Doing the right thing—even when no one is watching—can lead to lasting psychological rewards. Among them are deeper relationships, a clearer purpose, and a sense of integrity.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/modern-minds/202505/good-people-are-happier-and-this-is-why
Thursday, September 4, 2025
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
The guy who ran off with Scarlett Johansson (in Her)
But is he right? Seems to me I do experience past and future. But the point he's making is solid: too much preoccupation with those temporalities risks obliterating the present, where we must pursue happiness and meaning.
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.”― Alan Wilson Watts
“Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.”
― The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
William James on happiness
TOUCHING BOTTOM, DISCOVERING RENOUVIER
On February 1, 1870, James recorded in his diary: "Today I about touched bottom, and perceive plainly that I must face the choice with open eyes: shall I Frankly throw the moral business overboard, as one unsuited to my innate aptitudes, or shall I follow it and it alone, making everything else merely stuff for it? I will give the latter alternative a fair trial. Who knows but the moral interest may become developed." Cosmopolite Cosmologist: The Life of William James, Harvard Crimson
==
"I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second "Essais" and see no reason why his definition of Free Will—"the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts"—need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present—until next year—that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will. For the remainder of the year, I will abstain from the mere speculation and contemplative Grüblei[48] in which my nature takes most delight, and voluntarily cultivate the feeling of moral freedom, by reading books favorable to it, as well as by acting. After the first of January, my callow skin being somewhat fledged, I may perhaps return to metaphysical study and skepticism without danger to my powers of action. For the present then remember: care little for speculation; much for the form of my action; recollect that only when habits of order are formed can we advance to really interesting fields of action—and consequently accumulate grain on grain of willful choice like a very miser; never forgetting how one link dropped undoes an indefinite number. Principiis obsta—Today has furnished the exceptionally passionate initiative which Bain posits as needful for the acquisition of habits. I will see to the sequel. Not in maxims, not in Anschauungen,[49] but in accumulated acts of thought lies salvation. Passer outre. Hitherto, when I have felt like taking a free initiative, like daring to act originally, without carefully waiting for contemplation of the external world to determine all for me, suicide seemed the most manly form to put my daring into; now, I will go a step further with my will, not only act with it, but believe as well; believe in my individual reality and creative power. My belief, to be sure, can't be optimistic—but I will posit life (the real, the good) in the self-governing resistance of the ego to the world. Life shall [be built in][50] doing and suffering and creating." Diary-April 30, 1870
==
"I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second "Essais" and see no reason why his definition of Free Will—"the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts"—need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present—until next year—that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will. For the remainder of the year, I will abstain from the mere speculation and contemplative Grüblei[48] in which my nature takes most delight, and voluntarily cultivate the feeling of moral freedom, by reading books favorable to it, as well as by acting. After the first of January, my callow skin being somewhat fledged, I may perhaps return to metaphysical study and skepticism without danger to my powers of action. For the present then remember: care little for speculation; much for the form of my action; recollect that only when habits of order are formed can we advance to really interesting fields of action—and consequently accumulate grain on grain of willful choice like a very miser; never forgetting how one link dropped undoes an indefinite number. Principiis obsta—Today has furnished the exceptionally passionate initiative which Bain posits as needful for the acquisition of habits. I will see to the sequel. Not in maxims, not in Anschauungen,[49] but in accumulated acts of thought lies salvation. Passer outre. Hitherto, when I have felt like taking a free initiative, like daring to act originally, without carefully waiting for contemplation of the external world to determine all for me, suicide seemed the most manly form to put my daring into; now, I will go a step further with my will, not only act with it, but believe as well; believe in my individual reality and creative power. My belief, to be sure, can't be optimistic—but I will posit life (the real, the good) in the self-governing resistance of the ego to the world. Life shall [be built in][50] doing and suffering and creating." Diary-April 30, 1870
==
THE SENTIMENT OF RATIONALITY
What is the task which philosophers set themselves to perform; and why do they philosophize at all? Almost every one will immediately reply: They desire to attain a conception of the frame of things which shall on the whole be more rational than that somewhat chaotic view which every one by nature carries about with him under his hat. But suppose this rational conception attained, how is the philosopher to recognize it for what it is, and not let it slip through ignorance? The only answer can be that he will recognize its rationality as he recognizes everything else, by certain subjective marks with which it affects him. When he gets the marks, he may know that he has got the rationality.
What, then, are the marks? A strong feeling of ease, peace, rest, is one of them. The transition from a state of puzzle and perplexity to rational comprehension is full of lively relief and pleasure.
But this relief seems to be a negative rather than a positive character. Shall we then say that the feeling of rationality is constituted merely by the absence {64}of any feeling of irrationality? I think there are very good grounds for upholding such a view. All feeling whatever, in the light of certain recent psychological speculations, seems to depend for its physical condition not on simple discharge of nerve-currents, but on their discharge under arrest, impediment, or resistance. Just as we feel no particular pleasure when we breathe freely, but a very intense feeling of distress when the respiratory motions are prevented,—so any unobstructed tendency to action discharges itself without the production of much cogitative accompaniment, and any perfectly fluent course of thought awakens but little feeling; but when the movement is inhibited, or when the thought meets with difficulties, we experience distress. It is only when the distress is upon us that we can be said to strive, to crave, or to aspire. When enjoying plenary freedom either in the way of motion or of thought, we are in a sort of anaesthetic state in which we might say with Walt Whitman, if we cared to say anything about ourselves at such times, "I am sufficient as I am." This feeling of the sufficiency of the present moment, of its absoluteness,—this absence of all need to explain it, account for it, or justify it,—is what I call the Sentiment of Rationality. As soon, in short, as we are enabled from any cause whatever to think with perfect fluency, the thing we think of seems to us pro tanto rational.
Whatever modes of conceiving the cosmos facilitate this fluency, produce the sentiment of rationality. Conceived in such modes, being vouches for itself and needs no further philosophic formulation. But this fluency may be obtained in various ways; and first I will take up the theoretic way... (continues)
What is the task which philosophers set themselves to perform; and why do they philosophize at all? Almost every one will immediately reply: They desire to attain a conception of the frame of things which shall on the whole be more rational than that somewhat chaotic view which every one by nature carries about with him under his hat. But suppose this rational conception attained, how is the philosopher to recognize it for what it is, and not let it slip through ignorance? The only answer can be that he will recognize its rationality as he recognizes everything else, by certain subjective marks with which it affects him. When he gets the marks, he may know that he has got the rationality.
What, then, are the marks? A strong feeling of ease, peace, rest, is one of them. The transition from a state of puzzle and perplexity to rational comprehension is full of lively relief and pleasure.
But this relief seems to be a negative rather than a positive character. Shall we then say that the feeling of rationality is constituted merely by the absence {64}of any feeling of irrationality? I think there are very good grounds for upholding such a view. All feeling whatever, in the light of certain recent psychological speculations, seems to depend for its physical condition not on simple discharge of nerve-currents, but on their discharge under arrest, impediment, or resistance. Just as we feel no particular pleasure when we breathe freely, but a very intense feeling of distress when the respiratory motions are prevented,—so any unobstructed tendency to action discharges itself without the production of much cogitative accompaniment, and any perfectly fluent course of thought awakens but little feeling; but when the movement is inhibited, or when the thought meets with difficulties, we experience distress. It is only when the distress is upon us that we can be said to strive, to crave, or to aspire. When enjoying plenary freedom either in the way of motion or of thought, we are in a sort of anaesthetic state in which we might say with Walt Whitman, if we cared to say anything about ourselves at such times, "I am sufficient as I am." This feeling of the sufficiency of the present moment, of its absoluteness,—this absence of all need to explain it, account for it, or justify it,—is what I call the Sentiment of Rationality. As soon, in short, as we are enabled from any cause whatever to think with perfect fluency, the thing we think of seems to us pro tanto rational.
Whatever modes of conceiving the cosmos facilitate this fluency, produce the sentiment of rationality. Conceived in such modes, being vouches for itself and needs no further philosophic formulation. But this fluency may be obtained in various ways; and first I will take up the theoretic way... (continues)
==
From
From
PRAGMATISM, Lecture II-What Pragmatism Means
we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.
