Happiness in life, as a general idea, appears to incorporate a lifelong timespan - one knows one can be very happy on one's wedding day, but then quite miserable soon after. The same goes for a heroin addict - happy when high, but miserable when craving. So when we talk of 'finding happiness', it seems we are thinking about a self-sustaining world which is more happy for ever after; happier than the world we are experiencing at the moment. This is not the emotional rollercoaster most people seem to ride on throughout their lives; between manic joy and debilitating depression - we are talking about a more steady, comfortable experience over long timespans.

So how does one go about achieving such a thing? Certainly this is the fundamental question that all societies have been asking ever since they formed. It does seem that some people have found answers in various cultures and times throughout the world.

Firstly, it appears healthy to analyse what behaviours bring...

(Chapter 9 of Essays in Quasi-Realism.)

Whilst Mackie only permits us to 'shmoralise', Blackburn grants that we can quite happily moralise instead, even under a metaethical system based wholly on attitudes.

Aside the worrying suspicion that this allows one to have one's cake and eat it, one struggles to grant his thesis that reaching moral truths occurs once one begins the act of moralising. Blackburn gives numerous examples of his own moral attitudes whilst giving his account. "Getting into the boat" is the metaphor of choice — juxtaposed against the worry that there are many such boats as a result of the relativism that naive anti-realism would allow — an act which, he holds, ends all relativistic talk.

One would wholeheartedly admire this account of moral truth, understood as a theory concerning a different species of truth predicate to that used within science, were it not for the lingering question of how one would realise that one has entered int...

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I believe that who I am is dependent on what I've learned, what I'm capable of doing and learning, and what my beliefs in life are. I see philosophy as a tool to help me better understand myself and distinguish me from others. It is not enough that I believe something; I must be able to provide reasons as to why I believe something; I must be able to have the self conviction to voice my belief and make a stand for it. Without something to stand for, I am lost.

And so I embark on this philosophical journey to re-examine myself and to subject everything I believe under a microscope. I am aware that some beliefs I hold are unexamined, was passed down to me like a cold, and this leaves me uncomfortable. I refuse to believe something just because everyone believes it. I want to be able to rationalize my beliefs and I want to be able to provide reasons to myself as to why I believe in something. This is why I must conduct a philosophical cleansing.

There are many concepts I must re-examine...