Customer center

We are a boutique essay service, not a mass production custom writing factory. Let us create a perfect paper for you today!

Example research essay topic: Pleasure And Pain Pursuit Of Happiness - 1,728 words

NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote

... felt, "The painful truth is that the work of an encyclopaedists is never finished, because facts change and knowledge expands, and because there is always room for improvement. " For fifty years, he did many writings on ethics. He examined the errors in moral philosophy by four giants of philosophy: David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and John Dewey. Adler reiterated his conviction that only the ethics of Aristotle provide reliable and pragmatic explanation to basic moral problems. In some of his works he concentrates on human motivations on what drives us to lead moral or immoral lives. Adler had written, "It should not be surprising that an ethics of desire, which is so uniquely Aristotelian, should also be an ethics in which the notion enough plays a central role.

In its concern with wrong desires, it might even be called an ethics of enough. " Mortimer analyzed wrong and right desires, along with the elucidation of what makes them right or wrong. In detail, he deals with human needs and wants for pleasure, money, wealth, fame, power, honor, liberty, love, friendship, knowledge, wisdom, and pleasure. Adler felt the only solution to the central problem of ethics is how to seek what is really good for one's self while at the same time not harming others. What is the basis from which all desires stem? The basis from which all wrong desires spring is three-pronged: either (1) the wrong desire is for something that is only a partial good, yet is desired as if it were the only good; or (2) something is a limitless good for those who desire it as a definite end; or (3) though it may originally have the appearance of good is an indisputable good that is harmful rather than harmless. The prime examples of this classification are pleasure, money, and fame and power.

In the physiological aspect, along with the organs of sight, hearing, and smell are the four organs relating to the skin that are the sensitive instruments for awareness of heat, cold, pressure, and pain. These are found in the epidermis although some are found in the internal organs. There are no sensitive nerve endings for pleasure. In neurological terms there is no sense of pleasure even though most people speak and think of pleasure and pain as converses. In certain instances the word pleasure describes experience of satisfaction when desire is fulfilled or avenged. "The moral problems concerning pleasure must always focus on pleasure-or for that matter pain-solely as objects of desire and never on pleasure and pain as the experienced satisfaction or frustration of desire. " The Epicureans or hedonists in moral philosophy asserted that pleasure is the only good, but they failed to distinguish between pleasure as an object of desire and pleasure as satisfaction of desire.

Both Plato and Aristotle refuted by asking whether it is better and wiser to desire both pleasure and wisdom. Adler stated pleasure was an object of desire. Most of the wrong desires fall in the sphere of eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, and sexual activities. About such pleasures, the moral virtue called temperance is concerned.

Incessant gluttony, drunkenness, passivity, cruelty in the treatment of other human beings, and lechery or unrestrained sexual desires are the immoral characters that lead to overindulgence in the desire for stimulating pleasure. Money is often wrongly recognized as wealth. Money as an object of desire is not something that is naturally indispensable, such as food and drink, clothing and shelter. Money can be classified as a conspicuous good that is something deemed good because it is in fact desired. That desire may be sanctioned even if it is not a right desire.

Money is wrongly desired when it is desired as an end in itself and not purely as a mean. Money may be desired as the economic correlative of real worth that means desired for buying power i. e. to pay rent, insurance premiums, and professors's allies, and other forms of debt. Money is used to buy things that are necessary for substance, or that provides life's comforts and conveniences, and superfluities. The reason for a limitation on the amount of wealth that can be rightly desired is that desire for wealth without limit interposed with, hindered, or baffled the acquirement of other goods that are not needed but much valuable for a good life than wealth is.

When the desire for wealth is irrational it tends to defeat the pursuit of happiness. The misuse of money is the root of wrong desire regarding wealth. It would be easy to draw the line between greedy individuals and those who virtuously sought a limited amount of wealth as a fundamental condition of living a good life. Money can be spent in the wrong pursuit of sensual pleasure to excess. Fame and power are the last of the wrong desires. Fame and power are only apparent goods and ought not to be desired for their sake as a means of happiness.

The great villain can be as famous as the great hero; there can be famous scoundrels as well as famous saints. Fame and power are joined together as objects of wrong desire. Persons seeking personal power is the fame that are wrongly desired as expedient for success in striving for an objective that is itself wrongly desired as an end. There are many substitutes and restrictive wrong desires each aiming at a different end. Although right desires are many, there is an association of them because they all aim at the same end, total bonum or complete good.

All right desires aim at real goods or apparent goods that are harmless. Persons motivated by right desires are all the same moral character. The relation of moral virtue to corruption is the same. When moral virtue is defined as the habit of right desire, its complexity must not be overlooked.

