Happiness: A Humanist's Perspective

Join us at the Scott Center for a conversation over a delicious vegetarian Taste of India dinner, facilitated by Prof. Bill Vitek, Affiliate Humanist Chaplain. RSVP here by Tuesday at noon.

Questions about happiness are central to how we live and organize our lives, and it has been studied by philosophers, theologians, psychologists, and all manner of social sciences. Our conversation will be focused on a letter that Roman philosopher and statesman Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote to his brother Gallio around A.D. 58, and discussed recently in an essay in The Atlantic by Arthur Brooks. Seneca was a bit of a happiness expert, having written about it throughout his life, and despite having chronic pain for decades and being ordered by the Emperor to take his own life. Are there lessons in this ancient document for our own times? Brooks thinks so.  Here’s a link to Brook’s article and to Seneca’s letter.