How do The Three theories define well-being?

An annotation for Roger Crisp’s “Well-Being”
How do The Three theories define well-being?

          The three theories of well-being, which mentioned in the published article, are successively the Hedonism, the Desire Theory, and the Objective List Theory. Since, if we are to get better understanding and discussion about well-beings, it is indispensable to be aware of these three major theories.

          Firstly, the author talked about the Hedonism. From Jeremy Bentham’s view, who is one of the most well-known of the more recent hedonist, he began his writing An Introduction to the Principle of Moral and Legislation thus, “Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do.” As under most considerations, human beings always acted in pursuit of what they believe will give them the greatest balance of pleasure over pain. Hedonism therefore supposed that the greatest balance of pleasure over pain is what well-being consists in. Likewise, what makes pleasure good and pain bad is simply the pleasantness of pleasure and the painfulness of pain in the view of hedonist. Yet, how are we to measure the value of the two experiences? That is pleasure and pain in this situation. Once again, according to Bentham, the duration and intensity seem as a kind of sensation that decides the value. However, problems rose against this kind of hedonism cognition. For example, “There does not appear to be a single common strand of pleasantness running through all the different experience people enjoy.” To explain this problem more practical is to ask one-self, how is it possible to compare the pleasure one get from eating a great meal with their families in a restaurant to reading Shakespeare alone in a quiet corner of the library? There is obvious different aspect of pleasure one can gain from these two incidents. Therefore, other scholar argued that Bentham seemed to be placing all pleasure on a par, and further ignore the distinctions between. Yet, in reality, it certainly does not work in that way.

            What about the Desire Theory, can it be more precise in defining well-being to human beings? Therefore, Roger Crisp, the author, brought up suppose which is known as the experience machine to explain how Desire Theory works in individual behavior. By planning a lifetime of experience before hand, one can later on plug in and live out their life in a virtual reality machine. In such case, one can go through whatever experience they think might possibly bring out the most enjoyment and pleasantness. Thus for, question arise. Is it the experience that people seeks for or the result of it people look forward to? If we discuss this doubt under the consideration of Desire Theory, we can eventually figure out that the central define to which is that people yearn more for the result rather than going through experiences. Therefore, due to the state of desire-satisfaction, Aristotle commented, “Desire is consequent on opinion, rather than opinion on desire.” To simplify this contention an example might be well enough. That is, for instinct, nowadays teenagers seemed to be pursuit eagerly of fame and wealth. However, did they ever consider the difficulties they had to encounter through the pursuance? To reach their own desire-satisfaction, they skipped over tough process and dreamed of the outcome impracticable. By doing so, they be satisfied by the desire of fame and wealth, for they think of fame and wealth as independently goods beforehand.

           The third theory, which is the Objective List Theory surmise that list item-constituting well-being consists neither merely in the pleasurable experience hedonism believed, not in desire-satisfaction as Desire Theory suggested. Other items, such as knowledge and friendships considered in the constitution of well-being, for that it is important that all kinds of good should be included even for those thing people will not enjoy or do not even want.
As we learned about the three theories, we may figure out that each of them considered well-being by their own perspective and explanation. Yet, there is no definably right or wrong in each theory. Since, similarly in reality, we face situations with two sides to it, too. Like while one let go of something, they are gaining other things at the same time even they may not be aware of. Even in the slangs, people used to say a blessing in disguise.        

References:

Crisp, Roger, "Well-Being", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/well-being/>.

Is happiness the highest aim or the intermediateaim of all good

An annotation for Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethic’S Book I, chapter 1 to 5

Is happiness the highest aim or the intermediate aim of all good?

 

     The defining of happiness and the aim of the ethics, which is the main steam of discussion starts in chapter 1 of Book I, as Aristotle wrote down, “Every art and inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”It is from his believing that everything should all aim at some good and later on he also pointed out that many aims are merely intermediate aims, and are desired only because they make the achievement of higher aims possible.

