Boethius Case
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Boethius
Boethius, a writer and a politician, has written the Consolation of Philosophy while he was imprisoned with false charges and was sentenced to death. In this book, he has created a dialogue between himself while in prison and Lady Philosophy to discuss what the true happiness is. Initially, Philosophy found that Boethius was ill and depressing because of all his misfortune and the loss of the material goods that he once owned. She diagnose him by examine to him how Fortune-material goods such as wealth, power, honor cannot bring the true happiness and how people seeking the true happiness in the wrong places. She has also informed him to accept his fate that God sets for him whether its good or bad.
Before I read this book, I did not realize that many people have been seeking their happiness in the wrong places, and thinking material goods make them satisfied and happy. Sometimes, they are doing so simply because they have been seen others doing the same things. By doing it in the long-term, they may have already forgotten what the purposes of lives are and what the true natural of happiness is. Therefore, they should discontinue wrong places and look back in their life to see what can truly make them happy.
Good fortune can be bad. It brings human beings all inferior goods and makes people attach to it. Moreover, all the inferior goods that come with fortune can only bring human beings the temporal happiness. Bad fortune can be good. It strengths human beings and makes them even stronger than ever. In this essay, I am going to examine why misfortune is just a matter of opinion, and what is happiness. Lastly, I am going to talk about why soul is more important than the material good people have been desired for.
Argument I
Misfortune is just a matter of opinion. According to Christine de Pizans changing opinion, “opinion gives value to false good that do not belong naturally to human being, but rather are the gifts of fortune.” These five false good includes wealth, honor, power, fame and bodily pleasures (Kelly). When we were first born, we were naked and bared. Therefore, Fortune is not come with human natural. “Fortune is ever most friendly and alluring to those whom she strive to deceive” (Professors Note), and “false opinion holds that they bring happiness to those who possess them.” (Kelly).
However, Fortune, just like loans, they can be all given, and also can be taken away as easy as they were given. For Boethius, ” it took little time for him to see and renounce the corruption of the court, and only a little more time for false accusation to get him thrown in jail” (Professors Note). He was once happy with all the material good he possessed, the honor, and position he has held. After he was imprison and lost all material good he once own, he is now sad and attaching to unhappiness, grief while hairs, and loose skin (Professors Note).
While Boethius complaint: “In all adversity of fortune, the most wretched kind is once to have been happy”, Philosophy disagreed. According to her, she believes that families are more important than any kinds of material goods. Without all these material goods, Boethius is still a fortune man. His family is still remain unharmed with his “wifes father, Symmachus, is still living and hale; and what more precious glory has the human race than him?” He wife, along with two of his son are all alive (Cooper).
Argument II
All the inferior goods that are attached to the fortune such as wealth, power, fame and material goods bring no happiness to human beings. According to Philosophy, all of the false goods do not bring happiness to people. Wealth, in particular, does not possess values of itself; it was assigned value while being transferred from one to the other. Additionally, she thinks that to gain wealth is like to take away wealth from others (Cooper).