Writing and Critical Thinking: Conditions of Happiness

Introduction

Introduction

In this course, we will investigate a fundamental human question: what is happiness, and what do we need to attain it? Is happiness primarily about being satisfied with our lives or does it consist in fulfilling our emotional aspirations or in having a positive balance of pleasure over pain? Is happiness an all-encompassing goal, or can it conflict with other considerations such as meaning, morality, or authenticity? If so, how do we address such conflicts? To reflect on this set of questions about happiness and well-being, we will investigate the arguments of philosophers, psychologists, and cultural critics. The goal of our inquiry is not so much to arrive at a fixed answers but to critically reflect on the concept of happiness from different angles. In addition to investigating the topic of happiness, this course will serve as an introduction to the craft of writing and critical thinking. We will begin by analysing the basic elements of academic writing and discuss strategies to help you construct a well-reasoned argument, respond to other writers’ claims, and anticipate objections. Subsequently, we will discuss the structural elements of an effective research paper, with particular attention to strategies for revising your first draft. After the mid-semester break, we will discuss how to generate a significant research question and how to identify, evaluate, and use sources to support your own argument.

Course organization

Since this course aims to help you hone your writing and critical thinking skills, we will spend much of our time discussing strategies for becoming a better reader and writer. In addition to peer writing workshops, one-on-one writing conferences, and oral presentations, which will take up an entire class session, we will discuss a writing-related topic during the first half of each class. During the second half, we will discuss the assigned readings, guided primarily by student questions and responses.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Analyze and critically evaluate arguments in texts drawn from different academic disciplines
Construct a clearly defined research problem, explain its significance, and articulate an argument that addresses it
Critically engage with relevant sources that will help you to contextualize and support your argument
Articulate your argument in a clearly structured, evidence-based way, and respond to anticipated objections
Revise your written work based on peer and instructor feedback and offer targeted suggestions for improvement to your fellow students

Assessment

1. Attendance and participation (10%):

You are expected to attend every class, to arrive on time, and to remain in class for the duration of the session.
If you have a medical or other emergency that prevents you from attending class, please email me as soon as possible.
For unexcused absences, your final grade for the class will be reduced by half a letter grade for the first two missed classes, and a full letter grade for each missed class after that. Each late arrival will be counted as missing half a class.
You will be expected to carefully read the texts assigned for each class and to actively participate in class discussions.For every class in which we discuss a text, you will be expected to post 1-3 short discussion questions about that text to the IVLE forum by 9am on the day of class. These questions are meant to be analytical and should aim to provoke discussion rather than inviting a factual answer or a personal opinion. In addition to posting discussion questions, you are welcome to ask comprehension questions about any aspects of the text that you didn’t fully understand.

2. Peer writing workshops (5%):

At several points in the semester, will offer feedback on your fellow students’ drafts and upload your written comments to IVLE after the workshop session. You will receive credit for the effectiveness and thoroughness of your comments.

3. Research presentation (10%):

During week 13, you will be expected to deliver a 10 – 15-minute research presentation, based on your third paper’s argument.
After your presentation, there will be 5-minute Q&A in which your fellow students will have the opportunity to ask questions about your project and offer feedback.

4. Writing Assignments (75%):

Blog posts and responses (15%, ca. 6 pp. total): the assignment will be uploaded to IVLE by Monday of week 1
Paper 1 (20%, 4- 5 pp.): the assignment will be uploaded to IVLE by Monday of week 2
Paper 2 (35%, 9-10 pp.) the assignment will be uploaded to IVLE by Monday of week 7
Research proposal (5%, ca. 2-3 pp.): the assignment will be uploaded to IVLE by Monday of week 9

Schedule

Week 1: Intuitions about happiness

Tuesday:

Introduction
Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, Chapter 1, pp. 3-12 (11 p.)
- Read this chapter AFTER you fill out the introductory survey
- Be prepared to answer the following questions in class:
  - What specific sets of questions does the philosophy of happiness set out to answer? How do they differ from the science of happiness?
  - Briefly define and explain the three theories of happiness covered in the chapter. What are the similarities and differences between the views?

