Happiness


Everyone wants to be happy, but what exactly is happiness and how is it attained? In our relativistic age, many people think that happiness is purely subjective and entirely relative to each individual. Moreover, our awareness that different cultures and different historical epochs have conceived happiness in vastly different ways further fuels the feeling that happiness is relative and subjective. Even in our own contemporary culture, many visions of happiness abound. Some suggest it results from material possessions, others from some variation of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and others from religion. Which, if any, view is correct? Is happiness subjective or does it have an identifiable objective basis? Is it a fundamentally material or spiritual phenomenon? Can it be bought and sold or how else might it be attained? This course critically examines an array of competing visions of happiness, from today and from throughout history, from other cultures, and from profound philosophical, religious, and literary texts. The course also examines the best and latest research on happiness from the fields of psychology, economics, and other sciences and social sciences. The course will be conducted as one big conversation between the different authors we read. The aim is to have the students critically analyze each text and create a dialogue between the authors and between the authors and ourselves.The course aims to shed light on the nature of happiness — and to encourage the students to incorporate what they deem to be the best ideas and examples into their own lives so as to actually become more happy. We will also include systematic examination of the institutions — political, social, economic, cultural, and others — necessary to achieve each vision of happiness as well as the institutions that are uncritically assumed by the authors.