The universe is a system of which the individual members may relax their anxieties occasionally, in which the don't-care mood is also right for men, and moral holidays in order—that, if I mistake not, is part, at least, of what the Absolute is 'known-as,' that is the great difference in our particular experiences which his being true makes for us, that is part of his cash-value when he is pragmatically interpreted. Farther than that the ordinary lay-reader in philosophy who thinks favorably of absolute idealism does not venture to sharpen his conceptions. He can use the Absolute for so much, and so much is very precious. He is pained at hearing you speak incredulously of the Absolute, therefore, and disregards your criticisms because they deal with aspects of the conception that he fails to follow.
If the Absolute means this, and means no more than this, who can possibly deny the truth of it? To deny it would be to insist that men should never relax, and that holidays are never in order. I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is 'true' so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives. That it is GOOD, for as much as it profits, you will gladly admit. If what we do by its aid is good, you will allow the idea itself to be good in so far forth, for we are the better for possessing it. But is it not a strange misuse of the word 'truth,' you will say, to call ideas also 'true' for this reason?
To answer this difficulty fully is impossible at this stage of my account. You touch here upon the very central point of Messrs. Schiller's, Dewey's and my own doctrine of truth, which I cannot discuss with detail until my sixth lecture. Let me now say only this, that truth is ONE SPECIES OF GOOD, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it. THE TRUE IS THE NAME OF WHATEVER PROVES ITSELF TO BE GOOD IN THE WAY OF BELIEF, AND GOOD, TOO, FOR DEFINITE, ASSIGNABLE REASONS. Surely you must admit this, that if there were NO good for life in true ideas, or if the knowledge of them were positively disadvantageous and false ideas the only useful ones, then the current notion that truth is divine and precious, and its pursuit a duty, could never have grown up or become a dogma. In a world like that, our duty would be to SHUN truth, rather. But in this world, just as certain foods are not only agreeable to our taste, but good for our teeth, our stomach and our tissues; so certain ideas are not only agreeable to think about, or agreeable as supporting other ideas that we are fond of, but they are also helpful in life's practical struggles. If there be any life that it is really better we should lead, and if there be any idea which, if believed in, would help us to lead that life, then it would be really BETTER FOR US to believe in that idea, UNLESS, INDEED, BELIEF IN IT INCIDENTALLY CLASHED WITH OTHER GREATER VITAL BENEFITS.
'What would be better for us to believe'! This sounds very like a definition of truth. It comes very near to saying 'what we OUGHT to believe': and in THAT definition none of you would find any oddity. Ought we ever not to believe what it is BETTER FOR US to believe? And can we then keep the notion of what is better for us, and what is true for us, permanently apart?
Pragmatism says no, and I fully agree with her. Probably you also agree, so far as the abstract statement goes, but with a suspicion that if we practically did believe everything that made for good in our own personal lives, we should be found indulging all kinds of fancies about this world's affairs, and all kinds of sentimental superstitions about a world hereafter. Your suspicion here is undoubtedly well founded, and it is evident that something happens when you pass from the abstract to the concrete, that complicates the situation.
I said just now that what is better for us to believe is true UNLESS THE BELIEF INCIDENTALLY CLASHES WITH SOME OTHER VITAL BENEFIT. Now in real life what vital benefits is any particular belief of ours most liable to clash with? What indeed except the vital benefits yielded by OTHER BELIEFS when these prove incompatible with the first ones? In other words, the greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths. Truths have once for all this desperate instinct of self-preservation and of desire to extinguish whatever contradicts them. My belief in the Absolute, based on the good it does me, must run the gauntlet of all my other beliefs. Grant that it may be true in giving me a moral holiday. Nevertheless, as I conceive it,—and let me speak now confidentially, as it were, and merely in my own private person,—it clashes with other truths of mine whose benefits I hate to give up on its account. It happens to be associated with a kind of logic of which I am the enemy, I find that it entangles me in metaphysical paradoxes that are inacceptable, etc., etc.. But as I have enough trouble in life already without adding the trouble of carrying these intellectual inconsistencies, I personally just give up the Absolute. I just TAKE my moral holidays; or else as a professional philosopher, I try to justify them by some other principle.
If I could restrict my notion of the Absolute to its bare holiday-giving value, it wouldn't clash with my other truths. But we cannot easily thus restrict our hypotheses. They carry supernumerary features, and these it is that clash so. My disbelief in the Absolute means then disbelief in those other supernumerary features, for I fully believe in the legitimacy of taking moral holidays... (continues)
we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.
The universe is a system of which the individual members may relax their anxieties occasionally, in which the don't-care mood is also right for men, and moral holidays in order—that, if I mistake not, is part, at least, of what the Absolute is 'known-as,' that is the great difference in our particular experiences which his being true makes for us, that is part of his cash-value when he is pragmatically interpreted. Farther than that the ordinary lay-reader in philosophy who thinks favorably of absolute idealism does not venture to sharpen his conceptions. He can use the Absolute for so much, and so much is very precious. He is pained at hearing you speak incredulously of the Absolute, therefore, and disregards your criticisms because they deal with aspects of the conception that he fails to follow.
If the Absolute means this, and means no more than this, who can possibly deny the truth of it? To deny it would be to insist that men should never relax, and that holidays are never in order. I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is 'true' so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives. That it is GOOD, for as much as it profits, you will gladly admit. If what we do by its aid is good, you will allow the idea itself to be good in so far forth, for we are the better for possessing it. But is it not a strange misuse of the word 'truth,' you will say, to call ideas also 'true' for this reason?
To answer this difficulty fully is impossible at this stage of my account. You touch here upon the very central point of Messrs. Schiller's, Dewey's and my own doctrine of truth, which I cannot discuss with detail until my sixth lecture. Let me now say only this, that truth is ONE SPECIES OF GOOD, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it. THE TRUE IS THE NAME OF WHATEVER PROVES ITSELF TO BE GOOD IN THE WAY OF BELIEF, AND GOOD, TOO, FOR DEFINITE, ASSIGNABLE REASONS. Surely you must admit this, that if there were NO good for life in true ideas, or if the knowledge of them were positively disadvantageous and false ideas the only useful ones, then the current notion that truth is divine and precious, and its pursuit a duty, could never have grown up or become a dogma. In a world like that, our duty would be to SHUN truth, rather. But in this world, just as certain foods are not only agreeable to our taste, but good for our teeth, our stomach and our tissues; so certain ideas are not only agreeable to think about, or agreeable as supporting other ideas that we are fond of, but they are also helpful in life's practical struggles. If there be any life that it is really better we should lead, and if there be any idea which, if believed in, would help us to lead that life, then it would be really BETTER FOR US to believe in that idea, UNLESS, INDEED, BELIEF IN IT INCIDENTALLY CLASHED WITH OTHER GREATER VITAL BENEFITS.
'What would be better for us to believe'! This sounds very like a definition of truth. It comes very near to saying 'what we OUGHT to believe': and in THAT definition none of you would find any oddity. Ought we ever not to believe what it is BETTER FOR US to believe? And can we then keep the notion of what is better for us, and what is true for us, permanently apart?
Pragmatism says no, and I fully agree with her. Probably you also agree, so far as the abstract statement goes, but with a suspicion that if we practically did believe everything that made for good in our own personal lives, we should be found indulging all kinds of fancies about this world's affairs, and all kinds of sentimental superstitions about a world hereafter. Your suspicion here is undoubtedly well founded, and it is evident that something happens when you pass from the abstract to the concrete, that complicates the situation.
I said just now that what is better for us to believe is true UNLESS THE BELIEF INCIDENTALLY CLASHES WITH SOME OTHER VITAL BENEFIT. Now in real life what vital benefits is any particular belief of ours most liable to clash with? What indeed except the vital benefits yielded by OTHER BELIEFS when these prove incompatible with the first ones? In other words, the greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths. Truths have once for all this desperate instinct of self-preservation and of desire to extinguish whatever contradicts them. My belief in the Absolute, based on the good it does me, must run the gauntlet of all my other beliefs. Grant that it may be true in giving me a moral holiday. Nevertheless, as I conceive it,—and let me speak now confidentially, as it were, and merely in my own private person,—it clashes with other truths of mine whose benefits I hate to give up on its account. It happens to be associated with a kind of logic of which I am the enemy, I find that it entangles me in metaphysical paradoxes that are inacceptable, etc., etc.. But as I have enough trouble in life already without adding the trouble of carrying these intellectual inconsistencies, I personally just give up the Absolute. I just TAKE my moral holidays; or else as a professional philosopher, I try to justify them by some other principle.
