6. In Pursuit of Happiness and Virtue.

Dearly Beloved,

Aristotle (384 -322 BC) took the view that happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. He associated happiness with being virtuous. Aristotle's ideas stimulated the thought and writings on happiness of two very different characters. One was the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) and the other was the author Ayn Rand (1902-1985).

Ayn Rand wrote: “My philosophy, in essence is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity and reason as his absolute.” This appears to echo Socrates except for the inversion that happiness is the moral purpose, it is not that pursuing a virtuous life based on morality leads to happiness. She also wrote a book entitled The Virtue of Selfishness (1964).

A friend challenged me to read the two most important of her books, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead a total of 1895 pages. I have to admit that I could not face reading these sub-par adventure stories, so I cheated, and after a brief perusal went straight to the last sentence of the last page of the former and read about the hero of the story:

“He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar.”

Ayn Rand escaped from St Petersburg and the turmoil of Russian politics in 1926 and the books reflect her pleasure at being released from a turbulent Communist state which had confiscated her family's business in the interest of the proletariat. She celebrates the freedom of her adopted country, the USA, full of go-getting people with a “can-do” mentality.

Nevertheless Ayn Rand promotes selfishness and egocentric views and the dominance of a meritocratic elite who have no obligations to other people. The basis of her ethics is “survival of the organism”, but she does not see morality as arising from a social contract. Nor does she regard such a contract as the basis of the life of humans as social beings.

These ideas are important today because they are celebrated by leading right-wing politicians and are associated with the idea of the small state, i.e. one that does not acknowledge an obligation to care for the disadvantaged citizen. Atlas Shrugged is said to be the only book that Donald Trump has professed to like. The symbol of the Ayn Rand movement is the sign for the dollar $.

Thomas Aquinas on the other hand argues in his Summa Theologiae that man is wealth's goal rather than the other way around.(II, 1.8). For Aquinas happiness is seeing God, indeed, he says, happiness is another name for God. God's happiness is natural to him and is fulfilled from within whilst human happiness is fulfilled from without and comes from cleaving to God. To be happy we need to contemplate God and gaze at truth. Aquinas recapitulates Aristotle's concern with virtue as virtuous acts earn happiness as a reward but it is not God's power that needs supplementing, rather it is that pursuing virtue is merely the fitting way of doing things.

Peace and Happiness,

Paul.

Completed 9 June 2022.

Photo: Paul Munton.

Long Horned Beetles Cavort Amongst the Flowers of a Wayfaring Tree.





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