Human Happiness

3 credits · Undergraduate

This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to an understanding of happiness. The first part of the course will be devoted to the different treatments of happiness in the world's philosophical traditions, focusing on conceptions or the good life in classical Greek and Judeo-Christian thought, and major East Asian beliefs like Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, along with Enlightenment ideas about happiness. We will then examine happiness within the behavioral sciences, evolutionary studies, and neuroscience. Special emphasis will be placed on how happiness arises from experiences related to moral emotions, such as gratitude, compassion, reverence, and awe, as well as aesthetic emotions like humor and beauty.