If I could restrict my notion of the Absolute to its bare holiday-giving value, it wouldn't clash with my other truths. But we cannot easily thus restrict our hypotheses. They carry supernumerary features, and these it is that clash so. My disbelief in the Absolute means then disbelief in those other supernumerary features, for I fully believe in the legitimacy of taking moral holidays... (continues)
==
Our chief concern
If we were to ask the question: “What is human life's chief concern?” one of the answers we should receive would be: “It is happiness.” How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. William James
Penultimate happiness: "I can't stand it!"
To Henry Adams: ...Though the ultimate state of the universe may be its vital and psychical extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the PENultimate state might be the millennium-a state in which a minimum of difference of energy-level might have its exchanges so skillfully canalised that a maximum of happy and virtuous consciousness would be the only result. In short, the last expiring pulsation of the universe's life might be, "I AM SO HAPPY AND PERFECT THAT I CAN STAND IT NO LONGER!" William James, Letters June 1910 [he died in August]
Our chief concern
If we were to ask the question: “What is human life's chief concern?” one of the answers we should receive would be: “It is happiness.” How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. William James
Penultimate happiness: "I can't stand it!"
To Henry Adams: ...Though the ultimate state of the universe may be its vital and psychical extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the PENultimate state might be the millennium-a state in which a minimum of difference of energy-level might have its exchanges so skillfully canalised that a maximum of happy and virtuous consciousness would be the only result. In short, the last expiring pulsation of the universe's life might be, "I AM SO HAPPY AND PERFECT THAT I CAN STAND IT NO LONGER!" William James, Letters June 1910 [he died in August]
==
Life is in the Transitions: William James, 1842-1910 - a web version of the Houghton Library Exhibiton, created by Linda Simon
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Questions Sep 4
1. According to Haybron, is it credible to claim that genetics render some people incapable of being happier?
2. What do studies show about consumerist materialism and intrinsic motivation?
3. At what $ level do happiness and income "cease to show a pretty substantial link"?
4. What does an Aristotelian nature-fulfillment theory of happiness find objectionable about the experience machine scenario?
5. What do Desire theories have trouble explaining?
6. How might a philosophical theory of well-being settle the strivers vs. enjoyers debate?
Discussion Questions:
Oliver said: “I’ve always wanted to write poems and nothing else. There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you’re working a few hours a day and you’ve got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you’re okay.”
http://writersalmanac.org/
...and from Calvin & Hobbes
==
Cypher's choice in The Matrix
==
Aristotle thinks everyone will agree that the terms “eudaimonia” (“happiness”) and “eu zên” (“living well”) designate such an end. The Greek term “eudaimon” is composed of two parts: “eu” means “well” and “daimon” means “divinity” or “spirit.” To be eudaimon is therefore to be living in a way that is well-favored by a god. But Aristotle never calls attention to this etymology in his ethical writings, and it seems to have little influence on his thinking. He regards “eudaimon” as a mere substitute for eu zên (“living well”). These terms play an evaluative role, and are not simply descriptions of someone's state of mind.
No one tries to live well for the sake of some further goal; rather, being eudaimon is the highest end, and all subordinate goals—health, wealth, and other such resources—are sought because they promote well-being, not because they are what well-being consists in. But unless we can determine which good or goods happiness consists in, it is of little use to acknowledge that it is the highest end. To resolve this issue, Aristotle asks what the ergon (“function,” “task,” “work”) of a human being is, and argues that it consists in activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue (1097b22–1098a20). One important component of this argument is expressed in terms of distinctions he makes in his psychological and biological works. The soul is analyzed into a connected series of capacities: the nutritive soul is responsible for growth and reproduction, the locomotive soul for motion, the perceptive soul for perception, and so on. The biological fact Aristotle makes use of is that human beings are the only species that has not only these lower capacities but a rational soul as well. The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in. Doing anything well requires virtue or excellence, and therefore living well consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue or excellence.
Aristotle's conclusion about the nature of happiness is in a sense uniquely his own. No other writer or thinker had said precisely what he says about what it is to live well. But at the same time his view is not too distant from a common idea. As he himself points out, one traditional conception of happiness identifies it with virtue (1098b30–1). Aristotle's theory should be construed as a refinement of this position. He says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity. Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.
At the same time, Aristotle makes it clear that in order to be happy one must possess others goods as well—such goods as friends, wealth, and power. And one's happiness is endangered if one is severely lacking in certain advantages—if, for example, one is extremely ugly, or has lost children or good friends through death (1099a31-b6). But why so? If one's ultimate end should simply be virtuous activity, then why should it make any difference to one's happiness whether one has or lacks these other types of good? Aristotle's reply is that one's virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate supply of other goods (1153b17–19). Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, and what little he can accomplish will not be of great merit. To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune; happenstance can rob even the most excellent human beings of happiness. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists, the highest good, virtuous activity, is not something that comes to us by chance. Although we must be fortunate enough to have parents and fellow citizens who help us become virtuous, we ourselves share much of the responsibility for acquiring and exercising the virtues... (continues at SEP)
==
From THE STONE-
The Problem of ‘Living in the Present’
These days, many of us would rather not be living in the present, a time of persistent crisis, political uncertainty and fear. Not that the future looks better, shadowed by technological advances that threaten widespread unemployment and by the perils of catastrophic climate change. No wonder some are tempted by the comforts of a nostalgically imagined past.Inspiring as it seems on first inspection, the self-help slogan “live in the present” slips rapidly out of focus. What would living in the present mean? To live each day as if it were your last, without a thought for the future, is simply bad advice, a recipe for recklessness. The idea that one can make oneself invulnerable to what happens by detaching from everything but the present is an irresponsible delusion.
Despite this, there is an interpretation of living in the present, inspired by Aristotle, that can help us to confront the present crisis and the perpetual crises of struggle and failure in life. There is an insight in the self-help slogan that philosophy can redeem...
To live in the present is to appreciate the value of atelic activities like going for a walk, listening to music, spending time with family or friends. To engage in these activities is not to extinguish them from your life. Their value is not mortgaged to the future or consigned to the past, but realized here and now. It is to care about the process of what you are doing, not just projects you aim to complete... (continues... with some good comments)
==
Robert Nozick, "The Experience Machine" - original text==
#The Problem With Our Phones - SoL
==
#Franklin Foer, World Without Mind - How Tech Companies Pose an Existential Threat - npr
Journalist Franklin Foer worries that we're all losing our minds as big tech companies infiltrate every aspect of our lives.
In his new book, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, Foer compares the way we feel about technology now to the way people felt about pre-made foods, like TV dinners, when they were first invented.
"And we thought that they were brilliant because they did away with pots and pans — we didn't have to go to the store to go shopping every day — and then we woke up 50 years later and realize that these products had been basically engineered to make us fat," Foer says. "And I worry that the same thing is happening now to the things that we ingest through our mind." (listen here)
Were all other things, gods and men and starry heavens, blotted out from this universe, and were there left but one rock with two loving souls upon it, that rock would have as thoroughly moral a constitution as any possible world which the eternities and immensities could harbor. It would be a tragic constitution, because the rock's inhabitants would die. But while they lived, there would be real good thing and real bad things in the universe; there would be obligations, claims, and expectations; obediences, refusals, and disappointments; compunctions, and longings for harmony to come again, and inward peace of conscience when it was restored; there would, in short, be a moral life, whose active energy would have no limit but the intensity of interest in each other with which the hero and heroine might be endowed.
We, on this terrestrial globe, so far as the visible facts go, are just like the inhabitants of such a rock. Whether a God exist, or whether no God exist, in yon blue heaven above us bent, we form at any rate an ethical republic here below. And the first reflection which this leads to is that ethics have as genuine and real a foothold in a universe where the highest consciousness is human, as in a universe where there is a God as well. "The religion of humanity" affords a basis for ethics as well as theism does. Whether the purely human system can gratify the philosopher's demand as well as the other is a different question, which we ourselves must answer ere we close...
Every end of desire that presents itself appears exclusive of some other end of desire. Shall a man drink and smoke, or keep his nerves in condition?‑-he cannot do both. Shall he follow his fancy for Amelia, or for Henrietta?‑-both cannot be the choice of his heart. Shall he have the dear old Republican party, or a spirit of unsophistication in public affairs?‑-he cannot have both, etc. So that the ethical philosopher's demand for the right scale of subordination in ideals is the fruit of an altogether practical need. Some part of the ideal must be butchered, and he needs to know which part. It is a tragic situation, and no mere speculative conundrum, with which he has to deal...
