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Question 4, Article 4 - Whether rectitude of the will is necessary for happiness?

from Question 4 - What Complete Happiness Requires

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2020

J. Budziszewski
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
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Summary

The idea that one must be just to be happy is not only Christian; in Western philosophy, it goes all the way back to the arguments of Socrates in the dialogue Gorgias. The other characters in the dialogue think happiness results from getting one’s way. If that were true, then happiness would not require rectitude of will. However, Socrates argues that persons with warped wills cannot be happy; that doing injustice is even more to be dreaded than suffering it; and that the best thing that can happen to an unjust person is for his will to be straightened out by punishment. Even though Socrates out-argues his opponents so thoroughly that they run out of things to say in their defense, they never accept his view – showing, perhaps, that the problem lies not just in their intellects, but in their own disordered wills.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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