We’ve distilled our Scholars’ research for this semester into respective questions; click here to take a look at the questions posted yesterday. In forthcoming posts, we’ll feature in-depth look at each. For now, we thought our readers would enjoy pondering each question. Together, they can read as a kind of meditation on the inter-relatedness of virtue, happiness, and deep meaning in life.

 

When and why are people accurate or inaccurate predictors of their own future feelings?

~Heather C. Lench, Texas A&M University

 

What roles do stories, social identities, and value pursuits play in the ways people understand their lives to have meaning?

~Dan P. McAdams, Northwestern University

 

How do we get people to abandon the notions of human separation from, and superiority to, nature?

~ Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame

 

Do the fundamental human capacities for desire and aversion possess a rational structure, and can a Thomistic understanding of virtue help us understand it?

~Jean Porter, University of Notre Dame

 

Is it better to put the existence of evil out of our minds, or focus on how to respond to it?

~David Shatz, Yeshiva University

 

Should one die for God, and if so, under what conditions?

~Josef Stern, University of Chicago

 

What is the role of religious freedom in the context of the modern, non-confessional state?

~Father Thomas Joseph White, Thomistic Institute, Dominican House of Studies

 

How do we differentiate between positive and negative varieties of self-transcendence?

~Paul T.P. Wong, Trent University