Prompt: In your opinion, how can acting “right” (i.e. justly) help or harm the achievement of happiness? In your answer you need to first establish, in true Socratic fashion, what you mean by "right" (justice) and what you mean by happiness. What do you think Socrates would say about what you wrote and/or what do you think Thrasymachus would say?
Acting "right" or justly means going with the flow and by this I mean that you fit in with the crowd because usually when people do the same things, they get along better. However, sometimes on some conditions, like when you hang out with people like a bank robber and rob a bank, this type of crowd might not be the best kind of crowd to call "just." I try to stay in the middle of things, but stay out of trouble. So I am closer to the "just" side of things.
There are different views of happiness and they all depend on the people you are talking about. Happiness in my definition is basically one of the most complicated parts of life. Happiness affects you and the ones around you strongly just like any other very complicated emotion does. The emotion of happiness is usually something that makes you feel good, pleased with yourself, and makes you feel loved. Happiness makes you feel open-minded. Happiness is a very good feeling. But some kinds of happiness, depending on other types of people, are sometimes considered "bad" views of happiness. Usually if people say that bad things are good and that makes them happy, then most people would say they are crazy.
Sometimes acting right can help happiness because when you do what you are told you are helping someone and you and the other person feel good about what you do. For example, if you have to get your homework done, if you just refuse to do it, you won't get anywhere, and you and the teacher will both be mad and you'll get a bad grade. So it's better to just do the work you are given and then in the end you'll be a lot happier because you'll be free. Freedom is the largest part of happiness because the feeling of being free is like having nothing holding you down. You can just do what you want to do.
Socrates would agree with me but he would probably say that I was right about needing to do the work I was given because that is my responsibility. Being responsible leads to happiness. He would also ask me if being right was the only way to happiness.
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1 comment:
"Happiness makes you feel open-minded."
Really? But don't some people find happiness in being closed-minded and unwilling to change? (As we so witnessed in the Socratic Seminar today ;))
Other than that, I think this was really well-written. You had a lot of interesting thoughts there.
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