in Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life 411 Words

Frey and Vogler Keynote Stockholm Conference

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Photo by Erik Angner

Our scholar Erik Angner has coordinated the workshop “Workshop: Happiness, Virtue, and the Meaning of Life” at Stockholm University.

In recent years, psychologists, neuroscientists, economists, and other scientists have turned their attention to traditional philosophical themes of happiness, virtue, and the meaning of life. Perhaps not coincidentally, philosophers’ interest in these themes appears to have been rekindled.

This two-day workshop aims to close the gap between empirical and philosophical approaches to questions of happiness, virtue, and the meaning of life, in the interest of encouraging the development of an empirically informed philosophy and a science with philosophical awareness.

The workshop’s keynotes are the Co-Principal Investigators for Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life.


 Jennifer A. Frey’s talk is

Self-Love and Self-Transcendence
 
This paper will address the question of the connections between virtue, happiness, and meaning of life through the lens of “self-transcendence.”  I will explore what the concept of self-transcendence means by way of an account of appropriate self-love.  Aquinas argues that vice, and bad human action generally, should be understood in terms of inordinate (excessive or misdirected) self-love.  Appropriate self-love, by contrast, inclines one to, and finds its ultimate fulfillment in, the love of others; in short, it is a “self-transcendent” love. In this paper, I will explore Aquinas’s account of appropriate self-love as the foundation for the good or happy life, and the implications of this account for virtue ethics.

Candace Vogler’s talk is

Synderesis

Aquinas holds that human beings are the animals that have to figure out what to do–things are differently challenging for us than they are for other kinds of animals, however careful he is to notice that the highest levels of cognitive functioning in some nonhuman animals are very close to the simplest levels of human cognitive functioning.  But he also holds that we come equipped with something that he calls a “natural habit”–synderesis.  Synderesis gives us some initial direction, and gains more specific content as we mature.  In this talk, I will discuss Aquinas’s notion of synderesis, and explain the sense in which it is plausible to think that there is such a habit, linking my discussion to some work in developmental psychology with an occasional nod in the direction of controversy in contemporary Anglophone philosophy about the ‘guise of the good’ thesis.

For more about the workshop, speakers, and schedule, visit http://www.philosophy.su.se/english/about-us/events/workshop-happiness-virtue-and-the-meaning-of-life