What Good is Happiness? A Dialogue Between Economics and Philosophy

 

Thanks to  The Veritas Forum and The Lumen Christi Institute (among others), I participated in a dialogue with Professor Jonathan Masur about the nature of happiness.  Professor Masur is a subjectivist about happiness and (unsurprisingly) I strongly disagree!

Podcast: “Revelations of Love in John Steinbeck” | Sacred & Profane Love, Episode 9

Download Episode 9: “Revelations of Love in John Steinbeck”

 

In Episode 9 of Sacred & Profane Love “Revelations of Love in John Steinbeck,” Philosopher Jennifer A. Frey speaks with Thomist Theologian, Fr Michael Sherwin, OP, about John Steinbeck’s secular understanding of Christian caritas (charity) and how Steinbeck captures the beauty and power of love in the simple act of sharing breakfast with strangers. Their conversation tackles the nature of divine love as understood by Augustine and Aquinas.

 

Rev. Prof. Michael Sherwin OP, was one of our faculty for our 2016 Summer Session “Virtue & Happiness”, and is Professor of Fundamental Moral Theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Fr. Sherwin is director of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Institute for Theology and Culture and of the Pinckaers Archives.  Author of articles on the psychology of love, virtue ethics and moral development, his monograph, By Knowledge and By Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (CUA Press, 2005) has been reissued in paperback.

 

Jennifer A. Frey is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. Prior to joining the philosophy faculty at USC, she was a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts and an affiliated faculty in the philosophy department.  She earned her PhD in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, and her B.A. in Philosophy and Medieval Studies (with Classics minor) at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her research lies at the intersection of philosophy of action and ethics, with a particular focus on the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition.

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This podcast is a project of Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life, and is made possible through a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Content copyright the University of South Carolina and the University of Chicago.

Music credits, “Help me Somebody,” by Brian Eno and David Byrne, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.5.

Congratulations to the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing: “Self, Virtue and Public Life Project”

The University of Oklahoma Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing is the recipient of a $3.9 million grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to advance the “Self, Virtue and Public Life Project.” The grant will provide funding for new research projects, conferences, edited volumes and community outreach activities. The project is set to begin September 1, 2018, and conclude on August 31, 2021.

“The Institute is truly grateful to the Templeton Religion Trust for its support of this important project,” said Nancy Snow, director of the institute. Nancy Snow is also a scholar with the project Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life.

37126878223_788b711fa8_zThe research will include approximately 10 new research projects at $190,000 each; two conferences for grant awardees to present their work; two edited volumes in “the Virtues” series; two conferences for volume contributors to share ideas and interact; two volumes authored by Snow; and four postdoctoral students who will produce articles and share at conferences.

Community outreach activities funded by this grant include the “Civic Virtues Project,” which will integrate and study the effects of civic virtues education in courses taught at Norman High School, Norman North High School and Irving Middle School. A “Teachers’ Guide to Civic Virtue: Civility, Compassion and Fairness,” will be produced and made available on the project website.

Six two-day workshops in a series entitled, “Beyond Tolerance: Civic Virtues in Nonprofit Leadership,” is planned in collaboration with the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits, an organization that reaches 240 nonprofit leaders throughout the state of Oklahoma.

A high-profile speakers’ series entitled, “Faith and Civic Virtue in Public Life,” will include three speakers who will visit the OU campus to discuss the topic. Audiences impacted are academics and teachers, students, nonprofit leaders and the general public.

For more about the award, visit https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/uoo-oia062718.php

“Right Behind the Rain” | VIDEO

“Right Behind the Rain” tells the story of the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, led by our scholar, philosopher Nancy Snow — and the impact it is having at the University of Oklahoma and in the broader community.

How to Give a Good Gift | VIDEO

Jennifer J. Rothschild is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florida. She specializes in ethics, primarily Aristotle’s ethics of virtue. Her work aims to use philosophy to help us understand what makes actions, people, and whole human lives good or bad. Rothschild was a participant in our 2017 Summer Seminar “Virtue, Happiness, & Self-Transcendence.”

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd-LmlnE9QE

Ten Myths About Character, Virtue and Virtue Education – Plus Three Well-Founded Misgivings

RBJE_COVER_66-02.inddThis 2013 article by our scholar Kristján Kristjánsson has become the first in the British Journal of Educational Studies‘ history to exceed 10,000 downloads! Congratulations, Kristján!

Abstract:

Initiatives to cultivate character and virtue in moral education at school continue to provoke sceptical responses. Most of those echo familiar misgivings about the notions of character, virtue and education in virtue – as unclear, redundant, old-fashioned, religious, paternalistic, anti-democratic, conservative, individualistic, relative and situation dependent. I expose those misgivings as ‘myths’, while at the same time acknowledging three better-founded historical, methodological and practical concerns about the notions in question.

Download for yourself here.

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Photo by Valerie Wallace.

Kristján Kristjánsson is Professor of Character Education and Virtue Ethics;  Deputy Director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham. He is a scholar with the project Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life.

 

“What Good Are the Humanities?” by Talbot Brewer, available in Raritan

The Spring 2018 issue of Raritan features our scholar Talbot Brewer’s piece “What Good Are the Humanities?”

raritanquarterly.rutgers.edu/current-issue

You can watch a version of this talk on our website: http://virtue.uchicago.edu/brewer

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Talbot Brewer is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Virginia. He specializes in ethics and political philosophy, with particular attention to moral psychology and Aristotelian ethics.  Brewer is a scholar with the project Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life.