{"id":38379,"date":"2024-09-12T15:16:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T22:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=38379"},"modified":"2024-09-12T15:16:50","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T22:16:50","slug":"aristotles-happiness-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/aristotles-happiness-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Aristotle&#8217;s Happiness Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c7\" style=\"text-align: center\">\u201cIt occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The resume virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones talked about at your funeral\u2013whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?\u201d-David Brooks,\u00a0<span class=\"c9 c0\">The Moral Bucket List<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c7 c11\" style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p class=\"c7\" style=\"text-align: center\">\u201cWithout friends, no one would want to live, even if [they] had all other goods.\u201d -Aristotle,\u00a0<span class=\"c0 c9\">Ethics<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\">David Brooks is a political and cultural commentator, as well as the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute. \u00a0Many of us read his regular column in the\u00a0<em><span class=\"c0\">New York Times<\/span><\/em>\u00a0and his featured work in\u00a0<em><span class=\"c0\">The Atlantic Monthly,<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"c0\">Newsweek,<\/span>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em><span class=\"c0\">The Weekly Standard<\/span>.<\/em> My favorite way to hear Brooks was in person at a small leadership conference at Westmont College in June of 2022 where I first heard him read a draft of his latest book,\u00a0<em><span class=\"c0\">How to Know a Person<\/span><\/em><sup class=\"c0\"><a id=\"ftnt_ref1\" href=\"#ftnt1\">[1]<\/a><\/sup>. \u00a0In June of 2015, he published a piece in\u00a0<em><span class=\"c0\">NYT<\/span><\/em>\u00a0titled <em>The Moral Bucket List<\/em><sup><a id=\"ftnt_ref2\" href=\"#ftnt2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup><span class=\"c3\">\u00a0where he writes about experiences that offer us the richest possible inner life:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"c15 lst-kix_ar6o7yprx6l-0 start\">\n<li class=\"c6 li-bullet-0\"><span class=\"c3\">The Humility Shift: what is an element of pride you\u2019ve neglected to address?<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c6 li-bullet-0\"><span class=\"c3\">Self-Defeat: what is a weakness you need to confront and how?<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c6 li-bullet-0\"><span class=\"c3\">The Dependency Leap: what is a deep connection you\u2019ve been avoiding?<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c6 li-bullet-0\"><span class=\"c3\">Energizing Love: what is the energizing love prompting an unshakable commitment?<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c6 li-bullet-0\"><span class=\"c3\">That Call Within the Call: what is the call within you call?<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c6 li-bullet-0\"><span class=\"c3\">The Conscience Leap: have you had a conscience leap?<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c6 li-bullet-0\"><span class=\"c3\">What does it mean to see life as a moral adventure?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c8\"><span class=\"c3\">It seems Brooks is asking philosophically dense questions, or at least pointed questions about human flourishing, during a time when leaders desperately need someone to differentiate between our resume virtues and our eulogy virtues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\">I began this blog post with a contemporary writer and thinker who is asking similar questions about the inward journey, the inner voice, and becoming oneself through self-examination\u2013as the author whose work I chose to read this week:\u00a0<span class=\"c0\">Aristotle\u2019s <em>Nicomachean Ethics<\/em><\/span><span class=\"c3\">. Although hundreds of years apart, I am struck how both authors unearth reflections that help us pay attention to our sense of calling. \u00a0Both confront us on what we care about most and how those deep values inform our sense of work and contribution to the world through and in our vocations&#8211;and how relationships inform our calling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\" style=\"text-align: center\"><em><strong><span class=\"c3\">Might it be worth it to reflect on our sense of calling as we read these posts and how it relates to what we are doing in our \u201ccareers\u201d or our leadership and how our thinking has evolved these past two years?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\">Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher whose contributions have shaped much of Western thought. \u00a0He became a student of Plato\u2019s at 17 years old, studying at his Academy in Athens for twenty years. \u00a0<em><span class=\"c0\">Nicomachean Ethics<\/span><\/em><sup class=\"c0\"><a id=\"ftnt_ref3\" href=\"#ftnt3\">[3]<\/a><\/sup><span class=\"c0\">\u00a0<\/span>consists of 10 books, written around 350 BCE. Aristotle is exploring a key Socratic question: How should human beings best live? \u00a0Aristotle\u2019s focus in\u00a0<em><span class=\"c0\">Ethics<\/span><\/em><span class=\"c3\"><em>\u00a0<\/em>is on the practical, rather than the theoretical, responses to that question. This work would become foundational to later Western pursuits of philosophy and ethics. \u00a0Medieval philosophers and theologians like Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes, would eventually base their work from Aristotle\u2019s insights. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\"><span class=\"c3\">Reading Aristotle causes me to reflect on happiness and fulfillment\u2013what it is and where it comes from. \u00a0Is happiness something that is normal human behavior? \u00a0The book starts off with naming the three kinds of life, according to Aristotle: \u00a0The pleasurable life, the political life and the contemplative Life. \u00a0Within these three types of life, Aristotle believes that cultured and active human beings pursue honor by conferring it on others rather than seeking to be honored. \u00a0He claims that common, run of the mill lazy human beings seek the pleasurable life by seeking to be honored.