Do a Favour, and Stop Smoking

When I was younger, friends would bemoan the fact that their parent/s smoked. However, they always accepted it, noting that their parents had grown up in a different time. Unfortunately, despite the wide availability of accurate information these days, people continue to smoke. While I cannot understand this decision, I feel it is due at least partly to both a lack of awareness of certain consequences of smoking, and an understanding of those consequences. I hope with this note to go into this a little, considering the negative health, environmental and social effects.

Smoking is immensely harmful to the person who does it. In Australia, it is the largest preventable cause of premature death and disease. Lung cancer, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, heart disease, stroke, and various other cancers are some of the effects of smoking, effects that kill about 15 000 Australians annually. Lower fertility, problems with pregnancy, blindness, and bone degradation are other consequences. Conceivably, smokers could say that they are allowed to do what they want with their own health. However, given that there are countless people dying against their will from unpreventable causes that they had no chance to avoid, this argument strikes me as facile. While smokers may have the ‘right’ to harm their own health, they have a responsibility to not take it for granted, given that so many are not as healthy as they may be. Not all people are lucky enough to have good health, so those who do should show proper care for themselves.

Overriding this rather abstract argument though is the fact that, even if smokers can destroy their own health, they have no right to harm the health of others: exactly what smokers do. Environmental tobacco smoke, which is what non-smokers passively breathe, is a known carcinogen – a cancer-causing agent. Other serious harms arising from the breathing of air polluted by tobacco smoke include bronchitis, pneumonia and other chest illnesses, asthma, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. An Australia report refers to increased: likelihood of suffering from asthmatic symptoms, risk of heart attack, risk of developing lung cancer, and risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Smokers are actively contributing to the ill health of their friends and all those who are so unfortunate as to breathe the air that has been polluted. No person has the right to inflict this sort of harm upon others against their will; no smoker, therefore, has the right to smoke where it can harm others. 

The environmental effects of smoking are also significant. The process of curing tobacco requires wood to be burnt to dry the leaves, which leads to deforestation. Around 60 million trees are felled each year in Brazil for this purpose, in Pakistan, 1.5 million cubic metres of wood are annually consumed. Further, paper is needed to roll and package cigarettes: a cigarette manufacturing machine uses four miles of paper per hour for this. This large scale deforestation damages the land and contributes to increased flooding, decreased food output and can affect the local climate. On a global scale, many scientists believe deforestation is changing the world’s climate and contributing to global warming

The growing of tobacco requires extensive pesticide and herbicide use. Tobacco depletes soil nutrients at a heavy rate, so requires regular inputs of chemical fertilizers. For example, during the three month period from making the seedbed to transplanting the seed in the field, up to 16 applications of pesticide may be recommended. These products directly poison farm workers – many of whom are children – and cause chronic health problems; they also seep into the soil and pollute waterways and ecological systems and poison livestock and food crops.

The volume of rubbish created by smoking, from the butts, packaging and foil, is deplorable. In 1993, all the cigarette butts thrown away in America weighed as much as 30 800 large elephants. In Australia, almost 1 in 3 butts end up as litter, and discarded components account for up to 43% of all litter in South Australia. This litter gets into bodies of water and beaches, killing marine fauna. The butts also contain toxic chemicals, which leach into the water poisoning organisms. The consequences of all this cigarette waste is intimidating, the potential cost of cleaning it all up frightful.

Only in the context of the egregious health and environmental effects of smoking can its true social costs be understood. In 2002, a report estimated the cost of tobacco use in Australia as $21.06 billion. This expense arose mainly from loss of production due to illness and death and health care costs. Other factors are the costs of passive smoking, welfare costs, ambulance services and fire damage. The burden that this is on the public purse effectively detracts from the quality and availability of health care to other people who may be suffering from other diseases not of their own making. Additionally, smoking is an effect of and a contributor to social inequality: “The greatest burden of illness and costs due to tobacco occurs among households in the lowest quintile of social advantage: smoking is most devastating for those who can least afford it” (National Tobacco Strategy 2004-2009). 

Smoking also has a cost outside of the first world, appalling enough that no casual donation to Make Poverty History could make up for it. Two-thirds of the world’s tobacco is produced in developing countries, taking up land that could be used to feed 10-20 million people. This occurs because the first world is more willing to spend money on a luxury like tobacco than those in the third world are able to spend on food. Land is thus used to produce the commodity of tobacco, endangering a reliable food supply. When you consider that 60% of the 8 million preventable deaths of chlidren annually are due to malnutrition, you certainly have to wonder how anyone could spend money on a pack of cigarettes.

There is no such thing as a ‘social smoker’. Smoking is an anti-social action that harms oneself, others, the environment and is an impediment to global equity. Not only is every cigarette doing you damage, smoking it is an act of indifference to the wellbeing of yourself, those around you, the state of the world, and the plight of the third world. Next time, before you buy a pack of cigarettes, consider doing us all a favour.

