Happiness and the Limits of Satisfaction Research Paper

Happiness and the Limits of Satisfaction - Research Paper Example I think increased choice does not make us happy, and therefore, individual choices should not be paternalistically restricted because happiness is not the highest aim of human conduct. There are those actions which add to pleasurable activities that cannot be taken as always right. Moral virtue does not imply end of life since life can continue with unhappiness, misery, and inactivity. Therefore, moral virtues are gained by behaving virtuously but they can be damaged by either defect or excess. People are free to determine what type of self they will have, what type of people they will be. For instance, people are free to be frivolous or serious, selfish or selfless (Ignacio 67). The most significant thing is that at least one should be in a position to maintain the goal of maximal self-determination as a desirable moral and psychological state. Hence, a fully self-determined person is one that is unconstrained by biology, social constructions or by habit. Such a person will operate without constraints, which in turn enables him or her to make choices in the world to maximize his or her preferences in maintaining tenets of rational choice (Mike 42). Happiness is the central core of living, which depends entirely on cultivation of virtues. Playing the mean is the way of cultivating virtues that includes moral virtues for the attainment of individual happiness. Playing the mean is the virtue between two extreme excesses and deficiency. For instance, exercising the act of justice in getting too little or getting too much. Therefore, human beings make choices depending on the circumstances that surround them by choosing on one option and neglecting the other. The task of ethics or tenets of rational choice were to come up with the highest and the best good that is found in human life. Thus, all human activities always aim at some recognized higher end that we always consider as good. Most activities that human beings incur in life are a