Showing papers on "Happiness published in 1973"

Utilitarianism: For and Against

Abstract: Two essays on utilitarianism, written from opposite points of view, by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams. In the first part of the book Professor Smart advocates a modern and sophisticated version of classical utilitarianism; he tries to formulate a consistent and persuasive elaboration of the doctrine that the rightness and wrongness of actions is determined solely by their consequences, and in particular their consequences for the sum total of human happiness. In Part II Bernard Williams offers a sustained and vigorous critique of utilitarian assumptions, arguments and ideals. He finds inadequate the theory of action implied by utilitarianism, and he argues that utilitarianism fails to engage at a serious level with the real problems of moral and political philosophy, and fails to make sense of notions such as integrity, or even human happiness itself. This book should be of interest to welfare economists, political scientists and decision-theorists.

The significance of territory

Abstract: The elusive nature of the concept of territory is broken down here, and the term's significance reassessed. In his analysis of Western concepts and history, Gottmann closely examines the concept of territory as a psychosomatic device, and comments on how its evolution is similar to basic human striving for security, opportunity, and happiness.

Ethics and Euthanasia

Abstract: It is harder morally to justify letting somebody die a slow and ugly death, dehumanized, than it is to justify helping him to escape from such misery. This is the case at least in any code of ethics which is humanistic or personalistic, i.e., in any code of ethics which has a value system that puts humanness and personal integrity above biological life and function. It makes no difference whether such an ethics system is grounded in a theistic or a naturalistic philosophy. We may believe that God wills human happiness or that man’s happiness is, as Protagoras thought, a self-validating standard of the good and the right. But what counts ethically is whether human needs come first—not whether the ultimate sanction is transcendental or secular.

The Problem of the Pleasure Maximum

Abstract: Since the English utilitarians have popularized the concept of a ‘maximum happiness of a human society’, it has never gone quite out of fashion in [social] science. Discussions on the maximum of pleasure have been fruitful especially in the fields of legal and moral philosophy. However, although this concept is often so used, its analysis has been given little attention. This seems partly due to the fact that the frontline of utilitarians was primarily directed against those who insisted on basing morality not on pleasure but on other principles.

Scaling Adjustment in Older People

Abstract: Adjustment (personal or social) has often been the object of research in social gerontology. Currently this interest is expressed in the study of life satisfaction and psychological well-being. The present study explicates adjustment in terms of three referents: life satisfaction, social adjustment, and personal adjustment. Each aspect of adjustment is meaningful only when elderly people's reports are compared to explicit normative bases. A discussion of advantages and disadvantages of several proposed scaling bases is illuminated by an empirical example. Interview responses indicating personal orientation and self-reports on social activity are combined in a personal adjustment score. An empirical test demonstrates that personal adjustment and happiness are unrelated to one another in sample data.

Color Them Motivated—Color's Psychological Effects on Students

Abstract: An architect interested in schools offers suggestions on how color affects student happiness and productivity.

In the Pursuit of Happiness?: Consumers of Erotica in San Francisco

Abstract: This study of consumers of erotica is based upon observational data from adult movie theaters, bookstores, and arcades, and upon indepth questionnaires from two samples of movie theater patrons. Data from over 4000 observations and 251 questionnaires were compared. The average consumer of erotica in San Francisco appears as a white, middle-aged, married male, neatly attired and shopping alone. Questionnaire data reveal that these patrons are also well-educated, highly paid, and employed in white-collar or above occupations. Most consumers lead an active and varied sex life and report that involvement in the erotic marketplace increases their social and sexual interaction.

Science: Limits and Prohibitions

Abstract: lay in his unwillingness to engage in easy talk of liberation, to raise the question of altruism and its widening drive for community in the most tentative way only, and to reserve his most probing dissection for those deepest of human pathologies which stand in the way of happiness. If there is ever to be, to use Philip Rieff's term, a "science of limits" for technology, Freud's sober, anti-visionary spirit provides a healthy starting point. The question is not so much what should be

Coeducational and single‐sex schooling and happiness of marriage

Abstract: The aim was to determine whether attendance at a coeducational or single‐sex school was associated significantly with happiness of marriage. The questionnaire method was used, and it was distributed via GP doctors for postal return. Subsidiary questions on social class, type of schooling (Grammar, Modern, etc.), religious denominations etc. were asked so as to make a preliminary investigation into other factors affecting happiness of marriage. The most important finding was that for those who spent five years or more in any type of secondary school, the coeducational group had significantly higher happiness scores, both for men and for women. Subjects believed strongly that coeducational schooling helped them in making a happy marriage, and in their everyday relationships with the opposite sex.