2. What do studies show about consumerist materialism and intrinsic motivation?
3. At what $ level do happiness and income "cease to show a pretty substantial link"?
4. What does an Aristotelian nature-fulfillment theory of happiness find objectionable about the experience machine scenario?
5. What do Desire theories have trouble explaining?
6. How might a philosophical theory of well-being settle the strivers vs. enjoyers debate?
Discussion Questions:
- Buddhists say desire and attachment are our great source of unhappiness. William James (see below $) says they're "imperative" and deserve to be fulfilled to the extent they can be, without shortchanging other worthy desires. What do you say?
- Aristotle said living well consists in doing something, over a lifetime, that actualizes the virtues of the rational part of the soul. Agree? What kinds of things do you think you must do, to be happy?
- Do you consider yourself genetically advantaged or disadvantaged, in the happiness sweepstakes?
- Is there anything on your Source List that Haybron omits to mention?
- Do you identify with the Epicureans, Stoics, or Buddhists in their emphasis on simplicity as prerequisite to happiness? 56 What aspects of your life have you simplified? What would you simplify if you could (but you can't)?
- Was your childhood "coddled" and "risk-free"? 58 How risk-averse are you now?
- Is happiness a choice, or isn't it? 59 If it's a "skill," how have you chosen to cultivate it? Can you fly as (relatively) imperturbably as Haybron? 61
- Can those of us who refuse to "accept things as they are" be as happy as those who do? 61
- Have you experienced great joy from volunteer & charity work?
- Do you ever feel chastened by the thought that, though you know you should be happy, you still bicker about petty things? 64
- Do you worry about becoming a "wage slave"? Since many of us must work for wages, how can you avoid that fate?
- How much of western unhappiness is a reflection of "option freedom"? 65-6
- How important to your happiness is "being in charge of your daily routines"? 67
- Do you have any use at all for an experience machine? 78
- Can you defend watching television and playing video games in a basement as other than rank pleasure-seeking fit only for dumb grazing animals? 80
- Can a Genghis Khan or a Hitler flourish and be happy? Why not? 85
- What do you think of Haybron's remarks on the treatment of animals? 89-90
- What do you think of the School of Life's "problem with our phones" and Franklin Foer's "existential threat"? (See # below)
- Post yours
Oliver said: “I’ve always wanted to write poems and nothing else. There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you’re working a few hours a day and you’ve got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you’re okay.”
http://writersalmanac.org/
...and from Calvin & Hobbes
==
Cypher's choice in The Matrix
==
Aristotle & eudaimonia
The principal idea with which Aristotle begins is that there are differences of opinion about what is best for human beings, and that to profit from ethical inquiry we must resolve this disagreement. He insists that ethics is not a theoretical discipline: we are asking what the good for human beings is not simply because we want to have knowledge, but because we will be better able to achieve our good if we develop a fuller understanding of what it is to flourish. In raising this question—what is the good?—Aristotle is not looking for a list of items that are good. He assumes that such a list can be compiled rather easily; most would agree, for example, that it is good to have friends, to experience pleasure, to be healthy, to be honored, and to have such virtues as courage at least to some degree. The difficult and controversial question arises when we ask whether certain of these goods are more desirable than others. Aristotle's search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.Aristotle thinks everyone will agree that the terms “eudaimonia” (“happiness”) and “eu zên” (“living well”) designate such an end. The Greek term “eudaimon” is composed of two parts: “eu” means “well” and “daimon” means “divinity” or “spirit.” To be eudaimon is therefore to be living in a way that is well-favored by a god. But Aristotle never calls attention to this etymology in his ethical writings, and it seems to have little influence on his thinking. He regards “eudaimon” as a mere substitute for eu zên (“living well”). These terms play an evaluative role, and are not simply descriptions of someone's state of mind.
No one tries to live well for the sake of some further goal; rather, being eudaimon is the highest end, and all subordinate goals—health, wealth, and other such resources—are sought because they promote well-being, not because they are what well-being consists in. But unless we can determine which good or goods happiness consists in, it is of little use to acknowledge that it is the highest end. To resolve this issue, Aristotle asks what the ergon (“function,” “task,” “work”) of a human being is, and argues that it consists in activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue (1097b22–1098a20). One important component of this argument is expressed in terms of distinctions he makes in his psychological and biological works. The soul is analyzed into a connected series of capacities: the nutritive soul is responsible for growth and reproduction, the locomotive soul for motion, the perceptive soul for perception, and so on. The biological fact Aristotle makes use of is that human beings are the only species that has not only these lower capacities but a rational soul as well. The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in. Doing anything well requires virtue or excellence, and therefore living well consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue or excellence.
Aristotle's conclusion about the nature of happiness is in a sense uniquely his own. No other writer or thinker had said precisely what he says about what it is to live well. But at the same time his view is not too distant from a common idea. As he himself points out, one traditional conception of happiness identifies it with virtue (1098b30–1). Aristotle's theory should be construed as a refinement of this position. He says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity. Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.
At the same time, Aristotle makes it clear that in order to be happy one must possess others goods as well—such goods as friends, wealth, and power. And one's happiness is endangered if one is severely lacking in certain advantages—if, for example, one is extremely ugly, or has lost children or good friends through death (1099a31-b6). But why so? If one's ultimate end should simply be virtuous activity, then why should it make any difference to one's happiness whether one has or lacks these other types of good? Aristotle's reply is that one's virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate supply of other goods (1153b17–19). Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, and what little he can accomplish will not be of great merit. To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune; happenstance can rob even the most excellent human beings of happiness. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists, the highest good, virtuous activity, is not something that comes to us by chance. Although we must be fortunate enough to have parents and fellow citizens who help us become virtuous, we ourselves share much of the responsibility for acquiring and exercising the virtues... (continues at SEP)
==
From THE STONE-
The Problem of ‘Living in the Present’
These days, many of us would rather not be living in the present, a time of persistent crisis, political uncertainty and fear. Not that the future looks better, shadowed by technological advances that threaten widespread unemployment and by the perils of catastrophic climate change. No wonder some are tempted by the comforts of a nostalgically imagined past.Inspiring as it seems on first inspection, the self-help slogan “live in the present” slips rapidly out of focus. What would living in the present mean? To live each day as if it were your last, without a thought for the future, is simply bad advice, a recipe for recklessness. The idea that one can make oneself invulnerable to what happens by detaching from everything but the present is an irresponsible delusion.
Despite this, there is an interpretation of living in the present, inspired by Aristotle, that can help us to confront the present crisis and the perpetual crises of struggle and failure in life. There is an insight in the self-help slogan that philosophy can redeem...
To live in the present is to appreciate the value of atelic activities like going for a walk, listening to music, spending time with family or friends. To engage in these activities is not to extinguish them from your life. Their value is not mortgaged to the future or consigned to the past, but realized here and now. It is to care about the process of what you are doing, not just projects you aim to complete... (continues... with some good comments)
==
Robert Nozick, "The Experience Machine" - original text==
#The Problem With Our Phones - SoL
==
#Franklin Foer, World Without Mind - How Tech Companies Pose an Existential Threat - npr
Journalist Franklin Foer worries that we're all losing our minds as big tech companies infiltrate every aspect of our lives.
In his new book, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, Foer compares the way we feel about technology now to the way people felt about pre-made foods, like TV dinners, when they were first invented.
"And we thought that they were brilliant because they did away with pots and pans — we didn't have to go to the store to go shopping every day — and then we woke up 50 years later and realize that these products had been basically engineered to make us fat," Foer says. "And I worry that the same thing is happening now to the things that we ingest through our mind." (listen here)
==
$ William James's version of "desire theory"
From "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life"- (Also take a look at his "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings," making the point that we are habitually blind and insensitive to others' desires while inflating the importance of our own, and that we ought to be more mutually accommodating.)
Take any demand however slight, which any creature, however weak, may make. Ought it not, for its own sake, to be satisfied? If not, prove why not. The only possible kind of proof you could adduce would be the exhibition of another creature who should make a demand that ran the other way. The only possible reason there can be why any phenomenon ought to exist is that such a phenomenon actually is desired. Any desire is imperative to the extent of its amount; it makes itself valid by the fact that it exists at all. Some desires, truly enough, are small desires; they are put forward by insignificant persons, and we customarily make light of the obligations which they bring. But the fact that such personal demands as these impose small obligations does not keep the largest obligations from being personal demands...
