Can happiness come from virtue? This lively book makes a good argument in the affirmative.
Call no one happy until after he is dead, goes the old Greek adage. Hall (Classics/King’s Coll., London; Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind, 2013, etc.) takes a rosier view, drawing on Aristotelean philosophy to cheer us up in grim times.
By the author’s account, Aristotle was the first philosopher to consider the question of happiness subjectively and, from that consideration, to offer “a sophisticated, humane program for becoming a happy person.” The active quality of that clause should be kept in mind, for the process of happiness is ongoing and involves effort on the part of the person who wishes to be happy, requiring that one work on controlling the baser qualities and highlighting the better ones. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Hall points out in her nontechnical but deeply grounded discussion, Aristotle writes that happiness “comes as the result of a goodness, along with a learning process, and effort.” That a person can “think herself into happiness” works on a principle that is profoundly democratic: Anyone can do it, and after doing so, happiness becomes a matter of “self-conscious habit” and resolution. Hall charts the evolution of the idea of happiness as the exercise of virtue into the thinking of Thomas Jefferson, who was quite deliberate in the use of the term “happiness” as the goal of an inalienable right. What works against happiness? There are several agents, among them weakness of will and “sheer bad luck,” though recognizing that this bad luck is (usually) beyond one’s control is key to creating a better mood. Other aspects of happiness, as Hall’s lucid account demonstrates, include generosity, ongoing education and appreciation of the arts, the study of history and literature (as a vehicle for understanding, or, as she puts it, “a gymnasium for developing our ethical muscles”), and the application of one’s intellect to real-world problems such as landing a job.
Can happiness come from virtue? This lively book makes a good argument in the affirmative.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2080-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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