Ambition, love and politics

Abstract: This is a history of the French which tries to explain their idiosyncrasies, enthusiasms and prejudices. It goes beyond the recital of events to investigate their attitudes and behaviour over an unusually wide range of activities. Volume I scrutinizes the peculiar way of thinking and of talking adopted by the French, their powerful sense of national identity, their ambivalent feelings about foreigners. It shows what it meant to be a Breton or a Provencal, an Alsation or an Auvergnat. Volume II analyses French taste and the role of the artist. It enquires into the quality of life, the French view of happiness, friendship and comfort, humour, reactions to scientific progress, compromises with corruption and superstition. This major reinterpretation of France's achievement as a nation and of the individual experience of the French has taken its place as one of the great works of scholarship on modern France, and now re-appears in two paperback volumes.

Effects of Response Anonymity on Assessment of Own and School Value Systems and Satisfaction with School.

Abstract: Summary. Subjects in a boys' school and a girls' school completed modified forms of the Rokeach Value Survey, the Cornell Job Description Index, and a rating of happiness with school under name and anonymous conditions. Results indicated that response anonymity had little effect on the ranking of values although being independent was ranked higher by the boys in the name condition than in the anonymous condition. In the name condition boys gave more favourable responses to class-mates and the typical teacher and reported greater happiness with school, but girls in the name condition were less favourable to schoolwork and reported less happiness with school. Two quite distinct factors emerged from a factor-analysis, Factor I corresponding to students' own value systems and Factor II corresponding to the perceived value systems of their schools.

The relationship between attractiveness and credibility of television commercials as perceived by children

Abstract: The relationship between children's perception of the attractiveness and the credibility of television commercials was investigated. Specifically, this study was designed to determine if children like commercials they believe or believe commercials they like. Results indicated a moderate correlation between the perceived attractiveness and the credibility of the commercials. Children are capable of making selective value judgments about the cleverness, happiness, truth and reality of the message.

The Pursuit of Happiness in the City: Changing Opportunities and Options in America ( The Prothero Lecture )

Abstract: In 1790 a population numbering less than four millions was said, according to a later census calculation, to be almost 95 per cent rural in residence and, by implication, proportionately agricultural in occupation. By 1970 a population well in excess of 204 millions was almost 75 per cent urbanized and, in terms of labour force, less than 5 percent involved in agricultural pursuits.

Careers and Living

Abstract: Although there are hundreds of work patterns, the vast proportion of the population is concerned chiefly with meeting immediate needs for survival—food, clothing, shelter, and health care. At the other end of the spectrum are some for whom these basic requirements are readily available and who are free to choose the patterns of work and living that offer the greatest opportunity for happiness, glory, luxuries, and other amenities. People in this category have the chance to select what seems to be the most appealing career, to become well prepared for it, and to pursue it in an excellent manner. The extent of choice and the chance for success are influenced both by external factors—geographic, environmental, social, political, and cultural—as well as by internal factors—the mental and physical abilities of the individual. Therefore, work patterns and accomplishments differ markedly. In this chapter, I present only a few considerations concerning the careers of individuals who are blessed with relatively good capacities and opportunities to use them. For convenience, I mention chiefly men, but the same principles apply to careers for women.

Management of the Sick with Kindness, Compassion, Wisdom, and Efficiency

Abstract: The status of health is extremely important in decisions about who should live and die, as well as when and how we die The physician plays an important role in these decisions He is almost always present at birth and death and is consulted frequently about physical and emotional problems in life Particularly during these times of extensive family, community, national, and international turmoil, with the attendant insecurity, anxiety, frustration, and other changes that influence health and happiness, the physician is especially needed to supply guidance and to ease discomforts This chapter deals with some of the factors that contribute to optimal medical care and satisfaction for both patients and physicians

Joy in the Junior High and Middle School

Abstract: Do we take ourselves too seriously? Do people need to be taught a sense of humor? The author says that the "first essential of a happy life is a willingness to be amused."