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The Three Important Aspects of Relationships

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mhee On March 05, 2006




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#1New Post! Dec 02, 2005 @ 22:58:14
Every relationship has the potential to involve:

(1) emotional or feeling aspects
(2) satisfaction or dissatisfaction aspects
(3) good or bad (that is, ethical) aspects.

There is an overlap here since satisfactions, to the extent they are pleasurable sensations, are both feelings and good things; dissatisfactions are feelings and bad things. But I want to make and use these distinctions because I want to be able to talk about the ethical aspects of relationships over and above their joys and dissatisfactions since many things may be both enjoyable and harmful, enjoyable in terms of pleasurable sensations but harmful in terms of side-effects, consequences, or some other relevant factor....

... I believe that these three categories--feelings, satisfactions, and ethics--can profitably be considered separately, even though often they do not occur separately in life. I further believe that these categories involve most, if not all, the significant aspects of any relationship and that most of the important things concerning relationships will involve one, two, or all three of these categories....
stenise On June 24, 2007




Little Rock, Arkansas
#2New Post! Dec 02, 2005 @ 23:03:50
hmm...good post. I do have to agree I think. I can't remember what I was going to say now, never mind. At least it's not an empty thread now!
reiko On March 27, 2006

Deleted



New York, New York
#3New Post! Dec 02, 2005 @ 23:05:21
Oh and the "He lets me boss him around aspect"
mhee On March 05, 2006




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#4New Post! Dec 03, 2005 @ 03:26:38
The Emotional Aspect -- Feelings

And it is important to be able to understand one's feelings and emotions in order to understand what behavior they might warrant. It is also important to understand other people's feelings. It would hardly be right, say, to take sexual advantage of another's feelings of gratitude or a student's intellectual attraction just because the other person or student confused those feelings with romantic or sexual attraction or with feelings of love. And this is not even to talk of understanding one's emotions simply for the personal sake of self-knowledge apart from any actions they may involve or engender. I myself think such self-knowledge is important and interesting....
mhee On March 05, 2006




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#5New Post! Dec 03, 2005 @ 03:28:23
The Satisfaction Aspect

Simply being attracted to someone, even in cases where there are no outside impediments thwarting your being together, does not insure that they and their actions will bring you any happiness or satisfaction. In fact, in far too many cases quite the opposite is the result. One of the hardest kinds of relationships to end or endure is that which hangs on because the two people have some sort of attraction for each other even though whenever they are together one or both make the other thoroughly miserable.

Equally but opposite, finding someone unattracting does not necessarily dispose you to find all their actions unpleasant, disappointing, or dissatisfying. You may, for example, enjoy playing tennis with someone you have no feelings for one way or the other, or even with someone you do not like. (In fact, when you play well against someone you dislike, win, and have to work very hard to do so because they are a good player, it might be a rather exhilarating experience....
mhee On March 05, 2006




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#6New Post! Dec 03, 2005 @ 03:29:17
The Goodness and Badness (Ethical) Aspect

Insofar as pleasure, satisfaction, joy, contentment, happiness, etc. are good, and displeasure, grief, sorrow, disappointment, pain, etc. are bad, the satisfaction-dissatisfaction aspect of relationships is also a part of the goodness-badness aspect. But there is much more to life's goodness or badness than just satisfaction and happiness on one hand and dissatisfaction and unhappiness on the other hand. Therefore it is necessary to look at more in a relationship than whether it, or its individual acts, are satisfying or not, in order to determine whether over-all it is a good relationship or not....

...if pleasure were the only good to be sought, and if we wanted the best for our children, we should rear them not to be industrious, conscientious, intelligent, sensitive creatures, but should teach them to be just the opposite. They could be far happier if they were insensitive to tragedy and the sorrows of others, if they never aspired to goals which they might fail to attain, if they essentially came home from whatever untaxing jobs they might hold in order to be able mindlessly to watch whatever was on television and drink beer in a contentedly cheerful state. We could probably fairly easily train people to like these sorts of things, but we do not intentionally do that because we, correctly, believe people are capable of better ways of living, even if less pleasurable ways....
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