{"id":10528,"date":"2011-07-19T16:02:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T16:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/07\/19\/is-there-an-obligation-to-be-happy\/"},"modified":"2011-07-19T16:02:13","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T16:02:13","slug":"is-there-an-obligation-to-be-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/07\/19\/is-there-an-obligation-to-be-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There an Obligation to be Happy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I once heard Dennis Prager say that there is no correlation between a happy childhood and a happy adulthood. That is certainly confirmed  by my experience. An unhappy childhood gave way to a happy adulthood. With others, it is the other way around.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prager also likes to say that we have a moral obligation to be happy. A more cautious way to put the point would be that we have a moral obligation to do what we can to make ourselves happy. Strictly <\/span>speaking, there can be no moral obligation to be happy. As we learned at Uncle Manny's knee, 'ought' implies 'can,' and for some the weight of circumstances makes it impossible to be happy. One cannot be morally obligated to do what one cannot do.  There is an element of luck involved in happiness, and there is no moral obligation to be lucky. A good part of my happiness derives from a good marriage to an angelic woman. But had she not flown into my air space — a matter of  luck — I would not have been able to use my skill to bring her down with my arrow of love.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if you are happy, don't imagine it was all your own doing.  Luck was involved.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But Prager is surely on the right track. Although we cannot have a moral obligation to be happy, we should strive to be happy, not just for ourselves, but for others.  Happy people tend not to cause trouble.  Do happy people tend to be party to 'road rage' altercations?  Do happy people engage in vandalism or write malware?  Do happy people blow themselves up?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I once heard Dennis Prager say that there is no correlation between a happy childhood and a happy adulthood. That is certainly confirmed  by my experience. An unhappy childhood gave way to a happy adulthood. With others, it is the other way around. Prager also likes to say that we have a moral obligation to … Continue reading “Is There an Obligation to be Happy?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}