I thought this was very interesting as I have never thought about this before. Of course, humans feel the need to connect and make friends. But how I interpreted this passage is that man desires what is best for himself over anyone, with as much ease as possible. Because of that, humans like compliments and others desiring to be their friend without actually being friends because it is easier and is flattering to feel. This is why it feels good to be asked to be friends or when you are complimented by others rather than the reverse.

I think this section provides a clearer viewpoint on what Kant is attempting to explain. Here he lists examples of what are sometimes mistaken for duty, such as self-denial, putting oneself ahead of duty, and hoping for good rather than doing actual good. It is difficult to distinguish whether someone is fulfilling their duty because it itself is a priority rather than for alternate reasons. In this way, I perceive deontology as being a practice that can truly only be monitored by the individual.

Bentham in this section describes the theory of utility in a way I really liked. Utility is not pleasure, but it does not mean it is without pleasure. He describes it as pleasure, more specifically without pain. How I think about it is happiness is not sadness, but a lack of reason to be sad. Lack of pleasure, although pleasure is not necessarily useful, does not mean it is not apart of utilitarianism.

This reminds me of the stoicism discussions we have been having. Allowing nature to take control and not interfering or becoming upset by what you are not in control of. I like this passage because of how it associates knowledge with not only gaining things, but losing them as well and learning from both. Generally, knowledge is known as taking effort and discomfort to gain, so this is a new way of seeing how it can be done.

This principle dives into what our class has been discussing the past few days on the topic of pleasure. Epicurus writes that to live a pleasant life, one must live justly, wisely, and honorably. Lacking one or more limits how pleasant of a life you will have. It shows that there are requirements to truly attaining a pleasurable life, you cannot live one without sacrificing time and effort towards bettering yourself in other fields.

I think this passage is interesting for many reasons. Although this conversation is full of answers to the question "what is piety and what is unpiety?" this answer seems to be different from the rest. It implies piety is the effort of the group or individual to please the gods through prayer, sacrifice, and practice. Instead of simply answering that piety is what the gods like or that the gods like pious things because they are pious, it states that piety is the effort that comes from people going out of their way through sacrifice. Although I know what Socrates is referencing is not necessarily what the dictionary states, but this 'definition' is closest to the dictionary version of piety than the rest of the answers.