Friday

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, Chapter 2, pp. 13-28 (15 pp.)
- Spoiler alert: this chapter gives away the plot of The Truman Show.
- Prepare to discuss the following questions in small groups in class:
  - Do you think that Truman Burbank was happy before he found out that his life was a sham? Why or why not? What does your answer reveal about whether you think of happiness as a state of mind or something more? Explain.
  - What sorts of elements are missing from Truman’s life that might suggest that there is more to happiness than our first-hand experience? Do you think these elements can have an effect on Truman’s happiness, whether he realizes it or not? Why or why not?
  - Present and discuss the two conflicting intuitions about happiness that the case of Truman Burbank raises. Which of these two intuitions do you think is more reflective of happiness? What reasons can you offer to support your thinking?
  - Do you think that happiness is just a matter of good fortune or luck? If not, what are the ways in which we can control our happiness? What are some reasons we might think that happiness is a matter of luck and that we have little control over it? If happiness were partially determined and beyond your control, would this make it any less valuable to you as a goal in life? Why or why not?
Writing topic: critical reading, forum post assignment
- Reference reading: Brookfield, "What is Critical Thinking?"

Week 2: Is happiness about maximizing pleasures?

Tuesday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 4, pp. 61-80 (18 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following questions in class:
  - Define the theory of quantitative hedonism. What are some advantages of this view of happiness?
  - Describe the difference between the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self.” According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, do the two tell us the same story about happiness? Discuss the experimental evidence he offers in defense of his view.
  - Explain the phenomenon of adaptation. What evidence do Brickman, Coates, and Janoff-Bulman offer for thinking that we are subject to adaptation? What evidence does economist Richard Easterlin provide to support adaptation? How does this relate to the “hedonic treadmill”?
Posting group 1: respond to one of the questions below and highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, evidence, analysis) in your post.
1. Do you think Hugh Hefner’s life was happy, and what are your reasons for thinking so?
2. Given that we remember things differently from how we experience them, which self should we trust to get a more “objective” accounting of how much pleasure or pain an episode contains, according to Kahneman? How does this relate to the distinction between moment utilities and remembered utilities? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
3. Does the fact that we adapt to hedonic experiences offer an objection to the hedonist view of happiness, in your opinion? Why or why not?
4. Given that we remember things differently from how we experience them, which self should we trust to get a more “objective” accounting of how much pleasure or pain an episode contains, according to Kahneman? How does this relate to the distinction between moment utilities and remembered utilities? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
Writing topic: elements of the academic essay; paper 1 assignment
- Reference reading: Gordon Harvey, A Brief Guide to the Elements of the Academic Essay (3 pp.)
- Assignment:
  - Upload a copy of the sample midterm paper below to the 'Reading assignments' folder on your Google Drive and identify the elements of the academic essay in it, using the comment function.
  - You can collaborate with your fellow students on this assignment (and future reading assignments), but if you do so, please add a note indicating who was involved.
Exit survey: critical reading strategies