$ William James's version of "desire theory"
From "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life"- (Also take a look at his "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings," making the point that we are habitually blind and insensitive to others' desires while inflating the importance of our own, and that we ought to be more mutually accommodating.)
Take any demand however slight, which any creature, however weak, may make. Ought it not, for its own sake, to be satisfied? If not, prove why not. The only possible kind of proof you could adduce would be the exhibition of another creature who should make a demand that ran the other way. The only possible reason there can be why any phenomenon ought to exist is that such a phenomenon actually is desired. Any desire is imperative to the extent of its amount; it makes itself valid by the fact that it exists at all. Some desires, truly enough, are small desires; they are put forward by insignificant persons, and we customarily make light of the obligations which they bring. But the fact that such personal demands as these impose small obligations does not keep the largest obligations from being personal demands...
Were all other things, gods and men and starry heavens, blotted out from this universe, and were there left but one rock with two loving souls upon it, that rock would have as thoroughly moral a constitution as any possible world which the eternities and immensities could harbor. It would be a tragic constitution, because the rock's inhabitants would die. But while they lived, there would be real good thing and real bad things in the universe; there would be obligations, claims, and expectations; obediences, refusals, and disappointments; compunctions, and longings for harmony to come again, and inward peace of conscience when it was restored; there would, in short, be a moral life, whose active energy would have no limit but the intensity of interest in each other with which the hero and heroine might be endowed.
We, on this terrestrial globe, so far as the visible facts go, are just like the inhabitants of such a rock. Whether a God exist, or whether no God exist, in yon blue heaven above us bent, we form at any rate an ethical republic here below. And the first reflection which this leads to is that ethics have as genuine and real a foothold in a universe where the highest consciousness is human, as in a universe where there is a God as well. "The religion of humanity" affords a basis for ethics as well as theism does. Whether the purely human system can gratify the philosopher's demand as well as the other is a different question, which we ourselves must answer ere we close...
Every end of desire that presents itself appears exclusive of some other end of desire. Shall a man drink and smoke, or keep his nerves in condition?‑-he cannot do both. Shall he follow his fancy for Amelia, or for Henrietta?‑-both cannot be the choice of his heart. Shall he have the dear old Republican party, or a spirit of unsophistication in public affairs?‑-he cannot have both, etc. So that the ethical philosopher's demand for the right scale of subordination in ideals is the fruit of an altogether practical need. Some part of the ideal must be butchered, and he needs to know which part. It is a tragic situation, and no mere speculative conundrum, with which he has to deal...
Aristotle's Way
We're doing Aristotle today in my other classes. His "happiness" is flourishing, a life of virtuous rationality or eudaimonia. He differed sharply from his teacher Plato. See Existential Comics, for instance...
Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
Aristotle "developed a sophisticated, humane program for becoming a happy person, and it remains valid to this day. Aristotle provides everything you need to avoid the realization of the dying protagonist of Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), that he has wasted much of his life scaling the social ladder, and putting self-interest above compassion and community values, all the while married to a woman he dislikes. Facing his imminent death, he hates his closest family members, who won't even talk to him about it. Aristotelian ethics encompass everything modern thinkers associate with subjective happiness: self-realization, finding "a meaning," and the "flow" of creative involvement with life, or "positive emotion." 1
This book presents Aristotle's time-honored ethics in contemporary language. It applies Aristotle's lessons to several practical real-life challenges: decision-making, writing a job application, communicating in an interview, using Aristotle's chart of Virtues and Vices to analyze your own character, resisting temptation, and choosing friends and partners.
Wherever you are in life, Aristotle's ideas can make you happier. Few philosophers, mystics, psychologists, or sociologists have ever done much more than restate his fundamental perceptions. But he stated them first, better, more clearly, and in a more holistic way than anyone subsequently.
Each part of his prescription for being happy relates to a different phase of human life, but also intersects with all the others. Becoming subjectively happy as an individual, Aristotle insisted, is your unique and momentous responsibility. It is also a great gift—it is within most people's power, regardless of their circumstances, to decide to become happier…"
— Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
— Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
Friday, August 29, 2025
Questions Sep 2
Haybron ch3-4, Life Satisfaction & Measuring Happiness
1. Is satisfaction with your life the same as thinking it's going well?
2. Does rating your life satisfaction provide reliably objective insight into your degree of happiness?
3. In what sense do "most people actually have good lives"?
4. Can the science of happiness tell us which groups tend to be happier?
5. What (verbally-expressed, non-numerical) ratio of positive over negative emotional states does happiness probably require?
6. What percentage of American college students said they'd considered suicide?
Discussion Questions (please add yours):
==
Old Podcast
==
"Brad's Status" on Fresh Air - a new film on status anxiety and the pursuit of elusive happiness.
==
How do you Measure Happiness? The Top Questionnaires
Measuring happiness is at least as difficult as catching rare and elusive butterflies. What kind of net should we use? At the Pursuit of Happiness project, we try to collect and analyze the most scientific studies on happiness and subjective well-being (SWB). The question is, how does one evaluate what the most “scientific” studies are? Naturally, randomized and controlled studies are more reliable. These kinds of studies often require an enormous amount of effort and funding, and many studies that claim to do this are flawed in various ways.
One more major challenge to reliability is how these studies measure the happiness or SWB of their subjects. The following is a list of the most widely used and respected questionnaires. As you can see, we can discover some major differences in how they approach the issue, which reflect different definitions and perceptions of happiness.
2. Does rating your life satisfaction provide reliably objective insight into your degree of happiness?
3. In what sense do "most people actually have good lives"?
4. Can the science of happiness tell us which groups tend to be happier?
5. What (verbally-expressed, non-numerical) ratio of positive over negative emotional states does happiness probably require?
6. What percentage of American college students said they'd considered suicide?
Discussion Questions (please add yours):
- Are you having wonderful life, like Wittgenstein allegedly said he did? 34
- Today, right now, where would you rate your life on a 1-10 scale? What do you think that rating says about your satisfaction and your happiness? How much has it, or will it, fluctuate in the days, weeks, and years to come?
- Do you have a good life? What will they say about you at your funeral? Will you be gratified if your children have a life comparable to yours?
- Could you be happy in Maldonia? 42 In general, are you more or less happy than the people around you?
- Do you agree with Mill's statement? 46
- Which face on the chart is yours today? 47
- Is it "impossible that 94% of Americans are happy"? 50
==
Old Podcast
==
"Brad's Status" on Fresh Air - a new film on status anxiety and the pursuit of elusive happiness.
==
How do you Measure Happiness? The Top Questionnaires
Measuring happiness is at least as difficult as catching rare and elusive butterflies. What kind of net should we use? At the Pursuit of Happiness project, we try to collect and analyze the most scientific studies on happiness and subjective well-being (SWB). The question is, how does one evaluate what the most “scientific” studies are? Naturally, randomized and controlled studies are more reliable. These kinds of studies often require an enormous amount of effort and funding, and many studies that claim to do this are flawed in various ways.
One more major challenge to reliability is how these studies measure the happiness or SWB of their subjects. The following is a list of the most widely used and respected questionnaires. As you can see, we can discover some major differences in how they approach the issue, which reflect different definitions and perceptions of happiness.
Chasing it may not work, but neither does sitting and waiting.
Oxford Happiness Inventory (Argyle and Hill)
Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper)
Satisfaction with Life Scale (Deiner, Emmons, Larsen and Griffin)
Panas Scale (Watson, Clark, Tellegen)
And this is Todd Kashdan’s thoughtful critique of the above scales:
The assessment of subjective well-being (issues raised by the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire)
We should mention a recent measurement of Subjective Well Being created by the OECD, as part of their very sophisticated and broad ranging survey, theBetter Life Initiative. This initiative is fascinating and includes some eye-popping graphics. To see their detailed report on SWB and the questions they used to measure it, please refer to the end note.
The strong point of both the Panas Scale and the OECD Subjective Well Being scale is that they measure both positive and negative affect, which, as one might expect, have a clear inverse correlation.
http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/measuring-happiness/
==
And speaking of Buddhists, Robert Wright's audacioiusly-titled Why Buddhism is True tackles the western secular version as a philosophy of happiness.
