[Aiwendil]

Mister Underhill wrote:

Though they come at the question from different angles, these men all seem to fundamentally agree with Plato. My impression of Mill is that he draws a direct correlation between morality and happiness.

Mill does connect morality with happiness, but in a fundamentally different way from Plato. The view of Plato and Aristotle was that virtue is, as a matter of definition, the sort of thing that leads its possessor to happiness. Someone who is not virtuous is not fulfilling his or her highest human function, and as a result becomes unhappy and unfulfilled. In order to support this view, Aristotle had to develop his "metaphysical biology", which has at its heart the claim that humans have a natural characteristic function.

Mill's theory is completely different. In Mill's utilitarianism, the central principle of morality is: the moral thing to do is whatever produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Note first of all that this is a claim about what is moral, not why it is moral. And it certainly makes no claims about whether or not a moral person will end up being happy. One could easily be very moral (that is, go around making lots of people happy) and yet be personally unhappy. Or, one could be immoral (go around making people unhappy) and yet be personally happy.

Hume also seems to draw a correlation between virtue and good feelings, and vice and bad feelings.

You may be right about Hume, now that I think about it. My impression, though, was that Hume, in trying to empirically study what was considered moral and what immoral, concluded that morality is generally constructed to make people feel good. But I don't think he made any foundational claims of the sort Plato did.

Even Kant’s very rational morality seems to argue for a moral life as the means by which higher meaning and purpose in life are realized, or perhaps I should say that we accept moral imperatives on faith that there is a higher meaning and purpose in life.

I don't think Kant wanted us to accept moral imperatives on faith. I got the impression that Kant thought he was deriving a purely logical system of morality - that is, one that could be deduced and proven. He failed, for a number of reasons, but this was his intent. And the categorical imperative, Kant's guiding moral principle, makes no reference at all to whether the person acting feels good or bad (and Kant is explicit about this).

The fearfulness of the Machiavellian prince and his feeling that he is justified in using any means to maintain his position is not compatible with true happiness as I understand it. I would reiterate this argument with regards to other sorts of hypothetical situations put forward. Is the hypothetical sociopath who feels no moral qualms truly happy, fulfilled, and at peace? To what degree a person is able to justify or harden their heart against immoral actions isn’t really the question – the question is, what is the result of this sort of lifestyle? Is it better and more fulfilling than a lifestyle spent in the pursuit of virtue? I think not.

Well (and I suppose it would have been good to have asked this up front), what exactly do you mean by "happy" and "fulfilled"? If what you mean is simply what these words suggest at face value - that is, a simple state of mind - then you are on rather shaky ground in making claims about what other people secretly feel. If you mean something more complicated, something like living a certain type of life, or having certain types of relationships, or something along these lines, then you are constructing a tautology for yourself. For naturally, you can then simply define "happiness" in such a way as to match up exactly with your conception of "virtue".

I suppose I’m sort of shocked to find so many people willing to argue that a life of amorality can be just as fulfilling and happy as a life of virtue; perhaps it’s simply that words like “morality” and “virtue” have acquired certain ominous and hypocritical connotations and associations in our modern world.

I don't think of "morality" and "virtue" as ominous or with hypocritical connotations. I admit, I am highly dubious about the possibility for a rational justification of morality (and this rather depresses me). But supposing that there is such a thing as morality, then it seems to me that it ought not to be so limited as to depend on human emotions, or on human neurology. It seems to me (and it seems natural to me) that the right thing to do is the right thing to do, regardless of how the doer feels about it and regardless of how it will make the doer feel.

The Saucepan Man wrote:

But Aiwendil made an extremely good point when she said that:

That would be "he". But I'm glad you thought it was a good point. And I must say I agree with nearly all of your post.

We are moving into rather different territory with Lord of Angmar's, the phantom's, and Arwen1858's posts. An implicit question here is whether morality actually exists (that is, whether there is really some rational justification for ideas of right and wrong) or whether it is merely a human invention. I hold out some hope for the former, but the more I think about things the more I am inclined toward the latter. And in this case, it makes no sense to talk about something actually being right or wrong; we can only talk about things being called right and wrong by humans.