Sample Essay on Unhappiness
As I sat here and pondered what to write for this paper, I was amazed to discover that I had never really contemplated my own moral philosophy. I had no reasons to give for why I act the way I do. As I began to think more deeply, I was inundated with numerous questions I felt that I had to ask myself in order to get to the answer. What makes me act the way I do? How do I determine the right course of action? Do I value my own opinions and feelings over those of others? Why do I feel that morality is mostly subjective? What role does religion play? Where did I learn my moral philosophy – is it even learned? I realized that I would need to be able to answer those questions before I could completely know my moral philosophy and myself. My moral philosophy is not simple and although it is not nearly as complex as Kant, it may be a challenge to assimilate. To understand my moral philosophy, you must first understand what makes me who I am.
I was born in the suburbs away from the violence and corruption that floods our television sets. The violence that I saw on television might as well have been an action movie and not the nightly news, because it didn’t pertain to life, as I knew it.
I was not a sheltered child and I was aware of the ways of the world, however, I chose to ignore that which I could not see on a daily basis. My parents were very young when I was born and with no child rearing experience, they taught me to be my own person. I was given the freedom to make my own decision from the time I was old enough to decide. My relationship with my parents has always been an extremely close one, and I learned to look at them as the ideal role models in all aspects of life. As a child, I adopted their faith, witnessing how they turned towards religion when times got rough. I attended Sunday school on a regular basis and even practiced bible studies with some of my church friends. I believed in God, but my faith was never something that I pushed on others, or even something that I wanted others to understand. My faith was something deep inside me. It was very personal and something that I could believe in to give me hope. Through religion, I learned to respect the opinions of others, and at a young age I began to weigh consequences when choosing a course of action. I began to consider the feelings of others as well as what I felt was right in my heart. I can remember being invited to spend the night at two different friends houses on the same night, and I couldn’t decide whom to choose. I came up with my own solution and invited them both to stay at my house. This has become an integral part of my moral philosophy – the best course of action is not the one that is right or wrong, but the one that falls in between and causes the least amount of unhappiness for everyone involved, including myself.
A teacher in elementary school once told me that there are at least three sides to every story – Party A, Party B, and the point of view of a casual observer. This lead me to believe that there were also at least three solutions to every problem, one that will satisfy Party A, one to satisfy Party B, and perhaps the most desired, one that will satisfy both parties. I believe that when you satisfy the most people, especially yourself or someone that you love, you get the best outcome.
In a way, my philosophy is like utilitarianism, only much more simplified. I do not weigh such factors as the duration, fruitfulness, or likelihood of the potential happiness; however, I do consider the number of people it will make happy and the intensity of the happiness. I also heavily consider the consequences of making someone unhappy. For example, say I received two invitations for dinner on the same night, one from Jane and one from Suzy. Being one person, I can obviously go out with only one of them (unless of course, they are compatible and we would all have a good time together) and will have to make one of them unhappy by declining their offer. If I decide not to go out with Jane, she will just reschedule for another night and not be too upset. If I decline Suzy’s offer, Suzy will be very angry with me for “choosing someone over her” and probably will not speak to me for a few days. In this case, I am not considering the happiness that I will cause by going with someone, but rather the unhappiness that I would cause and the intensity of that unhappiness. I would go with Suzy and there would be the least amount of dissatisfaction caused.
Unlike Utilitarianism, however, I do put my happiness and the happiness of those I love above the happiness of others. Sometimes I will compromise my own satisfaction, but only for someone that I care about. For example, I will go to see a boring movie with my boyfriend if I know it will please him, even if I will be miserable the whole time. In a relationship, sometimes you have to make those simple sacrifices because you know that you will in turn be treated the same way the next time you want to see a sappy love movie. To give up something for someone else often ensures that you will be rewarded for such in the future.
I also agree with the basic philosophy of psychological egoism. I do not consciously behave or center my actions on being personally rewarded, but as the last example shows, we often unconsciously act one way to have that action reciprocated to us in the future. Consider the friendships of women for a moment. Liz is consistently calling Jill for advice about her troubled relationship. Jill listens with a sympathetic ear, however, Jill has a stable relationship and Liz’s constant nagging and man bashing is starting to irritate Jill making her start to avoid and dread Liz’s phone calls. Because Liz cannot reciprocate the action and be a sounding board for Jill, Liz and Jill will not likely stay close friends for a long time. Another example is a charity worker who spends his whole life giving to others. People may see him as unselfish and caring, but the motivation for his actions may be in the fact that he feels he will lose a significant amount of happiness in his own life if he ceases to help them. He may want to stop helping them, resenting them for taking up so much of his time and effort, but knowing the amount of guilt he will feel if he stops helping them, he continues to go back every day. I think that people, myself included, often act in these ways because we are raised in a reward-based society. We are used to receiving praise for a job well done, a paycheck for work completed, a good grade on a paper that we spend a lot of time to write, and it is these type of actions that motivate us in our interpersonal relationships as well. We are driven by praise and success and choosing the course of action that satisfies this need is often the course deemed most desirable. It may not be the action that makes the most people happy, but it is the action that will make you feel good, as well as the action that generally causes the least amount of discontent for others.
Making the “right” decision is a concept that I don’t eagerly endorse. I believe it is more about making the “best” decision, because “right” implies that there are only two solutions, a right one and a wrong one. The best solution is often found somewhere in the middle. Sometimes the line between right and wrong is blurred and a simple miscalculation can transpose the two. When a situation only has consequences that will affect my life, I rely heavily on feelings and intuition to help me make the best decision. I look at the actions, the consequences, and subsequently the amount of pleasure or pain each possible outcome will produce. It is only after carefully weighing each of those factors that I am able to make a fully rational decision. It seems that the choices we are most often faced with are the types of choices that will only affect our lives and ourselves. It is along with this line of reasoning that I believe that morality is mostly subjective.
Morality is subjective because when faced with personal issues, I often depend on my own line of reasoning to help me come to a conclusion. I believe that other people do the same. You cannot get together a group of ten people and expect them all to come up with the same solution to a problem. Each individual will look inside himself or herself and weigh different issues and factors that are pertinent to their own life. In the same respect, no group of people will come to a consensus on controversial topics such as animal rights, euthanasia or abortion. That does not mean that there are no right or wrong solutions to the problems, it simply shows that there may be a best solution that is relative to the individual making the decision. The best solution for the person is the one that causes them the least amount of discontent and unhappiness, as well as the one that brings about the most joy.
This philosophy is simple to follow, but at times it can feel hypocritical. I make choices that will make others as well as myself feel pleasure and minimize pain. But as with Kant, you must also consider the intent behind the decision. If you are helping someone only in order to have that help reciprocated to you in the future, it may cause you feelings of guilt, which would be unfavorable. I try to only help others or give them happiness if it is genuine without wanting in return. I do not contemplate the intent as much as the consequence; however, I do believe that superficial intent will usually bring about superficial results.
The old saying goes something like this, “you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” And I agree. I also think that as long as you aren’t’ compromising your own well being, it doesn’t hurt to try. You cannot allow yourself to try too hard though, or then you end up with insincere results and feelings. I find that the less I try to accommodate everyone and the more I try to minimize the unhappiness a decision might cause, the better the results are in the end. People have told me that I am a good friend to have. I have heard that I am a good listener, and I have had many successful personal relationships with people. I truly believe that this stems largely from the fact that I try to be sincere in all aspects of my life, a quality that most people find admirable and respectable.