Thursday, August 28, 2025
Honors College workshops
From Judy Albakry:
We’d greatly appreciate your help in promoting our upcoming Honors College workshops.
These sessions are essential for honors students who wish to be approved for early registration this fall for Spring 2026 registration. If students are unable to attend the workshop, there is a video they can watch instead.
While we’ve been reaching out via email, a brief announcement in your class would go a long way in ensuring students don’t miss this opportunity.
Early Registration Workshops – No RSVP needed
- September 4, 2025, 2:30 in HONR 106
- September 5, 2025, 1:00 in HONR 106
- September 5, 2025, 2:00 in HONR 106
Remind students to:
Check their MTSU email for workshop details
Contact their honors advisor with any questions
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
The A.I. Cheating Crisis
Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis.
Since A.I. has made the mental effort of writing and problem solving optional, universities need new ways to require the work needed for learning.
I remember the moment I knew my approach to student use of artificial intelligence was not working.
Early in a meeting at N.Y.U.'s Abu Dhabi campus last fall, a philosophy professor, arms crossed over his chest, told me he'd tried one of the strategies my office had suggested — talking with his students about the ways A.I. could interfere with their learning — and it hadn't worked. His students had listened politely, then several of them had used A.I. to write their papers anyway. He particularly wanted me to know that "even the good students," the ones who showed up to class wanting to talk about the readings, were using A.I. to avoid work outside class.
This was a theme I'd hear over and over, listening to faculty members across disciplines at the end of the semester; even some of the students who obviously cared about the material and seemed to like the classes were no longer doing the hard work of figuring out what they wanted to say. Our A.I. strategy had assumed that encouraging engaged uses of A.I. — telling students they could use software like ChatGPT to generate practice tests to quiz themselves, explore new ideas or solicit feedback — would persuade students to forgo the lazy uses. It did not...
Clay Shirky
Since A.I. has made the mental effort of writing and problem solving optional, universities need new ways to require the work needed for learning.
I remember the moment I knew my approach to student use of artificial intelligence was not working.
Early in a meeting at N.Y.U.'s Abu Dhabi campus last fall, a philosophy professor, arms crossed over his chest, told me he'd tried one of the strategies my office had suggested — talking with his students about the ways A.I. could interfere with their learning — and it hadn't worked. His students had listened politely, then several of them had used A.I. to write their papers anyway. He particularly wanted me to know that "even the good students," the ones who showed up to class wanting to talk about the readings, were using A.I. to avoid work outside class.
This was a theme I'd hear over and over, listening to faculty members across disciplines at the end of the semester; even some of the students who obviously cared about the material and seemed to like the classes were no longer doing the hard work of figuring out what they wanted to say. Our A.I. strategy had assumed that encouraging engaged uses of A.I. — telling students they could use software like ChatGPT to generate practice tests to quiz themselves, explore new ideas or solicit feedback — would persuade students to forgo the lazy uses. It did not...
Clay Shirky
More on the peripatetic life
Gymnasiums of the Mind
"Followers of the Greek Aristotle were known as peripatetics because they passed their days strolling and mind-wrestling through the groves of the Academe. The Romans’ equally high opinion of walking was summed up pithily in the Latin proverb: [Solvitur ambulando] “It is solved by walking.” Nearly every philosopher-poet worth his salt has voiced similar sentiments. Erasmus recommended a little walk before supper and “after supper do the same.” Thomas Hobbes had an inkwell built into his walking stick to more easily jot down his brainstorms during his rambles. Jean- Jacques Rousseau claimed he could only meditate when walking: “When I stop, I cease to think,” he said. “My mind only works with my legs.” Søren Kierkegaard believed he’d walked himself into his best thoughts. In his brief life Henry David Thoreau walked an estimated 250,000 miles, or ten times the circumference of earth. “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits,” wrote Thoreau, “unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absolutely free from worldly engagements.” Thoreau’s landlord and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson characterized walking as “gymnastics for the mind.
In order that he might remain one of the fittest, Charles Darwin planted a 1.5 acre strip of land with hazel, birch, privet, and dogwood, and ordered a wide gravel path built around the edge. Called Sand-walk, this became Darwin’s ‘thinking path’ where he roamed every morning and afternoon with his white fox-terrier. Of Bertrand Russell, long-time friend Miles Malleson has written: “Every morning Bertie would go for an hour’s walk by himself, composing and thinking out his work for that day. He would then come back and write for the rest of the morning, smoothly, easily and without a single correction.”
None of these laggards, however, could touch Friedrich Nietzsche, who held that “all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Rising at dawn, Nietzsche would stalk through the countryside till 11 a.m. Then, after a short break, he would set out on a two-hour hike through the forest to Lake Sils. After lunch he was off again, parasol in hand, returning home at four or five o’clock, to commence the day’s writing...
"Followers of the Greek Aristotle were known as peripatetics because they passed their days strolling and mind-wrestling through the groves of the Academe. The Romans’ equally high opinion of walking was summed up pithily in the Latin proverb: [Solvitur ambulando] “It is solved by walking.” Nearly every philosopher-poet worth his salt has voiced similar sentiments. Erasmus recommended a little walk before supper and “after supper do the same.” Thomas Hobbes had an inkwell built into his walking stick to more easily jot down his brainstorms during his rambles. Jean- Jacques Rousseau claimed he could only meditate when walking: “When I stop, I cease to think,” he said. “My mind only works with my legs.” Søren Kierkegaard believed he’d walked himself into his best thoughts. In his brief life Henry David Thoreau walked an estimated 250,000 miles, or ten times the circumference of earth. “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits,” wrote Thoreau, “unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absolutely free from worldly engagements.” Thoreau’s landlord and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson characterized walking as “gymnastics for the mind.
In order that he might remain one of the fittest, Charles Darwin planted a 1.5 acre strip of land with hazel, birch, privet, and dogwood, and ordered a wide gravel path built around the edge. Called Sand-walk, this became Darwin’s ‘thinking path’ where he roamed every morning and afternoon with his white fox-terrier. Of Bertrand Russell, long-time friend Miles Malleson has written: “Every morning Bertie would go for an hour’s walk by himself, composing and thinking out his work for that day. He would then come back and write for the rest of the morning, smoothly, easily and without a single correction.”
None of these laggards, however, could touch Friedrich Nietzsche, who held that “all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Rising at dawn, Nietzsche would stalk through the countryside till 11 a.m. Then, after a short break, he would set out on a two-hour hike through the forest to Lake Sils. After lunch he was off again, parasol in hand, returning home at four or five o’clock, to commence the day’s writing...
Walking, as both a mode of transportation and a recreational activity, began to fall off noticeably with the rise of the automobile, and took a major nosedive in the 1950s. Fifty plus years of automobile-centric design has reduced the number of sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly spaces to a bare minimum (particularly in the American west). All of the benefits of walking: contemplation, social intercourse, exercise, have been willingly exchanged for the dubious advantages of speed and convenience, although the automobile alone cannot be blamed for the maddening acceleration of everyday life. The modern condition is one of hurry, a perpetual rush hour that leaves little time for meditation. No wonder then that in her history of walking, Rebecca Solnit mused that “modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness,” which seems the antithesis of Wittgenstein’s observation that in the race of philosophy, the prize goes to the slowest.
If we were to compare the quantity and quality of thinkers of the early 20th century with those of today, one cannot help but notice the dearth of Einsteins, William Jameses, Eliots and Pounds, Freuds, Jungs, Keynes, Picassos, Stravinskys, Wittgensteins, Sartres, Deweys, Yeats and Joyces..."
If we were to compare the quantity and quality of thinkers of the early 20th century with those of today, one cannot help but notice the dearth of Einsteins, William Jameses, Eliots and Pounds, Freuds, Jungs, Keynes, Picassos, Stravinskys, Wittgensteins, Sartres, Deweys, Yeats and Joyces..."
Christopher Orlet, Philosophy Now
Learning to care
“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look - I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring - caring deeply and passionately, really caring - which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naïveté - the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball - seems a small price to pay for such a gift.”