Friday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 4, pp. 80-92 (12 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following questions in class:
  - Define the view of qualitative hedonism. How is it similar to and different from quantitative hedonism?
  - Present and explain the two different explanations that Mill offers for why we prefer higher-quality to lower-quality pleasures.
Posting group 2: respond to one of the questions below and highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, evidence, analysis) in your post.
1. Explain the “narrative direction” objection to hedonism offered by philosopher Robert Nozick. Do you agree with him that this poses a serious problem to quantitative hedonism as a view of happiness? Why or why not?
2. Discuss the differences between how Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill understand pleasure. If there are a variety of types of pleasures, as Mill suggests, what is it that they all share such that we collect them all together under the category “pleasure”? Whose view do you think is more accurate, and why?
3. What is Mill’s explanation of what makes a pleasure specifically of higher quality? Do you agree with Mill that it is better to be a “Socrates dissatisfied” than “a pig satisfied”? Why or why not?
4. Nozick argues that we sometimes desire things for reasons other than how they feel. Do you agree with Nozick that this undermines hedonism? Why or why not?
Writing topic: summary and quotation; plagiarism
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research, chapter 14 (13 pp.)
- Assignment:
  - Highlight the passages in the sample paper in which the author summarizes his/her sources in yellow. Then answer the following questions, using the comment function:
    - What is the function of this summary?
    - Is it clear, fair, and sufficient?
    - Is it framed well? Identify the ‘templates’ the author uses.
  - Highlight the passages in the sample paper in which the author quotes his/her sources in light blue. Then answer the following questions, using the comment function:
    - What is the rhetorical function of this quotation? I.e. why do you think the author quoted the passage rather than summarizing it? Is the quotation purposeful?
    - How is the quotation framed? Does the author succesfully put the quotation in a ‘quotation sandwich’?

Week 3: Is happiness about our attitudes and emotions?

Tuesday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 5, pp. 93-106 (13 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following questions in class:
  - Explain the concept of attitudinal pleasure, and how it informs the view of attitudinal hedonism. What is the difference between Feldman’s attitudinal hedonism and the feeling-based accounts of hedonism discussed previously in Chapter Four?
  - According to Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson, what is miswanting? What are three different explanations they identify that contribute to our miswanting? In answering this question, be sure to offer examples of each.
Posting group 3: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, evidence, analysis), and add a summary/quotation sandwich to your post.
1. Explain Fred Feldman’s examples of Wendell and Dolores. Do you agree with him that these examples show that there are such things as unhappy pleasures and happy pains? Why or why not?
2. Using the example of eating spicy food, explain why Feldman thinks that attitudes are prior to feelings and how that is contrary to the views expressed by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Do you agree with Feldman’s view? Why or why not?
3. What advice can we glean from the phenomenon of miswanting about how best to pursue our own happiness?
4. Does the fact that we miswant offer an objection to the hedonist view of happiness, in your opinion? Why or why not?
Writing topic: making evidence-based arguments
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research, chapters 7-9 (30 pp.)
- Assignment:
  - Identify the individual arguments in the sample paper and, for each of them, identify 'claim', 'reason' (a.k.a. analysis), and 'evidence', using the comment function.
  - Explain in a comment if you accept or reject this argument, and why (i.e. is the problem with the reasoning, the evidence, or the warrant?)

Friday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 5, pp. 106-113 (7 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following questions in class:
  - Explain and discuss how Daniel Haybron uses the example of eating a cracker to object to hedonism.
  - Explain Haybron’s emotional state theory of happiness.
Posting group 1: respond to one of the questions below and highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post.
1. Explain and discuss how Daniel Haybron uses the example of eating a cracker to object to hedonism. Explain some possible responses available to the hedonist in reply to Haybron. Do you think that these responses are adequate, or has Haybron successfully objected to hedonism? Explain your reasons for thinking as you do.
2. How is Haybron’s emotional state theory of happiness different from hedonism? Do you think it's a better theory of happiness? Why (not)?
3. Explain the two main ways of understanding the distinction between “positive” and “negative” affects. Which do you think is more accurate, and why?
4. Do you agree with Martha Nussbaum that treating emotions as “positive” or “negative” according only to their feeling is a serious problem for hedonistic theories of happiness? Why or why not?
Writing topic: anticipating questions and objections
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research, chapter 10 (13 pp.)
- Assignment:
  - Identify passages in which the author of the sample anticipates questions or objections, either by hedging or by addressing them outright, and highlight them in light green.
  - Using the comment function, explain how successful you find their attempt to answer the questions / respond to the objections. E.g., are they reported clearly, fairly, and succinctly? Do they pose a genuine challenge to the author’s argument? Are the author’s responses clear and convincing? Do you have any suggestions for improvement?