     In chapter 2, it started like this, “If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Aristotle talked about the chief good in our life, and owing to his opinion, he thinks that the one and highest aim we should seek for throughout our whole life should have the qualities same as politics, since “though it isworthwhile to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-state.”

     Yet, while in chapter 4, Aristotle questioned about“what is it that we say political science aims at and what is the highest of all good achievable by action?” and he shortly answered the question later, “for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is, they differ, and many do not give the same account as wise.”For the former, which is the general run of men, they consider happiness as some plain and obvious thing like pleasure, wealth or honor. However, they differ from one another – and often, even the same man identifies it with different things, such as identifying happiness with health when he is ill, and with wealth when he is poor.

     So in chapter 5, Aristotle then distinguished three distinct ways of life which different people associate with happiness. First of all, the slavish way of pleasurethat refers to how most people thinks of happiness; second, the refined and active way of politics that aims at honor, and the third, the way of contemplation life which ultimately aims at wisdom. Each of these three happy ways to involve in life represents a specific target that people aim at for their own sake.

     I think happiness should truly be the ultimate goal or end of action of every human, instead of the intermediate aim of all good. Since what will there left when some day we had to face the end of our life? Is it honor, wealth, or fame? Surly none of these will made any difference to us when facing the end of our life, yet whatabout happiness; the memories, our families and friends, the pleasure moments in life? And I like the idea of how Aristotle said about Priam, “many changes occur in life, and all manner of changes and the most prosperous may fail into great misfortunes in old age, as in told of Priamin the Trojan Cycle.” Happiness must be consider over a whole life time, and a truly happy person in life is he who will bear what misfortune brings most beautifully and in complete harmony in every instance, because even in this circumstances, something beautiful shine through.

Referance: Aristotle, "Nicomachean Ethics",350 B.C.E

Should the fast food produced system be accepted?

Should the fast food produced system be accepted?

          Nowadays, people seemed to equate eating food produced by big enterprises to be much healthier. Yet, there is a huge blind spot which most of us might lack of notice, that is how was the food produced? In the film Food, Inc. (2008) presented by Robert Kenner, it firstly talked about fast food, a term that can not be even familiar to our generation, and he gave it an interesting title, “Fast Food for All Food”. To, be honest, I was pretty much confused about what might the relationship of fast food and other food be? Since in my cognition, fast food had always been an unhealthy term that is consist of cheesy burgers and pizzas, fatty French fries and chickens, and also, don’t forget the large size soda drink. Though unhealthy and high-calorie, younger generations tend to go to fast food restaurants whether for small gatherings after school or for celebrations of all kinds of reason, and it had almost turned in to some sort of normality. However, even it had become normal, how was it related to other food? After watching the first of the six parts of Food, Inc. on YouTube, it seemed more obvious to me of why did Robert Kenner titled it“Fast Food for All Food”.

          McDonald’s, as the first multinational fast food restaurant in America and also the biggest leading chain restaurant over the world today, it was primarily opened in 1940. The McDonald brothers basically ran the restaurant following the new-raised form for restaurants which called the drive-in in the 1930’s. Fortunately, they had a very successful drive-in, however eight years later, they decided to cut cost and simplify the form of their restaurant. So they eventually created a revolutionary idea of how to run a restaurant by simply brining in the factory system to back up the restaurant kitchen. They trained each workers to just do one thing again and again and again, for that by having workers who only have to do one thing, they can pay them with much less wages, and moreover, it is easier to find someone else to replace them. “That mentality of uninformative conformity and cheapness applied widely and on a large scale has all kinds of unattended consequences.” (Eric Scholsser) Shortly after their success, McDonald’s became the biggest purchaser of beef in America, and due to their ideas of having their hamburgers to taste exactly the same no matter where it is made, they changed the way how beef is produced. Also, being the biggest purchase port of not only for beef but also pork, chicken, potato, tomato, lettuce and even apple, the chain restaurant had to find bid suppliers and so consequently, our food system fell into the hands of a few companies. 