― Roger Angell, Game Time: A Baseball Companion
― Roger Angell, Game Time: A Baseball Companion
"Small stuff"
"An idea for a short story about, um, people in Manhattan who are constantly creating these real, unnecessary, neurotic problems for themselves cos it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about... the universe. Let's... Well, it has to be optimistic. Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things, I guess, that make it worthwhile. Like what? OK... for me... Ooh, I would say Groucho Marx, to name one thing. And Willie Mays. And... the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony. And... Louis Armstrong's recording of Potato Head Blues. Swedish movies, naturally. Sentimental Education by Flaubert. Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra. Those incredible apples and pears by C?anne. The crabs at Sam Wo's. Tracy's face..."
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Questions Aug 28
Some of these questions will likely turn up (in one form or another) on our first exam. Reply to any of the discussion questions you like, in the comments space. OR, come up with your own comments and/or questions. Try to post at least three separate comments/questions/links prior to each class, in the comments space below.
ch1
1. Who has frequently been held up by philosophers as a paradigm of happiness?
2. What nation did Gallup find to be happiest in terms of daily experience?
3. What does Haybron say will most likely NOT be on your deathbed list of things you'd like to experience again before you go?
4. What was Aristotle's word for happiness, and what did he particularly not mean by it?
5. Which of Haybron's three happiness theories is not mainly concerned with feelings?
6. Why does Haybron consider "subjective well-being" unhelpful?
ch2
7. How does the author's Dad describe existence "on the Pond"?
8. What does Big Joe the commercial fisherman feel at the end of his working day, and how does he feel generally?
9. Your posture or stride reveals something deeper than what?
10. The author says moments like the one depicted in the photo on p.18 involve no what?
11. Who developed the notion of flow?
12. Tranquility, confidence, and expansiveness are aspects of what state of mind/body?
13. Though your temperament may be more or less fixed, your ___ may be more or less prone to change with circumstances.
14. What famous western Buddhist says happiness is an optimal state of being, much more than a feeling?
Discussion Questions (please add your own)
ch1
1. Who has frequently been held up by philosophers as a paradigm of happiness?
2. What nation did Gallup find to be happiest in terms of daily experience?
3. What does Haybron say will most likely NOT be on your deathbed list of things you'd like to experience again before you go?
4. What was Aristotle's word for happiness, and what did he particularly not mean by it?
5. Which of Haybron's three happiness theories is not mainly concerned with feelings?
6. Why does Haybron consider "subjective well-being" unhelpful?
ch2
7. How does the author's Dad describe existence "on the Pond"?
8. What does Big Joe the commercial fisherman feel at the end of his working day, and how does he feel generally?
9. Your posture or stride reveals something deeper than what?
10. The author says moments like the one depicted in the photo on p.18 involve no what?
11. Who developed the notion of flow?
12. Tranquility, confidence, and expansiveness are aspects of what state of mind/body?
13. Though your temperament may be more or less fixed, your ___ may be more or less prone to change with circumstances.
14. What famous western Buddhist says happiness is an optimal state of being, much more than a feeling?
Discussion Questions (please add your own)
- Do you often, or ever, experience a state of mindless meditation? Are you happy in those moments? Or must such moments recur regularly over the course of a lifetime before such a judgment would be appropriate?
- How often do you find yourself fully engaged and absorbed in what you're doing? Do you think you could learn to experience such a state of being more frequently and reliably?
- How much attention do you pay to your posture and bodily presentation? When striding confidently do you feel more confident, when sitting erect do you feel more competent? Can acting happy make you happy?
- This isn't how most philosophers would define "rationality," but what do you think of it as a description of happiness? "When enjoying plenary freedom either in the way of motion or of thought, we are in a sort of anaesthetic state in which we might say with Walt Whitman, if we cared to say anything about ourselves at such times, " I am sufficient as I am." This feeling of the sufficiency of the present moment, of its absoluteness, — this absence of all need to explain it, account for it, or justify it, — is what I call the Sentiment of Rationality. As soon, in short, as we are enabled from any cause whatever to think with perfect fluency, the thing we think of seems to us pro tanto rational." William James
- Do you ever experience "flow," when your absorption in a task makes the experience of the passage of time drop away? Did you experience that more when younger? (Could that be what the poet Wordsworth was talking about when he referred to intimations of immortality in childhood?)
- How do you manage your bad moods? Does it work for you to try and ignore them, and just get on with your day? Or have you learned the Stoic/Vulcan art of distancing yourself from all moods? Is it possible to achieve selective distancing, drawing closer to happy moods and away from bad ones?
- Who's the happiest person you know? What have you learned from observing them?
- Do you agree that there's never been a better time to be alive? 1 (Steven Pinker in Better Angels of Our Nature, for one, says life's never been better.)
- "Life is good" - agree? What hypothetical circumstances in your life do you imagine might reverse your opinion?
- Do you think many poor communities are happier than the average college student? 3
- How important is health, and healthcare, in your conception of happiness? 7
- Do we need a theory or definition of happiness? 10
- What do you think of Aristotle's approach? 11
- Do you have views about eastern (eg, Buddhist) approaches to happiness?
- Can you be a genuinely happy individual in an unhappy society? 13
New life
"Men talk much of a new birth. The fact is fundamental. But the mistake is in treating it as an incident which can only happen to a man once in a lifetime; whereas the whole journey of life is a succession of them. A new life springs up in the soul with the discovery of every new agency by which the soul is raised to a higher level of wisdom, goodness and joy."
— Frederick Douglass, "Lecture on Pictures (1861)"
— Frederick Douglass, "Lecture on Pictures (1861)"
Kurt’s rule
Every day, we face the choice to react with cruelty or kindness. Here's what happens to our mood and well-being when we decide to be good to others.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meditation-for-modern-life/202508/want-to-be-happy-start-by-being-kind
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meditation-for-modern-life/202508/want-to-be-happy-start-by-being-kind
Monday, August 25, 2025
Introductions Fall '25
I'm Dr. Oliver, teacher of this course in alternative Fall semesters at MTSU for many moons now.
I, like Thomas Jefferson, think the pursuit of happiness in the broadest sense (which includes something like the old Greek notions of virtue and excellence) is a human birthright, though that's not to say it's always easy to achieve. Its conditions are worth studying, to enhance its pursuit.
Who are you? Why are you here? Are you happy? What do you consider the conditions of your and others' happiness? (For me, the pursuit involves family, friends, baseball, books, dogs, health of course...)
Click on the comments tab below and share your thoughts. Whoever goes first second will be rewarded with a bit of swag on Opening Day. (Gary's already posted his introduction, and he already has all the swag. But you can have more if you want, Gary.)
See you all on the 26th!
E-texts free via library
Suzanne Mangrum of the Walker Library reports that at least one of our texts is available for free (via the library) in e-text formats:
Against happiness
https://ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login?url=https://www.degruyterbrill.com/isbn/9780231557962
She also says: "To see more about the library’s effort to support students and faculty in offering affordable course materials, please check out our web page and new affordable course materials search."
Haybron's Very Short Intro to Happiness--excerpt
Some old posts about Haybron's Happiness...
“Life is good”
So said the Amazonian Piraha people, according to Daniel Everett, before it became a popular marketing slogan.
Happiness (the class) begins for real today with Daniel Haybron’s Very Short Introduction, which includes that epigramatic reference to the Pirahas and then tells us that Socrates – so often exalted as a paradigmatically happy man, right up until the hemlock kicked in, in his 70th year – “didn’t miss out on a thing.” Well, he missed out on his 71st. Life might have been better, certainly longer.
Was Socrates happier than the average college student? “You might think the typical college student lives in a state of bliss,” with minimal obligations and maximal opportunities to ruminate, socialize, and party, but apparently that would be wrong. How many of them are living the examined life? Ignorance is perhaps not bliss, after all? But what about enlightened Socratic ignorance? Either way, American students are apparently less happy than we thought.
Panama is most blissful, evidently. Or was. More recent results point elsewhere. Denmark? Iceland? (I think I recall Eric Weiner’s Geography of Bliss giving them high marks.)
One way to chart our happiness index is to ask what’s on your bucket list. Another: what’s not on your deathbed list of things you just have to do one more time. Maybe not “another peck at the mobile phone, or one more trip to the mall.” Maybe you won’t wish you’d bought more crap.
“What sort of life ultimately benefits a person,” wondered Aristotle. What, not shopping or iPhoning? How many of us can even imagine how bizarre those activities would seem to an old Greek philosopher?
