Course Description
Summary
The legendary Al Green sang it best. Love and happiness seem to be inextricably intertwined. Popular narratives stress that we can’t have one without the other. But if we do find love, they say, we’ll live “happily ever after.” These popular ideas invite many questions: To what extent is happiness under my control? Can circumstances make my life less happy? How is feeling happy related to being happy? How do my choices affect my life's happiness? How exactly do love and friendship figure in a happy life? And, what is it to lead a happy life, anyway? In this course, we’ll engage in a philosophical inquiry into love and happiness. We will focus on texts from Greek antiquity as the basis for our inquiry. Likely core readings include Plato’s Symposium, Lysis, and Phaedrus and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
