Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Philosophy

Psychological egoism is the idea that there is no such thing as a selfless act, so all human activity is performed out of one's own self interest. Whether one is thinking of another human being or not, the root of the activity is to better themselves in ways that are pleasing physically or emotionally. I do believe that this is a realistic view of human beings, for no matter what seemingly unselfish endeavor one is performing, such as volunteering at a soup kitchen, they always are benefiting from the good feelings obtained, causing a selfish want for these such emotions. Bentham tried to build upon these ideas by creating the concept that if people realized that bettering society would, in fact, better them, a social reform would occur. The self-interested side of us would cause an egotistic hook and prove that our own individual welfare is a part of the society welfare.

The Principle of Utility is how one should act always to cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. From this idea, the finest society would be produced. I prefer Kant's categorical imperative to Bentham's principle of utility, for Kant is proposing that everyone act as they would wanted to be treated, the golden rule. By enforcing Bentham's principle of utility and having the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people, some must be hurt and not succeed in life.

In John Stuart Mill's philosophy, he explained that when determining pleasure, the quality of the pleasure is much more the quantity of pleasure. He also refuted Bentham's philosophy and explained how pleasure can not be measured by Hedonic Calculus, for there is no way in determining the different values and measuring different qualities for different pleasures. I believe this is a good improvement, for there is no way in factoring in different pleasures into an equation to determine if the activity is worthy to complete.

In Mill's utilitarianism, mere content is what animals and people who suffer from mental handicap experience, which is the ability to feel the lower pleasures and be ignorant to most happenings around them. He explains that these life forms can never be fully happy, for they do not actually understand the full effect, such as the truly happy times and emotionally disappointing moments. Mill's continues to say that happiness is a balance of tranquility and excitement, which people with full brain function can experience, for they are aware of what life has to offer and experience all that it encompasses on a daily basis. I do not agree with his distinction between the two emotional ways, for I believe that happiness is reachable in everyone's life and it is their own choosing to reach it or not. They are not bound by their brain's limitations, causing them to have only the ability to reach mere continent, but rather are their own judges in how much happiness they undergo in their lives.

The substructure of society is claiming that society has a materialistic base, containing three components: The means, natural resources used to make a product, the forces, technology and their factories, and the relationship, who owns and does what, make up the substructure, or base, of society. The superstructure is the ideas and institutions that exist in a society and has influence on the way people think and react. Schools, churches, and intramural sports encourage the superstructure of society by creating new ideas and institutions that enforce these ideas on mass amounts of the public. In this level of society, there is great accumulation of money in the wealthy classes and many jobs were lost in the working class because of the advances in technology. According to Marx, the superstructure drives the substructure, which I do believe, for as ideas were formed, more entities were produced, causing the drive in the base of society by the higher up superstructure of society.

In Marx's philosophy, he believed that capitalism caused society to acquire desires for things not already had but now wanted. It also caused a disproportional distribution when and individual not receiving as much for which they had worked, such as the working class having minimum wages remain constant though they were producing more and the cost of living was rising. The upper class owners would receive more, causing a surplus value, where prices would remain high at the cost of the working class. Because many were preconditioned in schools and social settings to the idea of capitalism, they saw that they would one day benefit from this gain in capital of the rich, for they would one day be part of this elite group. In reality, this lower class would remain in their status, for the formulas in obtaining this fortune was produced by those who already own a piece of production. Because of this constant struggle between the owners and the workers and the surplus value factor in society, a violent revolution could erupt when these lower class individuals want a piece of the possessions. I agree in his critiques of capitalism, for the main cause in acquiring things is the desires produced by advertisement, a major point in capitalism. He also speaks of the inconsistencies in the class gains, which is still very prominent in today's society.

The cash value of an idea is the practical payoff of the thought and saying that all in life has a monetary value to it. He picked this monetary use of a "cash value" to make a practical difference in evaluating one's life and ultimately helping improve it. I do not like the term "cash value", for it is putting a monetary value on life, which should not be measured by how much it is worth in terms of cash, but rather experiences. You can never put a monetary value on someone's life, and though he did this to make life more practical, it caused more confusion in assigning cash values for everything experienced.

The tough-minded are very pessimistic, yet have a very realistic view of the world. The tender-minded are very optimistic and see the world as a good place to live, yet are very ignorant people and not very worldly. The importance in comparing and contrasting these two types of people is to see and recognize both sides so one can experience the world in a more fuller way.

By James's opinion that "truth happens to an idea", he means that one decides if an idea is true or not by testing it out, and by the testing out against our past experiences, we can truly decided if the held idea is within our belief system and is, indeed, the truth. An example would be telling a Christian that God exists. When this person looks back at their past life experiences and remembers the many times when they have been helped by God, they would then decide that