Potato is yum

So I’ve been reading a lot about philosophy and there is a distinct difference between the individual and a society. For example, the happiness of the individual is vastly different than the happiness of a society as the a society’s happiness is more about the norms and axioms that are the foundation of the society. For an individual, happiness is on a very personal level where it depends on social status, aspirations, and many other ideas.

To add to this, societies have certain obligations to fulfil towards their individual members while not all philosophies agree that individuals have obligations to themselves. Are you obligated to make yourself happy? No. Not really. The assumption that I must be happy is inherently biased. And we can all agree that not everyone in this world wishes to be happy.

Much like this, different philosophies disagree on the obligations of a society to it’s constituents. Some think that a society has the obligation to make it’s members happy while others believe they only are obligated to allow their members to be happy. What’s right? Who knows. But this got me thinking, at what size could a philosopher consider a group of people a society?

I’m probably gonna read a lot more to try and figure it out. There’s probably a long debate on this and I’m just joining the party.