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Single Idea 7983

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / c. Value of happiness ]

Full Idea

The ideal opposition between good and evil has been reduced to the idealogical oppositions between happiness and misfortune. The reduction of good to happiness is as baneful as that of evil to misfortune.

Gist of Idea

Good versus evil has been banefully reduced to happiness versus misfortune

Source

Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.139)

Book Ref

Baudrillard,Jean: 'The Intelligence of Evil or The Lucidity Pact' [Berg 2005], p.139

A Reaction

A nice example is the use in the media of the word 'tragic' for every misfortune. See the debate over the translation of the Greek 'eudaimonia'. 'Happiness' seems the wrong translation, if it leads to comments like Baudrillard's.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [how important is happiness?]:

2681 Aristotle is unsure about eudaimonia because he is unsure what people are [Nagel on Aristotle]
5132 Goods like pleasure are chosen partly for happiness, but happiness is chosen just for itself [Aristotle]
30 Happiness is perfect and self-sufficient, the end of all action [Aristotle]
14522 What happens to me if I obtain all my desires, and what if I fail? [Epicurus]
22985 Everyone wants happiness [Augustine]
6210 Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes]
1386 A concern for happiness is the inevitable result of consciousness [Locke]
1454 Morality is not about making ourselves happy, but about being worthy of happiness [Kant]
21061 Duty does not aim at an end, but gives rise to universal happiness as aim of the will [Kant]
2891 Only the English actually strive after happiness [Nietzsche]
4500 It is a sign of degeneration when eudaimonistic values begin to prevail [Nietzsche]
4558 We have no more right to 'happiness' than worms [Nietzsche]
18307 I want my work, not happiness! [Nietzsche]
7983 Good versus evil has been banefully reduced to happiness versus misfortune [Baudrillard]