happiness vs pleasure
Pleasure, happiness and the Good Life for Siddhartha
Pleasure is not happiness. After extensively analyzing Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha” and Richard Taylor’s “Happiness” it is clear that pleasure is not needed to have a good life. We also see how pleasure can be destructive.
“It is very common for modern philosophers, and others too, to confuse happiness with pleasure.”(Taylor). Many people think that happiness and pleasure are the same, but really they are two completely different things. Happiness is something that nobody can measure or pin a clear definition to. “They want to think of happiness as something familiar, identifiable, and even measureable…(Taylor) Taylor makes a point that we see reinforced towards the end of “Siddhartha” when Govinda is seeking enlightenment from a man who lives on the river. Govinda asks Siddhartha to teach him what he knows about being enlightened, about being truly happy. Siddhartha tells Govinda that he can not verbally express to him what it means to be truly happy because happiness is not familiar, identifiable or measurable by words. Siddhartha communicates enlightenment to Govinda when Govinda kisses Siddhartha on the forehead. This further proves Taylor’s point that happiness is something that can’t be measured or be identifiable. Pleasure, on the other hand, is measurable and identifiable. When Siddhartha decides that he doesn’t want to carry out a life of religious meditation, he heads to the city to pursue a life of material pursuit and pleasure in hopes that he can achieve total happiness or enlightenment. After a few years of being in the city, his work as a merchant begins to take off and he starts making large amounts of money. Being on the pursuit of material possessions, he pleasures himself through means of drinking, dancing, gambling, having sex and buying things. The pleasure Siddhartha is pursuing is easily identifiable and measurable here, unlike happiness. It’s apparent that obtaining material
Pleasure is not happiness. After extensively analyzing Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha” and Richard Taylor’s “Happiness” it is clear that pleasure is not needed to have a good life. We also see how pleasure can be destructive.
“It is very common for modern philosophers, and others too, to confuse happiness with pleasure.”(Taylor). Many people think that happiness and pleasure are the same, but really they are two completely different things. Happiness is something that nobody can measure or pin a clear definition to. “They want to think of happiness as something familiar, identifiable, and even measureable…(Taylor) Taylor makes a point that we see reinforced towards the end of “Siddhartha” when Govinda is seeking enlightenment from a man who lives on the river. Govinda asks Siddhartha to teach him what he knows about being enlightened, about being truly happy. Siddhartha tells Govinda that he can not verbally express to him what it means to be truly happy because happiness is not familiar, identifiable or measurable by words. Siddhartha communicates enlightenment to Govinda when Govinda kisses Siddhartha on the forehead. This further proves Taylor’s point that happiness is something that can’t be measured or be identifiable. Pleasure, on the other hand, is measurable and identifiable. When Siddhartha decides that he doesn’t want to carry out a life of religious meditation, he heads to the city to pursue a life of material pursuit and pleasure in hopes that he can achieve total happiness or enlightenment. After a few years of being in the city, his work as a merchant begins to take off and he starts making large amounts of money. Being on the pursuit of material possessions, he pleasures himself through means of drinking, dancing, gambling, having sex and buying things. The pleasure Siddhartha is pursuing is easily identifiable and measurable here, unlike happiness. It’s apparent that obtaining material
Cited: Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha;. [New York]: New Directions, 1951. Print. Taylor, Richard. Happiness. Amherst: Prometheus, 2002. Print.