Week 4: Is happiness about being satisfied? (1)

Tuesday:

No class (CNY)

Wednesday/Thursday: quick brainstorming conferences (optional)

Sign up for a 15-minute consultation under 'Consultation' on the right
Prepare a 5-minute informal presentation that answers (most of) the following questions:
- What is the question you want to address and what piqued your interest in it?
- What will an interested reader gain from reading your answer to this question?
- What is your (preliminary) answer to this question?
- What kind of reasons and evidence have you come up with so far to support this answer?
- What kind of questions or objections to your argument do you anticipate?
- What kind of further reasons and evidence do you think you’ll need to make your argument stronger?
- What kind of problems are you anticipating as you start writing the actual essay? How do you plan to address them?

Friday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 6, pp. 117-133 (16 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following questions in class:
  - Explain the difference between thinking of happiness as the feeling of pleasure and thinking of it as the attitude of satisfaction. Use an example to illustrate the difference.
  - Describe local desire satisfactionism. What are some concerns with this account of happiness? Do you think this is a plausible account of happiness, and why or why not?
  - Describe whole life satisfactionism. What are some concerns with this account of happiness? Do you think this is a plausible account of happiness, and why or why not?
Posting group 2: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, and respond to an anticipated question or objection
1. Do you think that Stephen Hawking’s life was a happy one despite his having suffered the effects of ALS for most of his life? Explain your reasons for thinking so. What does your answer suggest about whether or not happiness is best understood as a feeling?
2. According to Władysław Tatarkiewicz, the present plays a very minor role in our judgments of life satisfaction. In what ways might this be understood as a challenge to Daniel Kahneman’s “objective happiness” discussed in Chapter Four? Do you agree with Tatarkiewicz concerning the degree to which present experience influences happiness? Why or why not?
3. Explain the different ways in which the past can have an impact on our current judgments of life satisfaction. Must a person have had a satisfactory past in order to be satisfied with his or her life? In answering, be sure to explain a “contrast effect,” as well as some of the empirical evidence provided by Amos Tversky and Dale Griffin for such a phenomenon.
4. Tatarkiewicz argues that the future holds the most weight in our happiness. Do you agree? Why or why not? Can you think of examples from your own life where this is the case?
Writing topic: introductions and conclusions
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research, chapter 16 (15 pp.)
- Assignment:
  - Using the comment feature, mark the sentence(s) in the sample paper's introduction that provide (a) context/orienting for the paper’s argument and a description of an ‘accepted view’, (b) a description of the problem/motive that the paper aims to address, (c) the paper’s thesis (d) an explanation of the paper’s motive or significance, (e) any optional elements (roadmap, concession etc).
  - Can you identify any improvements compared to the working introduction you discussed on Tuesday? Do you have any suggestions for the writer on how to further strengthen the introduction?
  - After reading the paper, do you think the introduction precisely and concisely introduces what you’ve read? Does the body of the text fulfill the promises the author makes in the introduction, and do you think the introduction successfully introduces the arguments that follow?
  - Does the conclusion wrap up the argument in a way that restates its most significant points and elaborates on their significance? Do you have any suggestions for improvement?

