Provide education in ethics (Ethical Literacy)

Due to the ongoing Covid situation we are still unfortunately not hosting any live events and have therefore continued to focus more on other activities.

For the 3rd quarter of 2021 we would like to report on 3 topics

I. an article on hapiness: "Hapiness that doesn't get boring"

II. Conversations on Everyday Ethics: Interview with Florian Odendahl. 

III. Support of mutliple projects of our partner KonTEXT 

I. News from happiness research. Happiness that doesn't get boring.

 

We recently came across an interview with neurobiologist Gerhard Roth in the online magazine "Spiegel +". The topic: "There is only one kind of happiness that you don't get bored with".

In the following, we would like to 1) explain the types of happiness distinguished by Roth and 2) ask you which attitude towards life can lead to lasting happiness. In the survey section, compare your opinion with that of others.

1) Different types of happiness according to Roth. We need to distinguish between:

Happiness

According to Roth, happiness is a short-term result of the brain's reward process. Triggers can be, e.g: sex, alcohol, drugs, extreme sports, salary increase, unexpected profit, falling in love, a new job offer, etc. All of these moments of happiness have one thing in common: they are transient and may cause us to fall back into a feeling of unhappiness. Dissatisfied people tend to search harder for these triggers of happiness. They wander around hoping that happiness is just around the next corner. According to Roth, they are in constant, diffuse, undirected search for happiness, or rather, short-term happiness triggers.

Intrinsic happiness

According to Roth, intrinsic happiness is happiness where you enjoy what you are doing or experiencing from within. Learning, hearing, or seeing something new. Enjoying work, listening to music, a good conversation, collaborating on something meaningful. They say that this happiness does not go into saturation - that is, you don't get tired of it. If you enjoy your job and it provides gratification, you will continue to enjoy doing it and sense happiness. In these moments, the feeling of happiness is linked to contentment in life, so the feeling of happiness is more long-term. These are the phases in which you, for example, get into a "flow" and can "work around the clock". In which artists write operas or symphonies within a month, or the motivation experienced by a scientist who loves his field of research above everything else. But even this kind of happiness can come to an end, according to Roth. The creative frenzy can subside - once the work, or the research project, is finished, the artist is empty, the scientist depleted.

Contentment in life

According to Roth, contentmentin life is not happiness; these are two completely different things. According to Roth, they are also processed in different neurobiological systems. Contentment in life is an attitude towards life - a fundamental personality trait. Content is someone who has a pronounced stress management and has developed the ability to calm himself down. A person who is content does not need to win the lottery and does not want to become a superstar overnight. He is content with what he has. According to Roth, this attitude towards life is formed in our earliest childhood years and remains relatively stable throughout life. We can consciously change our attitude towards life, however, the older we get, the harder it becomes.

2) Can we consciously change our satisfaction in life? What do you think? Please choose the most suitable response!

Which of the following answers best matches your own opinion and attitude towards life?

a) I think Roth is wrong when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. It is rather the external circumstances, i.e. our upbringing, the events in our life, which affect our life satisfaction and shape it permanently. We ourselves do not play a major role in this.

b) I think Roth is wrong when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. Even if we were able to consciously change our life satisfaction for a period of time, it can happen that our current attitude towards life changes in an instant due to external circumstances. Examples: Life crises, traumas, death of a loved one, etc.

c) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. The best way to do that is to get into the habit of looking more at those who are less fortunate than us in our daily lives. For example, if we are chronically ill, we could compare ourselves with people who are worse off, rather than with those who are in good health.

d) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit of seeing the positive even out of negative events. An example: we break our leg and use this involuntary "time out" to learn something new or to deepen a certain skill, or, or ... - something we would not have done otherwise, because we would not have had the time.

e) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. The best way to do this is to get into the habit of looking at life as an opportunity for development rather than as a place where as many of our desires as possible are to be satisfied. An example: we suffer a material loss and instead of complaining, we take this as an occasion and perhaps even as an indication to rethink our attitude and to put more importance on other things in our life that are not as "fleeting".

f) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit  of acting as much as possible in accordance with our conscience and try to accept the result of our decisions, whether it "tastes" good to us or not. An example: we are faced with the dilemma of either using our vacation money to financially support a family member who is in financial troubles or using it for our vacation.

g) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit of always keeping the welfare of others in mind. An example: an elderly gentleman boards the train and all seats are occupied. Since we have no health problems , we offer him our seat.

h) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit of looking out for our own benefit. An example: we donate a large sum of money to a charitable organization and make sure that everyone notices this in order to receive recognition.

i) None of the answers coincide with my opinion and attitude towards life.

We published the results of the poll and provided further links to previous related articles on our website.

We also received an interesting comment from one of the respondents (anonymously):

"Hello,

I think that another very important point in finding contentment in one's own life is to consciously

focus on all the good things that happen to you or you succeed in every day (even small things

like the sun, a nice greeting, a friendly gesture, something that went well) or the strengths and

abilities that one has. Gratitude also plays an important role.

It is also an important and powerful psychotherapeutic intervention method often used in

therapies (the so-called sun or friend diary in which you consciously focus on the good things

that happen every day and write down at least three of them in a diary, "negative" or unpleasant

events are deliberately not written down).

Thank you for the nice article."

II. Conversations on Everyday Ethics: Interview with Florian Odendahl

There are ethical traps in every profession. In the stock market it is gambling, in politics opportunism, in medicine the fantasy of omnipotence... We wanted to know: What are the ethical traps in the profession of acting? So we invited Florian Odendahl to tell us how he tries to implement ethical principles in his everyday life. Dr. Angela Poech, professor at Munich University of Applied Sciences and responsible for the science department at Ethica Rationalis, spoke with Florian Odendahl about opportunities to practice ethics in everyday life. You may find the full interview on Ethica Rationalis’ website and the post named “Gespräche über Alltagsethik: Interview mit Florian Odendahl”.

III. Support of mutliple projects of our partner KonTEXT

KonTEXT, a partner of ours, is a reading project for juvenile delinquents and carries out reading measures with young people on the orders of juvenile judges or public prosecutors. It has been run by the Munich University of Applied Sciences since 2010.

Ethica-Rationalis are not only supporting KonTEXT as a partner, but actively engaging, hands-on in three of their projects:

- developing a coaching program for the youths 

- a marketing campaign to achieve, among other things, a higher level of awareness with judges and procecutors in order to be      considered more often in the sentencing process

- the project "KonTEXT Digital", where, among other things, KonTEXT presentations, as well as a digital exhibition of the work

  of the juveniles