Happiness and paideia

...On what I call the classical view, to think about happiness (what the Greeks called eudaimonia) is first and foremost to think about how we should aspire to live and what sort of person we most wish to become. And there is no way to bring our thought and imagination to bear on this topic without serious and disciplined reflection on the good: more specifically, what human excellence is and what it would take to realize it in one's own life. To think about human excellence, I argued, is to think about what it is to be a human being—to have what Iris Murdoch calls a "soul-picture," or a self-knowledge of human nature that determines, to a large extent, the sort of shape we give to our own lives. 

On the classical view, what is distinctive of human nature is the use of our rational capacities: we flourish when we learn how to recognize, appreciate and realize what is truly good, which we can only do once we acquire virtues like wisdom, courage and justice. A virtuous person not only has the moral vision to see what the good objectively demands in a situation but can act accordingly. The good life so construed is a kind of harmony between our subjectivity (our first-personally experienced beliefs, desires, passions and pleasures) and what is objectively good. We do not flourish without communion with the good, most especially the good of loving and just relations with other persons under a system of laws that makes this possible. If what we want is happiness, we must try to bring about and maintain such a world, knowing full well that we will have to suffer, struggle and sacrifice in the midst of our attempt to realize it. 

Psychology (and other social sciences) focus on the subjective side of happiness, which creates a divorce between private happiness and the demands of public virtue. But life hacks, which are little more than techniques for the manipulation of our brains, are not proper substitutes for virtue. The cultivation of virtue is the process of shaping what one perceives and loves through free deliberation and choice; it is inextricably connected to a proper education, what the Greeks called paideia, understood as coming to possess a comprehensive vision of what is true, good and beautiful...

https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/the-universe-and-the-university/

The Point: What is college for?