What questions does morality address?

I’ve been mulling these thoughts over since I ran across them a couple of days ago.

Questions of morality are questions about happiness and suffering. This is why you and I do not have moral obligations toward rocks. To the degree that our actions can affect the experience of other creatures positively or negatively, questions of morality apply. [page 8]

We might also wonder, in passing, which is more moral: helping people purely out of concern for their suffering, or helping them because you think the creator of the universe will reward you for it? [page 34]

Back to contemplation.

(Both quotes from Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation.)

Is hope overrated?

“Hope is an important part of happiness,” said Peter A. Ubel, M.D., director of the U-M[ichigan] Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine and one of the authors of the happily hopeless study, “but there’s a dark side of hope. Sometimes, if hope makes people put off getting on with their life, it can get in the way of happiness.”

The researchers told divided people with the same medical condition into two groups. The first they told that their condition was permanent. The second was told that the condition was reversible. On follow up, the folks in the “permanent” group were happier overall than those who were expecting a change.

It seems like accepting things the way they are may make you happier than waiting for the day that things are better. Lemons and lemonade, to sink to the level of cliches.

Read the summary from the University of Michigan.

You mean I can’t be happy all the time?

The key to a happy relationship could be accepting that some miserable times are unavoidable, experts say.

Therapists from California State University, Northridge and Virginia Tech say accepting these problems is better than striving for perfection.

And they blame cultural fairytales and modern love stories for perpetuating the myth that enjoying a perfect relationship is possible.

I love that folks can work for tenure by publishing common sense. Of course, sometimes common sense is wrong…. Or uncommon…. And I’ve published a bit of common sense as well on my ongoing path toward tenure…. *sigh*

Read the summary article from the BBC.