Liberation in the Face of Uncertainty

In this volume, Dialogical Self Theory is innovatively presented as a guide to help elucidate some of the most pressing problems of our time as they emerge at the interface of self and society. As a bridging framework at the interface of the social sciences and philosophy, Dialogical Self Theory provides a broad view of problem areas that place us in a field of tension between liberation and social imprisonment. With climate change and the coronavirus pandemic serving as wake-up calls, the book focuses on the experience of uncertainty, the disenchantment of the world, the pursuit of happiness, and the cultural limitations of the Western self-ideal. Now more than ever we need to rethink the relationship between self, other, and the natural environment, and this book uses Dialogical Self Theory to explore actual and potential responses of the self to these urgent challenges.

Why it is hard to be happy with what we have: A reinforcement learning perspective

The pursuit of happiness is not easy. Habituation to positive changes in lifestyle and constant comparisons leave us unhappy even in the best of conditions. Given their disruptive impact, it remains a puzzle why habituation and comparisons have come to be a part of cognition in the first place. Here, we present computational evidence that suggests that these features might play an important role in promoting adaptive behavior. Using the framework of reinforcement learning, we explore the benefit of employing a reward function that, in addition to the reward provided by the underlying task, also depends on prior expectations and relative comparisons. We find that while agents equipped with this reward function are less "happy", they learn faster and significantly outperform standard reward-based agents in a wide range of environments. The fact that these features provide considerable adaptive benefits might explain why we have the propensity to keep wanting more, even if it contributes to depression, materialism, and overconsumption.

An Analysis on the Pursuit of Happiness in The Lord of the Rings

Since The Lord of the Rings was adapted by Peter Jackson into trilogy film in 2001-03, it has astounded its critics and gratified its fans and students. Many critical journals or graduation papers have also talked about this massive novel. After doing a lot of reading concerning these reviews, it’s clear that most of them analyze this work using psychoanalytical criticism; myth and archetypal criticism; cultural studies, and recently ecocriticism. Among these theories, psychoanalytic interpretation mainly focuses on Freud’s key ideas, namely the id; ego; and superego. According to Freud’s theory that: “Psychoanalytic literary criticism is not simply about interpreting a text’s protagonists. It also seeks to relate the text to the mind of its author.”(Berg, 2003, p.84). In this circumstance, this paper will probably dig some new insights by using this theory. The paper will follow the protagonist’s inner mind through employing Freud’s some key ideas, such as repression and projection. Based upon psychoanalytic analysis of the protagonists, this paper tries to argue that the three Hobbits can acquire happiness as long as they deal properly with the relationship between themselves and the society. In other words, common people can also push the wheel of history as long as they code well with themselves and the society.

Kantian Imperfect Duties

This chapter explicates Kantian imperfect duties and their source-value in obligatory ends. Imperfect duties add material and psychological resources to make the moral habitat safe and accessible. Using the duty of beneficence, the chapter explains the kind of discretion these duties allow and the demands they make. Beneficence is, in the first instance, a relational duty. Engaging with others’ pursuit of happiness, we act for their ends, not their needs, with an eye towards the health of their agency. Relational beneficence is supplemented by two other duties of assistance: a humanitarian duty directed at strangers that obligates us collectively, and a remedial duty for those responsible to repair the effects of their unjust actions. When combined, the three duties of assistance distribute the demandingness of need in a more humane and morally responsive way, at times with the support of juridical institutions that take on some of the moral labor.