What Brings Happiness? Moral or Immoral Life or Both? ( Reason Part II)

Interesting discussion about PLato’s moral arguments,   reasoning and its refutation by Haidt.


Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind” is an important and exciting book, from which I’ve learned a great deal about the limitations of human reasoning.  I was, however, disappointed at what struck me as its cavalier treatment of some highly relevant work by philosophers.  To illustrate my concerns, I begin by reflecting on Haidt’s effort to refute Plato’s central argument in “The Republic.”  This is where Plato tries to show why a just (morally good) life is superior to an unjust (immoral) life.

 

Socrates (as usual, Plato’s spokesman) responds to a view put forward by his young friend Glaucon. On this view, someone who devoted his life to nothing but satisfying his selfish desires would be entirely happy. At the most, Glaucon suggests, happiness would require a person’s keeping his selfishness secret and enjoying a reputation for virtue. Glaucon does not believe this claim, and he hopes to see Socrates refute it and show how morality, just by itself, brings happiness.

 

To read full article click:

 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/jonathan-haidts-plato-problem/

Weekly Classics: Death of a princess. from dawn.com, shared by Tahir Mahmood

A landmark in the docudrama genre, this film showed how international relations can seriously be affected by film making.

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Interesting Simple Math Quiz on Birthday

How many people would be enough to make the odds of  birthday match at least 50-50?


Guess the answer and then read the following paragraph;

You have to stay with the explanation for a while to finally get it.

 

By an amazing coincidence my sister, Cathy, and my Aunt Vere have the same birthday: April 4 Actually, it’s not so amazing. In any extended family with enough siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins, you’d expect at least one such birthday coincidence. Certainly, if there are 366 people in the family — more relatives than days of the year — they can’t all have different birthdays, so a match is guaranteed in a family this big. (Or if you’re worried about leap year, make it 367.) But suppose we don’t insist on absolute certainty. A classic puzzle called the “birthday problem” asks: How many people would be enough to make the odds of a match at least 50-50? The answer, just 23 people, comes as a shock to most of us the first time we hear it. Partly that’s because it’s so much less than 366. But it’s also because we tend to mistake the question for one about ourselvesMy birthday.

To read explanation click on article below:

 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/its-my-birthday-too-yeah/?emc=eta1

MISTRUST: A poem by Abid A. Kazi

Where has the trust among us gone

Once a word behind which all stood fast night to dawn

 

People used to live and die for the trust

Honor among all the odds was always first

 

Seems like trust too has become the victim of greed

Hearing and seeing moral values yet nothing heeds

 

Why have we become so insensitive towards morality?

What a shameless has become our personality

 

Trust began sliding when greed took over all of us

Whom to trust and whom not is merely a guess?

 

Values of life are traded to become rich and powerful

Crossing and running over all seems hardly pitiful

 

Alas we could comprehend the price we pay

All of us are in the same boat so nothing to say

 

If you believe in life hereafter than do the right thing

Empty came and empty we will leave does the bell ring

 

Abid A Kazi

10/02/2012