Week 5: Is happiness about being satisfied? (2)

Tuesday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 6, pp. 133-45 (12 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following questions in class:
  - According to Robert Nozick, if you are not happy, then one thing you can do is to change the standards by which you evaluate your life as a whole. Explain how this would work and why we might want to do it.
  - Daniel Haybron argues that there is no authoritative perspective from which to make judgments of life satisfaction, rendering our judgments as essentially arbitrary. Explain why Haybron thinks this, and use at least one example to illustrate his point.
  - Psychologists Norbert Schwarz and Fritz Strack offer much empirical data to suggest that we are unreliable judges of our own life satisfaction. Describe some of the ways in which we err in evaluating our lives as wholes.
  - Martha Nussbaum questions whether it is even possible to meaningfully answer the question of whether we are satisfied with our life as a whole. Explain three reasons for thinking we cannot formulate genuine life satisfaction judgments.
Posting group 3: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, and respond to an anticipated question or objection.
1. According to Robert Nozick, if you are not happy, then one thing you can do is to change the standards by which you evaluate your life as a whole. What worry does this raise with life satisfaction views, according to Nozick? Do you agree with him that this is a problem for this view of happiness? Why or why not?
2. Daniel Haybron argues that there is no authoritative perspective from which to make judgments of life satisfaction, rendering our judgments essentially arbitrary. Do you agree with him that this constitutes a serious objection to life satisfactionism? Why or why not?
3. Psychologists Norbert Schwarz and Fritz Strack offer much empirical data to suggest that we are unreliable judges of our own life satisfaction. Supposing their findings are accurate, do you believe that this undermines life satisfactionism as a theory of happiness? Why or why not?
4. Martha Nussbaum questions whether it is even possible to meaningfully answer the question of whether we are satisfied with our life as a whole. Do you think that we can reliably evaluate our lives as wholes in the way required by the theory of life satisfactionism? Explain your reasons for thinking as you do.
Writing topic: planning, drafting, and organizing your argument
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research chapters 12-13 (22 pp.)
- Assignment:
- - In each body paragraph of the sample paper, underline the topic sentence and keywords. Do they tell you what this paragraph is about and how it builds on the previous paragraphs and contributes to unpacking the paper’s thesis? Add a comment to highlight particularly effective topic sentences or ones that you think could be improved.
  - Mark the transitional words and phrases in each paragraph in bold. Do they help you understand the flow of the argument within each paragraph? Are there enough of them? Add a comment to suggest improvements.

Wednesday/Thursday: quick brainstorming conferences (optional)

Sign up for a 15-minute consultation under 'Consultation' on the right
Prepare a 5-minute informal presentation that answers (most of) the following questions:
- What is the question you want to address and what piqued your interest in it?
- What will an interested reader gain from reading your answer to this question?
- What is your (preliminary) answer to this question?
- What kind of reasons and evidence have you come up with so far to support this answer?
- What kind of questions or objections to your argument do you anticipate?
- What kind of further reasons and evidence do you think you’ll need to make your argument stronger?
- What kind of problems are you anticipating as you start writing the actual essay? How do you plan to address them?

Friday:

Peer review workshop

Week 7: Is ignorance bliss?

Tuesday:

Reading:
- Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 8, pp. 175-84 (9 pp.)
- Nozick, "The Experience Machine" (3 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following question in class:
  - Describe the Experience Machine thought experiment from Robert Nozick. Do you think that you could be happy living in the machine for the rest of your life? Why or why not?
Posting group 1: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, and respond to an anticipated question or objection.
1. Nozick argues that the conclusion we should draw from the Experience Machine thought experiment is that more matters to our lives than just happiness, which he identifies with our subjective experience of life “from the inside.” Briefly discuss the other values he identifies as important to life. Do you agree with Nozick that more matters to our life other than subjective experience? Why or why not?
2. Recall the case of Truman Burbank discussed in Chapter Two. Apply each of Nozick’s three values discussed in Chapter Eight to the case of Truman. In so doing, be sure to explain whether you think that Truman was happy living on Seahaven Island prior to discovering that his life was radically deceived, and give your reasons.
3. Nozick argues that one lesson we can learn from the Experience Machine is that more matters to a good life than happiness. According to Nozick, happiness is only one element of well-being. He thus believes that while we might be happy living in the machine, we would choose not to plug in because we would see that we would be missing other crucially important elements of a good life. Do you agree that this is the correct conclusion to draw? Or do you think, instead, that we should interpret the experiment as illustrating that there is more to happiness than mere subjective experience?
Writing topic: research paper assignment; crafting a research question
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research, chapter 3. From Topics to Questions; chapter 4. From Questions to a Problem