A young Intro student yesterday told me it was his impression that philosophy was mostly about pondering and pontificating on our feelings. But Haybron quickly withdraws feeling theories from the field, in favor of “life satisfaction.” But don’t confuse that with “subjective well-being,” a catch-all of psychologism he says we mustn't confuse with our real quarry.
Has there really never been a better time to be alive? I wouldn’t have said the first decade of this millennium was the best ever, but it depends on the yardstick. Steven Pinker’s Better Angels makes the case for our good luck.
Many indigenous peoples say the only thing they envy about the western industrial lifestyle is healthcare (and we know how fraught that is). William James told his friend Schiller to “keep your health, your splendid health – it’s worth all the truths in the firmament.” Hard not to agree, especially after a bout with serious illness. If you’ve not experienced that, by the time you reach “a certain age,” you’re even luckier than most.
Haybron says “we need a theory – a definition – of happiness.” Do we? What do you mean, we? We philosophers? We authors? We moderns? We shoppers and social media fanatics? Why can’t we be happily undefined and atheoretical? Presumably because the absence of a good theoretical framework leaves us in the wrong “state of mind.”
Happiness is a state of mind, for sure, but it’s even more a state of experience and expectation. No?
8.31.17
A happy atheist
"I want to show people, look, the magic of life as evolved, that's thrilling!" says philosopher Daniel C. Dennett. "You don't need miracles."
"...In his new memoir, I've Been Thinking, Dennett, a professor emeritus at Tufts University and author of multiple books for popular audiences, traces the development of his worldview, which he is keen to point out is no less full of awe or gratitude than that of those more inclined to the supernatural. 'I want people to see what a meaningful, happy life I've had with these beliefs," says Dennett, who is 81. "I don't need mystery...'" nyt
---
UPDATE. Dennett died in April 2024. His memoir is terrific.
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Philosophy students flourish
Turns out studying philosophy is actually valuable. Philosophy majors don't just argue well, they actually become better thinkers and do better on tests.
Data from 600k students shows they outscore every other major on reasoning, curiosity and open-mindedness.
https://buff.ly/tDBEvuF
Data from 600k students shows they outscore every other major on reasoning, curiosity and open-mindedness.
https://buff.ly/tDBEvuF
Thursday, August 21, 2025
“Here’s What Happened When I Made My College Students Put Away Their Phones”
…I banned all cellphones and computer-based note taking in the classroom, with the exception that students could use a device if they wrote with a stylus. Initially, my students were skeptical, if not totally opposed. But after a couple of weeks, they recognized they were better off for it — better able to absorb and retain information, and better able to enjoy their time in class.
My policy required phones to be turned off, and, more important, not be visible on desks. I did allow students who were expecting urgent calls — say, from a spouse about to have a baby — to have a mobile phone readily available during class.
Class sessions are recorded, and transcripts of the lectures are available any time after class to students with academic accommodations or those who want to go over them again...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/opinion/mobile-phones-college-classrooms.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The Happiness Files
Arthur Brooks
https://www.threads.com/@arthurcbrooks/post/DNl7jfMJNHD?xmt=AQF0AVL-YxRCn_bJ6uja2PtWoR93hJwNgdNOHYhSq1XbbA
https://www.threads.com/@arthurcbrooks/post/DNl7jfMJNHD?xmt=AQF0AVL-YxRCn_bJ6uja2PtWoR93hJwNgdNOHYhSq1XbbA
==
Podcast: Office Hours with Arthur Brooks
dog content
"Sometimes dog content is the single strand of wire tethering our society to decency and sanity." — Elias Weiss Friedman, The Dogist
In a digital world filled with outrage, comparison, and distraction, Elias—better known as @TheDogist—offers an unexpected antidote: dogs.
He describes them as a kind of remedy for modern life. Dogs pull us into the present. They're generous with eye contact. And with their joy and playfulness, they remind us how to be a little more human.
https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DNlIscfse7F?xmt=AQF05CUeI6n4yYIwlOKtOgFky0Gysar5uSIZFMYOO1ofMw
In a digital world filled with outrage, comparison, and distraction, Elias—better known as @TheDogist—offers an unexpected antidote: dogs.
He describes them as a kind of remedy for modern life. Dogs pull us into the present. They're generous with eye contact. And with their joy and playfulness, they remind us how to be a little more human.
https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DNlIscfse7F?xmt=AQF05CUeI6n4yYIwlOKtOgFky0Gysar5uSIZFMYOO1ofMw
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
MTSU’s Career Development Center
FYI-
MTSU’s Career Development Center offers career coaching, job fairs, resume reviews, free professional clothing, and much more. The center exists to empower all students with tools and strategies to discover and engage in meaningful work and a purposeful life.
More information: mtsu.edu/career
Career Leadership Badge Program
A micro-credential that helps students develop and implement a plan to reach their career goals, sharpening skills that enhance career readiness.
Learn more: mtsu.edu/career/career-
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Happiness clear and clean
It's both, and more. He really thought so too.
"Happiness, I have lately discovered, is no positive feeling, but a negative condition of freedom from a number of restrictive sensations of which our organism usually seems to be the seat. When they are wiped out, the clearness and cleanness of the contrast is happiness. This is why anesthetics make us so happy. But don't you take to drink on that account!"
The Letters of William James, jy 10 1901: https://a.co/5NnKUJh
Unless this is precisely what you mean by “happy”
"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Just sit, think, and write
Do you keep a journal? I recommend it.
And I challenge you all to sit for at least 15 minutes the night before each class and write your thoughts about the next day's assigned reading. You can respond to the discussion questions I've posted, or to classmates' posts, or to your own reflections-after you've done the reading.
And then, as a bonus, you can claim bases on the scorecard the next day.
The bigger bonus will be your growing capacity for clarity and depth of focus, and your acquisition of a philosophy grounded in your own experience and considered perspective.
And I challenge you all to sit for at least 15 minutes the night before each class and write your thoughts about the next day's assigned reading. You can respond to the discussion questions I've posted, or to classmates' posts, or to your own reflections-after you've done the reading.
And then, as a bonus, you can claim bases on the scorecard the next day.
The bigger bonus will be your growing capacity for clarity and depth of focus, and your acquisition of a philosophy grounded in your own experience and considered perspective.
Opinionated
He has a point. We should have at least as many questions as opinions.
But... I'm glad Oliver shares my opinion about this:
Sunday, August 17, 2025
A clear horizon
Alfred Hitchcock's definition of happiness
https://www.threads.com/@michaelwarburton1/post/DNbP3EfqAFM?xmt=AQF0OVls-PYy9_eksVdruLq4pwOEUeMx7N3qZUfF6M7v5g
https://www.threads.com/@michaelwarburton1/post/DNbP3EfqAFM?xmt=AQF0OVls-PYy9_eksVdruLq4pwOEUeMx7N3qZUfF6M7v5g
Saturday, August 16, 2025
Not just for the pooches anymore
For Gen Z, 'Little Treats' Are Worth Going Over Budget
Any excuse is good enough for young adults to treat themselves, whether it's failing an exam, getting a "job well done" from a boss or simply washing the dishes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/business/gen-z-treat-spending.html?smid=em-share
Any excuse is good enough for young adults to treat themselves, whether it's failing an exam, getting a "job well done" from a boss or simply washing the dishes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/business/gen-z-treat-spending.html?smid=em-share
==
More talkin' about your generation...
Inside the World of Gen Z
The generation of people born between 1997 and 2012 is changing fashion, culture, politics, the workplace and more.
After almost 20 years on air, “Dancing With the Stars” brought a surge of Gen Z viewers through its canny use of TikTok, casting of younger dance pros and the chance virality of “wow moments” from routines.
Black church congregations are struggling to attract younger members. That has consequences for social cohesion and Black political power writ large.
For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers. They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious.
Many of Harvard’s Generation Z say “sellout” is not an insult, instead it appears to mean something strikingly corporate-minded.
A younger generation of crossword constructors is using an old form to reflect their identities, language and world. Here’s how Gen Z made the puzzle their own.
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Let's introduce ourselves, fellow Happiness scholars/pursuers. I'm Dr. Oliver, I've been teaching this course in alternate years...
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View this post on Instagram A post shared by Phil Oliver (@osopher) MTSU philosophy lecturer to speak on ‘Freedom in E...
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E3 1. How was Aristotle both correct and incorrect about how the seasons changed? Pg. 27 2. What did the Epicureans regard as the most ...