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\"><span class=\"c3\">Aristotle is not saying that seeking one\u2019s honor is not wrong; in fact, he makes the point that our honor depends upon those who confer it. \u00a0If we pursue honor to assure ourselves of our worth, then we must seek it from those who really, truly know us. \u00a0Further, the honor we crave from those who know us will only give us honor if it\u2019s based on excellence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\" style=\"text-align: center\"><em><span class=\"c3\">Do we believe this to be true? \u00a0And how might a reflection on happiness\/fulfillment help us honestly answer this question? How much of what makes us happy derives from the honor or recognition that others bestow upon us?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\">The chapter continues with Aristotle answering his own question as he covers the topic of self-sufficiency when he writes, \u201c . . \u00a0. not by \u201cself\u201d alone. We do not mean a human being who lives their life in isolation, but someone who lives also with parents, children, spouse, friends and fellow citizens generally, since humans are by nature a social and political being.\u201d<sup><a id=\"ftnt_ref4\" href=\"#ftnt4\">[4]<\/a><\/sup><span class=\"c3\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\"><span class=\"c3\">Still arguing for human beings to only pursue happiness, he then offers a definition of happiness:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\">\u201cWe may define happiness as prosperity combined with virtue; or as independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum pleasure; or as a good condition of property and body, together with the power of guarding one\u2019s property and making use of them.\u201d<sup><a id=\"ftnt_ref5\" href=\"#ftnt5\">[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\"><span class=\"c3\">If I were to summarize what I think Aristotle is speaking to us from more than 300 years ago in his writings, I would point us back to David Brook\u2019s <em>Moral Bucket List<\/em>. \u00a0Happiness is seeking the good life, the flourishing life, a life that finds sufficiency in what one already has in rich relationships, meaningful work, vocation and finding one\u2019s worth in the eyes of another person who sees the good, the excellence. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\">How might this teach us something about leadership? \u00a0I find Aristotle and Brooks shining a light on what Martyn Percy said to us one year ago:<\/p>\n<p class=\"c8\">\u201cLeadership taps into your personal life, self, health, partnerships, mental, physical and spiritual life\u2013learn to listen and to attend. The bedrock of the flourishing life is being attentive, kind and disciplined.\u201d<sup><a id=\"ftnt_ref6\" href=\"#ftnt6\">[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 Leaders must first and foremost care for their relationships like the Psalmist who claims, \u201cAs for the saints (godly people) who are in the land, they are the majestic and the noble and the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.\u201d<sup><a id=\"ftnt_ref7\" href=\"#ftnt7\">[7]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<hr class=\"c14\" \/>\n<div>\n<p class=\"c4\"><a id=\"ftnt1\" href=\"#ftnt_ref1\">[1]<\/a><span class=\"c10 c1\">\u00a0Brooks, David. How to Know a Person. The Art of Seeing and Being Seen.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"c4\"><a id=\"ftnt2\" href=\"#ftnt_ref2\">[2]<\/a><span class=\"c1\">\u00a0Brooks, David. \u201cOpinion | The Moral Bucket List.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c0 c1\">The New York Times<\/span><span class=\"c1\">, April 11, 2015, sec. Opinion.<\/span><span class=\"c1\"><a class=\"c12\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/12\/opinion\/sunday\/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html&amp;sa=D&amp;source=editors&amp;ust=1726182528228490&amp;usg=AOvVaw2XVYTn-vzR7maCEDVX6n3v\">\u00a0<\/a><\/span><span class=\"c1 c2\"><a class=\"c12\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/12\/opinion\/sunday\/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html&amp;sa=D&amp;source=editors&amp;ust=1726182528228805&amp;usg=AOvVaw1X-XX6UTcWbdeZ1Vd447vt\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/12\/opinion\/sunday\/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html<\/a><\/span><span class=\"c10 c1\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c4 c11\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"c4\"><a id=\"ftnt3\" href=\"#ftnt_ref3\">[3]<\/a><span class=\"c1\">\u00a0Aristotle, and John Alexander Smith.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c1 c0\">Nicomachean Ethics<\/span><span class=\"c1 c10\">. Edited by Graphyco Editions. Translated by Drummond Percy Chase. Independently published, 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c4 c11\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"c4\"><a id=\"ftnt4\" href=\"#ftnt_ref4\">[4]<\/a><span class=\"c10 c1\">\u00a0P. 30.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"c4\"><a id=\"ftnt5\" href=\"#ftnt_ref5\">[5]<\/a><span class=\"c10 c1\">\u00a0P. 31<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"c4\"><a id=\"ftnt6\" href=\"#ftnt_ref6\">[6]<\/a><span class=\"c10 c1\">\u00a0Martyn Percy. Oxford Advance. September 23, 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"c4\"><a id=\"ftnt7\" href=\"#ftnt_ref7\">[7]<\/a><span class=\"c10 c1\">\u00a0Psalm 16:3, AMP.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The resume virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones talked about at your funeral\u2013whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?\u201d-David Brooks,\u00a0The Moral [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38380,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38379\/revisions\/38380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}