Friday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 8, pp. 185-96 (9 pp.)
Posting group 2: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, and respond to an anticipated question or objection.
1. According to Richard Kraut, the question of whether a person is happy is really about whether his or her life measures up to some standard, and not whether he or she is in some particular psychological state. Explain why Kraut thinks this. Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
2. Kraut describes the example of a high-school student who has been subjected to a cruel trick: his classmates have deceitfully voted him to be the most popular student, causing him to experience the most euphoric joy he has ever felt in his life. However, days later, he discovers that he had been duped, and he is devastated. Must the high-school student still maintain that this particular day was among the happiest days in his life? Or can we make sense of his actually judging it to be one of his unhappiest days? What does your answer imply about whether or not happiness is the same as being in a certain psychological state? What does Kraut think we can learn from this example?
3. Contrary to what Nozick and Kraut argue, some might think that our happiness can actually be served by some measure of deception. What would be some reasons for believing this? Do you agree with this assertion, and why or why not? Then again, would such a claim necessarily undermine the claims of Nozick and Kraut? Explain your answer.
4. Julia Annas offers an example of a woman who loses her job as a result of whistle-blowing on corrupt practices. Briefly describe the two different interpretations she offers of this scenario, and how these responses support the idea that happiness is not merely about one’s experience of pleasure and satisfaction. Do you agree with Annas, and why or why not?
Writing topic: finding sources
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research, chapter 5. From Problems to Sources

Week 8: Can a bad person be happy?

Tuesday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 3, pp. 29-46 (17 pp.)
- Prepare to answer the following questions in class:
  - Define and explain the concept of well-being or living a good life. How is the good life different from the moral life?
  - Explain the difference between an evaluative term and a descriptive term. What are some examples of each, and how do they illustrate the distinction? Do you think that happiness is descriptive or evaluative? Why?
Posting group 3: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, and respond to an anticipated question or objection.
1. Do you think that Ted Bundy was happy? Why or why not? What might this imply about your idea of what it means to be a happy person? Explain.
2. Do you think that Bundy’s life went well for him? Why or why not? If you think that Bundy’s life did not go well, do you think that this would require us to also say that he was unhappy? Why or why not? What does this imply about the connection between happiness and well-being?
3. Do you think the standards for evaluating a good life are universal or particular? What reasons can you offer to support your thinking?
4. What reasons can be offered for thinking of happiness and well-being as different or the same? Which do you find more persuasive? What are the possible connections between happiness and well-being, if they refer to different concepts?
Writing topic: engaging sources
- Reference reading: The Craft of Research, chapter 6 (20 pp.)

Friday:

Reading:
- Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 3, pp. 47-57 (10 pp.)
  - Prepare to answer the following question in class:
    - What are the possible conceptual relationships between the happy life and the moral life? Explain each carefully.
- Sample research paper
Posting group 1: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, respond to an anticipated question or objection, and, optionally, engage with one external source.
1. Explain the distinction between a self-regarding value and an other-regarding value and discuss how this applies to the difference between a happy life and a moral life. Why does Bishop Joseph Butler contend that the happy life and the moral life are never actually in conflict? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
2. What are the possible conceptual relationships between the happy life and the moral life? Which do you think comes closest to the truth? What reasons can you offer in support of your view?
3. Even if the happy life and the moral life are not directly conceptually connected, do you agree that that living morally will nonetheless causally contribute to living a happy life? Why or why not?
4. In a potential case of conflict, which do you think is more important: securing one’s private happiness or living morally? What reasons can you offer in support of your view?
Writing topic: sample research paper discussion
- Assignment: read the sample research paper and comment on how well it does according to the following rubric:
  - It displays a high level of critical thinking and an in-depth engagement with the sources.
  - It contextualizes, cites, and reports the views to which the author is responding in a way that is clear, accurate, and succinct.
  - It incorporates, frames, and cites content taken from the sources in a way that clearly explains how and why the sources are used.
  - It correctly cites all of its sources in a bibliography that follows APA, MLA, or Chicago style conventions.