          In the 1970, though, the top five beef producer only controlled about twenty-five percentage of the market, however, to 2008, the top four controlled more than eighty percentage of the market. So clearly it is not just about whether we eat in fast food restaurants or not, because even if we are not, we still might be eating the meats produced by this system. (And we should notice that even if the labels of the meat package tells you which farm they were produced in, in reality, it is really the big companies behind them that controlled the whole process) For example, in the film it talked about Tyson, which is one of the biggest meat processing plants in the world, changed the entire way of how chicken is raised. Normally, it took about three month to raise a chicken, but due to the chicken farmers, who signed contracts with Tyson, it only took them forty-nine days to raise the chicken. And in order to cater the costumers need, it is not only about having the chicken doubled, What’s more? Due to what people like to eat most, Tyson redesigned the chicken to have larger breast. And besides changing the way chicken is raised for the profit for the customers, they also changed to the right of the chicken farmers for the company’s’ profit. Chicken farmer now are only responsible for raising the chicken, but a big company like Tyson owns the chicken from the day they dropped off till the day they are slaughtered. On account of Tyson’s success in meat producing industry, more and more meat processing plants around the world are following the same pattern.

          Maybe some of the people would think of this as a profit chasing game for the meat industry, yet Richard Labb, who worked in the National Chicken Council, explained that in their way, they are rather producing chicken than food, since it is all highly merchandized so all the birds coming off those contract farms have to be almost exactly the same size. He also pointed out that the achievement of intensive production is to take advantage of small unit of land and create considerable amount of food for the market so the prize can be affordable for everyone. At the end of the interview, he asked “Can somebody explain to me what’s wrong with that?” However, little does the chicken farmer dared to go against their contract company and tell the truth of what illegal doings the company had really done. According to Carole Morison, one of the contract chicken farmers with Purdue, she said that in seven weeks a chicken would grow into a five pound chicken, yet their bones and their internal organs can’t keep up with the rapid growth. So a lot of these chickens in the farms tends to flopped down after a few steps of walk for they can hardly hold on with all the weight they are carrying. That is truly a damage to the health of the chicken, not to mention that he antibiotics add in the feed, and that is one problem. Other conflicts that deals with human rights in this incident is first of all why can companies like Tyson and Purdue kept the farmers under their thumbs? From what Carole later on points out in the film, we can infer that it’s mainly because of the debts the chicken farmers had. Usually, to build one henhouse can be anywhere from two hundred eighty thousand dollars to thirty thousand dollars, and once you made your initial investment, the companies will constantly come back with newly upgraded equipment to improve the function of the henhouse, and yet usually the chicken farmers had no choice or else they will be threatened of contract. So the debt will just keep rolling on under such circumstances. “It’s like being the slave to the company.” (Carole Morison). The workers which the company hired to deliver chicken to processing plants is as well an important segment to the market, for the workers are mostly illegal workers or Latinos that have no guarantee and rights, so apparently they would not dare to risk to expose the truth and bad doings of the companies to the crowd.

          Therefore, I think the fast food produce system truly has a lot issue that should be carefully discussed. However, the discussion is never as simple as simple as whether we are putting our health under risk anymore. When talking about the produce system, and by sequently analyze how each instinct mentioned above might affect one and another in different aspect we can have a clear understanding of it is not just about what we are eating but what we were allowed to know and what we are allowed to say which really matters. That is when fast food chain restaurant asked for great amounts of meats, the most processing plant will seek for ways, no matter how unhealthy to human beings or how illegal it might be, to provide the right amount for restaurant. Not to mention it is of course under the premise of pursuing their own profits. So under such premise, it is not only the costumers’ rights being at risk but also the workers behind those restaurants or meat processing plant. Consequently, I don’t believe the fast food produce system should be accepted.