ETHICS AND HAPPINESS

M O R A L I T Y   A N D   C O N T E N T M E N T

Good behavior contributes to moral excellence. Moral excellence can contribute to a happier life. Thus, it can be said that being a moral person is essential for living a happy life. 

A person finds happiness by having the attitude to make the right choice at the right time. Ethics is as old as man as man thinks of it. It also focuses on the need for an accurate interpretation and understanding of the key concepts of ethical reflection and biological practice, as well as an accurate understanding of each individual's implications and their interactions. 

There are two references to happiness in psychology. First, happiness is an umbrella for several theories of well-being. Second, in the psychology of emotions, many theorists consider happiness to be a fundamental emotion. Happiness comes from having a tendency to make the right choice at the right time.

Ethics is not what we think or feel is right or wrong. Ethics is not relative to an individual’s desires and beliefs. 

Ethical relativism means each individual decides what is right and what is wrong in a particular circumstance. But, how can this be? If ethics was relative or situational, then one person might decide stealing is right to do when the theft is to right a perceive wrong while another might say stealing is always wrong because someone is taking something from someone else that doesn’t belong to him or her.

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do."

- Potter Stewart - 

Morality is the belief that some behavior is right and acceptable and that other behavior is wrong. A morality is a system of principles and values concerning people's behavior, which is generally accepted by a society or by a particular group of people.

Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are:

1. Meta Ethics
2. Normative Ethics
3. Applied Ethics

M e t a   E t h i c s

Meta-ethics is the branch of philosophical ethics that asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong.

Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics. For example, Aristotle implies that less precise knowledge is possible in ethics than in other spheres of inquiry, and he regards ethical knowledge as depending upon habit and acculturation in a way that makes it distinctive from other kinds of knowledge. 

N o r m a t i v e   E t h i c s

Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking. Normative ethics is distinct from meta ethics because normative ethics examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while meta ethics studies the meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts.

A p p l i e d   E t h i c s

Applied ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life situations. The discipline has many specialized fields, such as engineering ethics, bioethics, geo ethics, public service ethics and business ethics.

"Without ethics, man has no future. This is to say, mankind without them cannot be itself. Ethics determine choices and actions and suggest difficult priorities."

- John Berger -

Happiness has also been linked to better decision-making and improved creativity. So, rather than success being the key to happiness, research shows that happiness could in fact be the key to success. But it doesn't just help us function better: happiness also brings substantial benefits for society as a whole. It's the feeling of truly enjoying your life, and the desire to make the very best of it. Happiness is the "secret sauce" that can help us be and do our best. Here's what researchers found when they studied happy people: Happy people are more successful.

                                     

P h i l o s o p h y   O f   H a p p i n e s s

The philosophy of happiness is the philosophical concern with the existence, nature, and attainment of happiness. Some philosophers believe happiness can be understood as the moral goal of life or as an aspect of chance; indeed, in most European languages the term happiness is synonymous with luck. 

Western ethicists have made arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarian's, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior. 

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” 

- Buddha - 

E x a m i n i n g   H a p p i n e s s

Happiness can be examined in experiential and evaluative contexts. Experiential well-being, or "objective happiness", is happiness measured in the moment via questions such as "How good or bad is your experience now?". In contrast, evaluative well-being asks questions such as "How good was your vacation?" and measures one's subjective thoughts and feelings about happiness in the past. 

Experiential well-being is less prone to errors in reconstructive memory, but the majority of literature on happiness refers to evaluative well-being. The two measures of happiness can be related by heuristics such as the peak–end rule.

“Happiness is not just a mood. It’s a work ethic.” 

- Shawn Achor -

Theories on how to achieve happiness include "encountering unexpected positive events", "seeing a significant other", and "basking in the acceptance and praise of others". However others believe that happiness is not solely derived from external, momentary pleasures.

There is a code of ethics to our daily lives. We must understand that ethics guides us to make the world a better place through the choices we make. This shows that business ethics are just as important as business ethics. 

And it is clear that happiness is associated with better decision making and enhanced creativity. Clearly, happiness brings significant benefits to society as a whole. 

All of the above show that ethics and happiness are essential to everyone's life.

"Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness."

- Immanuel Kant -

I hope you were able to learn a lot of new information about learning, knowledge and understanding based on the above. Add these things to your life.

- T h a n k  Y o u -

Ashan Sajitha

ashann188@gmail.com