Moral virtue has many aspects and involves many right desires. The basic distinction to be made is between (a) means that are effective, functioning as causal factors in the pursuit of happiness and (b) means that are constitutive, functioning as component partial goods in the whole good that is the total bonum. Moral virtue is itself one of the two effectual means of happiness. There are a number of bodily needs for health and pleasure. If wealth is named as a real good to be sought, it covers all the commodities needed to sustain life and health. Human beings need to associate with one another for they are social beings by nature.

Happiness should not be included in inventory of real goods for it is not one good among others or even the highest of the real goods, the sum bonum. Sum bonum identifies with total bonum it is not a good to be sought as a mean or even as an end, but the good to be sought is the ultimate end sought for its own sake and sought as a complete good that leaves nothing more to be desired. We must distinguish between individual and common goods. The real goods needed and common goods are common in the sense the same objects of right desire for all human beings. Natural needs are not only the basis for distinguishing between real and apparent goods. Justice is a part of each individual.

A man cannot be honestly composed, courageous, and just. Freedom or liberty is a real good, and it should be a required component of total bonum. There are criterion of freedom one is the way which individuals possessed the freedom either by nature, by acquisition, or by circumstance. The second criterion is the characterization of them when they are possessed. The freedom of self-determination is freedom from causal determination by prior conditions in one's make up and in one's life, and the acquired freedom of self-perfection is freedom from the passions that often move one to act contrary to the decree of virtue. Love should be reserved for all forms of kind desire with the impulse to give rather than to get.

Ancient English has one word for love. Greek and Latin have three words. The three Greek words are eros, philia, and agape. The three words Latin are amor, amici tia, and caritas.

Along with the word love are such words as friendship and charity and phrases as erotic love and sexual love. When no sexual desire and impulse is involved in a relation to another person that we say we love, we have the form of friendship. Erotic or sexual love can be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful. Adler's summation of right desires is the following: "The good life, enriched by the sun bonum among all the other real goods that constitute the total bonum, is one that involves a decent economic livelihood, the pleasures of play, freedom and political liberty and the joys of friendship; in addition, it is one that is greatly enriched by spending the greater part of one's free time in pursuit of leisure, all of which contribute to the growth of the mind and to the attainment of intellectual excellence. This is the highest grade of human life. " Adler's philosophical background began when he decided to drop out of school and pursue his dream.

Every action and pursuit is thought to aim at some good, and it is for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be at which all things aim. The good is the desirable. Adler's determination and never ending questions about life carried him to the peak of knowledge. Question declares that the truth of judgments about what is good or evil, desirable or undesirable assists in the conformity of such judgments to right desire. Ethics is a branch of philosophy. "To ask whether ethics should become transcultural is to ask whether judgments made in ethics about what is really good for human beings and about the ultimate goal they should seek and the means they should choose to attain it have objective and universal truth. " Bibliography: BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Adler, Mortimer J.

Biology, Psychology, and Medicine. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. , 1963. 2. Adler, Mortimer J. Desires Right and Wrong. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. , Inc. , 1991. 3.

Adler, Mortimer J. Philosopher at Large. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. , Inc. , 1977.


Free research essays on topics related to: pursuit of happiness, human beings, moral virtue, pleasure and pain, moral philosophy

Research essay sample on Pleasure And Pain Pursuit Of Happiness

Writing service prices per page

  • $18.85 - in 14 days
  • $19.95 - in 3 days
  • $23.95 - within 48 hours
  • $26.95 - within 24 hours
  • $29.95 - within 12 hours
  • $34.95 - within 6 hours
  • $39.95 - within 3 hours
  • Calculate total price

Our guarantee

  • 100% money back guarantee
  • plagiarism-free authentic works
  • completely confidential service
  • timely revisions until completely satisfied
  • 24/7 customer support
  • payments protected by PayPal

Secure payment

With EssayChief you get

  • Strict plagiarism detection regulations
  • 300+ words per page
  • Times New Roman font 12 pts, double-spaced
  • FREE abstract, outline, bibliography
  • Money back guarantee for missed deadline
  • Round-the-clock customer support
  • Complete anonymity of all our clients
  • Custom essays
  • Writing service

EssayChief can handle your

  • essays, term papers
  • book and movie reports
  • Power Point presentations
  • annotated bibliographies
  • theses, dissertations
  • exam preparations
  • editing and proofreading of your texts
  • academic ghostwriting of any kind

Free essay samples

Browse essays by topic:

Stay with EssayChief! We offer 10% discount to all our return customers. Once you place your order you will receive an email with the password. You can use this password for unlimited period and you can share it with your friends!

Academic ghostwriting

About us

© 2002-2024 EssayChief.com