Like all other feelings, happiness is just a tool for understanding the information we get; it ought not to be an outcome -- a goal of our actions -- any more than trust, anticipation, or surprise.
Wikipedia has a very cool set of organized lists of emotions.
Happiness is merely a signal/byproduct, but could happiness be a special signal that the action was worthy of pursuit? Maybe the action is the outcome, and happiness -- broadly defined to mean positive affect: contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, joy, etc. -- is a signal that the action was good.
I am still opposed to hedonism as a strategy, but this is the best evidence I have heard in its favor so far: The same things associated with longevity are also associated with happiness.
People who live past 100 have lower health care costs over their lifetimes than people who die in their 50s or 60s.
Foods associated with longevity: beans, nuts, tofu, squash. But as Dan Buettner explains in his TED talk released today, How to live to be 100+, food and even exercise are of little importance compared to things like relationships and a sense of purpose.
The five things that constitute the essence of what it means to be a person: consciousness, rationality, love, morality, and meaning.
A mantra I like: Be less serious about knowing.
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All squibs
*Peter Singer and Christian Ethics*
1 hour ago
