosophy to study self-control with $4.5 million grant. This is the second Templeton grant FSU and Prof Mele have received to study free will.
What does it mean to be happy?
Happiness and its discontents. Is happiness being satisfied with your life? Is it pleasure and the absence of pain? According to Daniel Haybron, it’s an emotional state. Happiness fulfills our needs as persons. “What sorts of needs are we talking about? Among the most important sources of happiness are: a sense of security; a good outlook; autonomy or control over our lives; good relationships; and skilled and meaningful activity. If you are unhappy, there’s a good chance that it’s for want of something on this list.”
Socratically Speaking 