QuestionsWhat is happiness?The four noble truths
What is happiness?Virtue and wisdom

The four noble truths

The four noble truths

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) c. 480 BC · c. 400 BCTeaches that what we call "self" is made of passing elements, with no permanent self (anatta). His exact dates are debated.
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What it claims

To be free of suffering, one must end craving by following the eightfold path, rather than seeking pleasures or mortifying oneself.

Why

Suffering comes from craving for what we lack or what passes; it ends when that craving is put out by a right way of living.

In short

"The four noble truths" is an argument by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 56.11) on the question "What is happiness?" (answer: virtue and wisdom). Its claim: To be free of suffering, one must end craving by following the eightfold path, rather than seeking pleasures or mortifying oneself. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 4 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 56.11
Valid

This is, in the Pali canon, the first sermon attributed to the Buddha, to the five companions of his ascetic years. He begins by setting aside two extremes: the pursuit of sensual pleasure, which he finds empty, and the mortification of the body, which hurts for nothing. Between them, a "middle way". Then he sets out four truths, like a physician: the illness (life is marked by suffering, dukkha), its cause (craving, tanha: desire for pleasures, for existence, for non-existence), its end (the fading of that craving) and the cure (the noble eightfold path: right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, immersion). Happiness here is not one more pleasure: it is the peace that comes when craving stops, and it is reached by a path that trains conduct (speech, action, livelihood), mind (effort, mindfulness, immersion) and wisdom (view, intention) together. It is a wisdom of living well, not a pursuit of pleasure. A text of the Pali canon, written down centuries after the Buddha.

P1Ordinary life is marked by suffering (dukkha): birth, old age, illness, death, being joined to what one dislikes, parted from what one loves, not getting what one wants.
P2Suffering has a cause: craving (tanha), which leads to rebirth and takes pleasure wherever it lands: craving for pleasures, for existence, for non-existence.
P3Suffering stops when this craving fades away without remainder: one gives it up, lets it go, no longer clings to it.
P4A path leads there: the noble eightfold path (right view, purpose, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and immersion), which avoids both extremes.
To be free of suffering, one must end craving by following the eightfold path, rather than seeking pleasures or mortifying oneself.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Analogy.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Friedrich Nietzsche (Genealogy of Morality, 1887; The Antichrist, 1888) 1887 · attacks the conclusion

Nietzsche finds Buddhism more realistic than Christianity (The Antichrist, sec. 20): it fights suffering, not sin. But he sees in it a religion for weary people seeking rest. In the Genealogy, "the will turning against Life" leads Europe toward "a new Buddhism": to want to put out desire is to say no to life.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Buddha) in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: the sermon does not speak of suppressing life or all desire, but the craving that leads to further births and further suffering. Buddhists reply that awakening brings joy and compassionate action; this point remains debated.
T
The brahmin Unnabha (Samyutta Nikaya 51.15) 400 BC · attacks premise 3

The paradox of desire: to put out desire, one must desire to put it out. Desire cannot be given up by means of desire, so the path would have no end. The objection, raised in the canon itself, is taken up by modern philosophers.

a defender replies
A
Ananda, the Buddha's disciple (same sutta) defender of the argument · 400 BC · Ananda's reply
Ananda asks the brahmin whether he has ever wanted to go to the park, and whether that desire faded once he arrived. Yes. Likewise, the one who reached the goal had the desire to reach it, and that desire faded when he reached it. So the path has an end.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: commentators later distinguish craving (tanha), to be put out, from wholesome desire (chanda), which serves as a tool and then fades by itself. Still debated: is a desire that aims only at its own end still a desire?