Happiness and the Search for Meaning

In the third century BCE, when philosophy and science were still the same discipline, Aristotle outlined his view of the good. Aristotle declared the supreme, complete, final human good to be happiness, in that there is no good better than or equal to it, it leaves us wanting nothing, and it is sought simply for its own sake. Since then, philosophy and science have diverged, but the empirical instruments of science bring us no closer to a clear idea of happiness or how it is best achieved. While, psychologists measure subjective well-being, asking respondents how happy they feel, philosophers are more interested in the activity of being happy, in objective being: a state that we have no instruments to measure and no units to measure it in. In the absence of empirical study, philosophers have occupied themselves with this question, a question considered by some philosophers to be at the very heart of their quest for wisdom. Two questions occupied these minds: is happiness the supreme good? How is happiness best achieved? Immanuel Kant and Epicurus offer two alternate views of this, and, by rationally evaluating their views, it is possible to arrive at a more convincing evaluation of the part happiness has to play in human life. 

A critical view of happiness’ role in life, antithetical to Aristotle’s belief, was explored by Immanuel Kant. Kant thought that pursuing happiness ought always to come second to acting morally. In his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, he argued that moral behaviour and hedonistic behaviour are often in opposition; and that we ought to take the moral path in such circumstances. It is because Kant didn’t consider happiness to be the supreme good that he thought we should not let its pursuit override moral decision making.

Kant’s conviction regarding happiness not being the supreme human good took the form of a modus tollens. If happiness were the supreme human good, he argued, humans would be better equipped for seeking it. Humans aren’t, therefore happiness mustn’t be the supreme human good. He pointed to inconsistencies in our nature that seem to prevent us from enjoying happiness as evidence of his claim. The fact that humans have a conscience suggested to him that we aren’t naturally inclined towards happiness, as our natural conscience makes us feel guilty when we do things that might otherwise make us feel only good. Also, the fact that humans weren’t instinctively guided towards happiness, that we had free will, and that it wasn’t always easy to divine the path towards happiness added to his argument. A being made for happiness, he thought, would not have to try to achieve it. 

In terms of the proposed dichotomy between happiness and moral behaviour, Kant’s views are to some extent shared by John Stuart Mill. Mill, although he saw the promotion of happiness as utmost also said that sometimes lesser pleasures not fitting to a human must be ignored in preference of nobler pleasures that were worthy of a human. This point of view is famously remembered in the quotation, “It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” 

While many philosophers have been ready to discredit the role of happiness in life, one classical philosopher emerges as a philosophical apologist for those who seek pleasure – Epicurus. Epicurus thought that happiness – the final, complete and supreme good – could not be conceived of without sensual pleasure: “Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life.” Epicurus thought that philosophy itself ought to be a means of achieving happiness. 

Epicurus however, thought people behaved very confusedly when coming up with effective ways to lead happy lives. In order to avoid this and to rationally come to grips with what was necessary for a happy life, Epicurus used the Socratic Method. He would examine a statement such as ‘I need great wealth to be happy’ and suggest two counter-questions: ‘Can one have great wealth and be unhappy? Can one be happy and not have great wealth?’ By means of this method, Epicurus was able to arrive at a list of things required for a happy life. The first of these was friendship. With true friendship, Epicurus realised, came the respect and love that all people need and that money could never guarantee – in his own words, “Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.” Epicurus also realised the importance of freedom, in allowing one to avoid the obligations and annoyances of employment and financial competition: “We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics.” To achieve this freedom, Epicurus and his followers entered into a simpler existence, detaching themselves from Athenian commercial life. The third ingredient of a happy life was thought. Through thought, one was able to deal with any anxieties. If the anxiety could not be directly dealt with, thought still allowed Epicurus’ friends to deal with the confusion and uncertainty related to many problems. Philosophical analysis was the key to their peaceful and happy lives. 

We can thus see what would have been surprising to Epicurus’ contemporaries and belies the modern definition of the word ‘Epicure’: Epicurus had established a method of pursuing happiness independent of money or sensual excess. Other than one’s basic needs, all that was necessary for happiness were the pleasures of friendship, freedom, and thought. Once one had a level of money sufficient to secure food, shelter and clothing, no excess money was required to enjoy a pleasurable existence. 

Given the contrast between Kant’s and Epicurus’ views, it would seem that some evaluation is required, and indeed, such evaluation sheds useful light on their philosophies. In regards to Kant’s emphasis on the need to choose between morality and happiness, this seems to be a false dilemma, as there may be alternatives. In fact, Guyer explains that while in Kant’s view morality is all-important, the object of morality is “the preservation of human beings as ends in themselves together with the promotion and fulfilment of their permissible ends.” Guyer goes on to explain that such respect for human beings is indeed necessary for human society, thus nature is, at the very least, compatible with the unified realisation of virtue and happiness. The sort of happiness of which Kant is so critical would be more clearly expressed as pleasure, “the aim of impulse” in George Santayana’s words, which is fleeting and insubstantial, compared to the lasting happiness, “the aim of reason” , described by Aristotle. 