Week 9: Is happiness about living up to your potential?

Tuesday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 9, pp. 197-213 (16 pp.)
Posting group 2: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, respond to an anticipated question or objection, and, optionally, engage with one external source.
1. In Plato’s Republic, Glaucon attempts to convince Socrates that living virtuously often comes at the expense of one’s happiness. Explain and discuss the two examples Glaucon offers to make his case. Do you agree with Glaucon that being virtuous and being happy are regularly at odds with one another? What reasons do you have for thinking as you do?
2. Plato thinks that the life of justice or virtue is necessary and sufficient for living happily and that when one acquires virtue this leads one to think about happiness in the proper way that reveals this understanding. Do you agree with Plato, and why or why not? Explain the reasoning behind your answer.
3. What reasons does Plato offer for thinking that the tyrannical person is the most miserable and unhappy and that the democratic person will eventually end up being the tyrant? Do you agree with this claim, and why or why not?
4. Explain why Plato believes that most pleasures of the body are not really pleasures at all but are at best a neutral state, or merely the absence of pain. Do you think Plato is correct to think physical pleasures are illusory, and why or why not? And if this were correct, how would it alter your plan of life in order to achieve happiness?
Writing topic: revising style
- The Craft of Research, chapter 17 (20 pp.)

Friday:

Reading: Mulnix & Mulnix, chapter 9, pp. 213-31 (18 pp.)
Posting group 3: respond to one of the questions below, highlight the elements of the academic essay (orienting, motive, thesis, claim, reasoning/analysis, evidence) in your post, respond to an anticipated question or objection, and, optionally, engage with one external source.
1. Aristotle thinks that an excellent life is one in which a person performs the function of humanity well. What is the function of humanity, according to Aristotle? Do you agree with this argument? Why (not)?
2. Aristotle, unlike Plato, thinks that we cannot be happy on the rack and need conventional goods for an excellent life. Who do you think is closer to the truth in this respect, and why?
3. Explain how Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach can explain what it means to live a eudaimon life without needing to rely on the Greek notion of a telos. What does she mean by a “capability,” and how does this differ from a “functioning”?
4. Richard Kraut defends a subjectivist account of flourishing. Explain the similarities and differences between Kraut’s subjectivist view and Aristotle’s objectivist view of happiness. Which do you agree with more, and why?
Writing topic: giving a research presentation

Week 10: Concluding reflections / research proposal conferences

Tuesday:

Read: Mulnix and Mulnix, chapter 12, pp. 298-305 (7 pp.)
- Posting prompt for all groups: Now that we have discussed many theories of happiness, what is your own considered view of happiness, and in what respects has it changed since week one, when you wrote down your initial definition of happiness?

Wednesday afternoon (2:00-4:00 pm) / Thursday morning (10:00am-12:00pm) / Friday morning (10:00am-12:00pm): research proposal conferences

Sign up under 'Consultation' on the right
Prepare a 5-minute informal presentation that answers (most of) the following questions:
- What is the question you want to address and what piqued your interest in it?
- What will an interested reader gain from reading your answer to this question?
- What is your (preliminary) answer to this question?
- What kind of reasons and evidence have you come up with so far to support this answer?
- What kind of questions or objections to your argument do you anticipate?
- What kind of further reasons and evidence do you think you’ll need to make your argument stronger?
- What kind of problems are you anticipating as you start writing the actual essay? How do you plan to address them?
- Have you found any scholarly articles or books that might support your argument? List at least five titles, and briefly explain how you found them.