Final Blog

(1) Question: What condition must be present to conclude whether or not someone is truly happy? Which is more important? What is the best expression between the relationship of happiness and ethics?

(2) Conceptual Clarifications:

Conclude: To Bring to an end.

Expression: The act of expressing, conveying, or representing in words, art, music, or movement; a manifestation.

Relationship: The condition or fact of being related; connection or association.

(3) Answer:

First of all, we have to understand what we define happiness as. Happiness as defined by thefreedictionary.com, is; enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy. Based on this definition we can conclude that to define if a person is truly happy then some conditions that must be present are joy, satisfaction or expressions of pleasure. There are many things that can cause a person to express these feelings of joy or satisfaction. Material things are probably the most important things that bring people to show expressions of joy and pleasure. Material things can be defined as cars, clothes, electronics, jewelry, etc. Material things are not the only things that make people happy. Some people put their faith in religion and worship. Though there is no physical reward for their worship, the feeling they get from it is the joy that they express and that is the conditoins that show that they are truly happy. The relationship between ethics and happiness goes hand in hand in my opinion. The things listed previously that give people the feelings of joy, and satisfaction are things that can be obtained by ethical means. You can work, get money, and buy the materialistic things and by just worshiping you can be happy. Although those decisions to reach happiness are ethical there are unethical ways to obtain those things that give you the same feeling of happiness. Stealing would be an unethical way to get those items but the feeling of happiness from that route would not be the same as getting them the ethical way because the person at some point will feel remorse for what they did unless they were mentally unfit to. As we learned in chapter eleven there are exceptions to this situation but even that is still debatable. There are many ways that a person can feel happines and as long as you dont harm any one or your happiness doesnt negatively affect any other person then your happiness will be ethical.

(4) Example:

I good example would be a situation that i stated previously. By definition we learned that happiness is expressions such as joy and satisfaction. Also it has been determined that these expressions can be brought about by obtaining materialistic objects. If you chose to go to a store and steal an object that you wanted then it would be unethical. Chosing the unethical path will provide only temporary happiness because it is just in human nature to feel some remorse for stealing something that doesnt belong to yourself.

(5) Word Count: 511

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(7) References: Ruggiero. (2008). Thinking Critically About Ethical Issues. McGraw Hill.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/;