The following is the final segment of an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering."

Click here to read part 3. 

Since I think that this pursuit and use of spiritual gifts does justice to the philosophers that I have been examining in this paper, specifically Aquinas and Haybron, I will spend the remainder of the paper discussing spiritual gifting and some of its applications to happiness. This will in no way be an exhaustive treatment of spiritual gifts. Instead, it will be a cursory introduction. As I mentioned above, a belief in our own inability to reconcile ourselves to God and an acceptance of Jesus’s blood and his work on the cross in order to reconcile us to God is a prerequisite for an understanding of spiritual gifts. In this way, my view is completely in line with Aquinas’s view.

My school, North Georgia College and State University, is in the process of merging with another nearby school, Gainesville State College. While everyone else is boo-hooing the entire process, I decided to write an editorial for my college newspaper arguing the other way.

The following is an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering." I have split it up into several pieces and will be publishing it here on Cranial Collision over the next week or two.

Click here to read part 2. 

Before I address the issues with Haybron’s concept of self-fulfillment, I do want to acknowledge the fact that his move from Aristotle’s broad nature-fulfillment to a narrower self-fulfillment was a wise one. Haybron spends the entirety of chapter 8 in his book The Pursuit of Unhappiness developing this transition, but I think there are a few critical points which he makes that can illuminate the transition for us in a few short sentences. On page 157 he writes, “. . .what counts toward my well-being must not depend on what any other individual, or group or class of individuals—actual or hypothetical—is like.” Later on 168 he adds, “The perfectionist’s fundamental mistake lies in not recognizing that well-being is what we might call a success value: it concerns the success of an organism in achieving its goals.” By perfection, Haybron is of course referring to Aristotle’s nature-fulfillment: becoming the perfect example of the human race.

The following is an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering." I have split it up into several pieces and will be publishing it here on Cranial Collision over the next week or two.

Click here to read part 1.
 
Aquinas goes on to set up a distinction between “imperfect happiness” and “perfect happiness.” He says that imperfect happiness is the kind achievable in this world, and that perfect happiness is the kind that is only achievable by being with God and knowing him in the afterlife (81). “Aquinas argues” that “perfect happiness, or ultimate felicity, cannot consist in moral actions,” because “actions cannot be properly attributed to God, whereas happiness can,” among other reasons (80-81). Only “knowledge of that which is above the human intellect can perfect it directly, not through participation in something higher, and here then must lie man’s ultimate felicity” (81).

As a true freeskiing pioneer, Sarah Burke's competition and lobbying has affected the lives of countless skiers, spectators, and athletes.  Over the course of her lifetime, Sarah Burke became a 
six-time X Game gold medalist, a prominent professional ski athlete, a beloved wife, and a world-wide ambassador of professional and non-professional female athletes.  Sarah Burke was quite possibly the most influential and outstanding female skier that has ever lived.




After lobbying for and earning the rights to compete in events such as the X Games and other skiing events on an equal level with men, Sarah Burke and other women gained the opportunity to compete in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games that are scheduled to take place in Sochi, Russia.  Burke was a shoe-in for Canadian representation in the new super-pipe freeskiing events and was likely already starting to prepare for the coming Winter Games.  Not only was she an automatic qualifier, Sarah Burke was favored to win the entire competition and expected to receive gold-medal Olympic standing.  

The following is an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering." I have split it up into several pieces and will be publishing it here on Cranial Collision over the next week or two.

The Pursuit of Imperfect Happiness

Throughout the course of his book titled The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Daniel M. Haybron makes numerous distinctions and delineations between different aspects of happiness, and he attempts to define the relationships between these aspects in clear, distinct ways. On the whole, Haybron does an excellent job of explaining and supporting the arguments in his book, especially in relation to his emotional state theory of happiness and psychic affirmation.