Kant’s conditional argument regarding happiness not being the supreme good, while valid, can be exposed as unsound: it is unclear how humans could be any better equipped for seeking happiness. Conscience and free will, essentials of human nature, are not in fact obstacles to happiness, but make its attainment possible. Animals, lacking these human faculties, can hardly be described as happy – a dog’s tail wagging is little more than an instinctive response to pleasurable stimulus. In contrast, human happiness arises out of the meaningful exercise of free will and a clear conscience. Thus, contrary to Kant’s argument, conscience and free will ultimately enable true human happiness, and are not obstacles to it.

Epicurus’ philosophical position, arrived at by the truth-seeking Socratic Method, is more resistant to refutation. We can study the validity of his conclusions by applying the Socratic Method to them: Can one not have friends and be happy? Can one be happy without freedom? Can one be happy without reflection? Ultimately the answers to these questions are based not in abstract argument but personal feeling, and personal feelings seem to support Epicurus’ conclusions by statistical induction– according to The Australia Institute, 65% of people consider either “Partner/spouse and family relationships” or “Community and friends” to be “the most important thing for…happiness”. Additionally, it is hard to picture a happy life that lacks friendship, freedom, and space for reflection. Epicurus’ potentially contradictory fondness for pleasure must be understood in this context, as he only considers it worthwhile as a means of arriving at more lasting happiness, not something to be pursued for itself.

Also philosophically sound about the sustainable lifestyle of content espoused by Epicurus is how it subverts Kant’s dilemma: Epicurus aims solely for happiness and, by doing so, avoids harming others and brings happiness his companions. If one self-interestedly develops friendship, freedom and thought, than the pursuit of happiness is beneficial to one and all.

From an examination of these two philosophies, it seems that they are not as opposed as a superficial consideration may have suggested. Both philosophers had a view of the supreme good, and they viewed happiness as either the supreme good itself, or an outcome synonymous with it. Both philosophers offered a view of what led to happy existence: Kant emphasised the path towards a happy society, Epicurus the path towards happy individuals. These two paths have been shown to be supportive of one another, it is thus possible to draw a synthesis from these viewpoints. Happiness is indeed the supreme human good. It consists not in the narrow-minded or immoral pursuit of pleasure, but in a rational, intelligent and reflective approach to relationships and life. This exists in necessary symbiosis with moral behaviour as respect for other humans who are also entitled to happiness. Indeed, it is hard for people to feel happy when they have been behaving wrongly, as they rightly have a sense of the harm they have caused others and feel sorry for that. For those seeking happiness, no action whose consequences are overwhelmingly harmful to others will bring that; for those seeking morality over happiness, they will soon find that such division is not necessary.

It is now worth returning to Mill’s famous line, “It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” Presumably, the reasoning behind this is that Socrates was doing valuable and necessary philosophical work such that, even if it didn’t make him happy, he was still better off than a satisfied fool. But implicit in Mill’s reasoning is the assumption that Socrates wouldn’t be satisfied by his work, that the ridicule and failure that beset him would have left him downhearted. On the contrary, Socrates, while he lamented the sad state into which Athens had fallen, delighted in his role, comparing himself to a gadfly prodding a lazy mule into motion. Even when sentenced to death for his work, Socrates accepted this conclusion and elected not to flee. Artistic depictions of his death by self-poisoning show him animated to the last, debating a point with a student even as he reaches for the fatal hemlock. Are these the actions of a dissatisfied man?

And what of the satisfied fool? This fool presumably lives a life that in no way realises the esteemed ideals of Socrates’ existence, instead opting for self-absorption, the neglect of friendships, freedom and thought in preference for the transient pleasures of luxury, power, or social acclaim. This fool’s satisfaction is ephemeral and insubstantial, based on the opinions of others or the fulfilment of others’ expectations. Having reached their desired position, they, like Macbeth, modern celebrities, or even schoolyard jocks will be beset with anxiety, having constantly to maintain an acceptable public image. Thus they cannot feel the security and self-confidence available to individuals such as Epicurus, whose happiness is contained within themselves. 

In concluding then, it is not better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied, as a dissatisfied Socrates would certainly not be performing the valuable philosophy that have fixed him in history, and the fool’s satisfaction is ephemeral and beset by anxiety. Happiness consists in doing that which brings meaning to one’s life and the lives of others, in spending time with those who love and respect one, in thinking about possible causes of anxiety, and in being free from tedium. Indeed then, Mill may have more accurately said, it is better to be Socrates happy than a fool pleased.