Whatever Matters To Human Beings, Trust Is

Are People The Best Judges Of Their Own Happiness, Or Outsiders? In Defining Happiness, Should We Think Of Entire Lives Or Of Shorter Periods Such As Moments, Days, Or Years? And To What Extent Are Virtue And Happiness Linked?

We Are All, In A Sense, Experts On Secrecy. From Earliest Childhood We Feel Its Mystery And Attraction. We Know Both The Power It Confers And The Burden It Imposes. We Learn How It Can Delight, Give Breathing Space And Protect.

Empathy And Fellow Feeling Form The Very Basis Of Morality. The Capacities For Empathy, For Feeling Responsibility Toward Others And For Reaching Out To Help Them Can Be Stunted Or Undermined Early On, Depending On A Child's Experiences In The Home And Neighborhood. It Becomes Too Easy To Turn Our Backs On Fellow Human Beings... To Have 'compassion Fatigue.' Technology, We Are Learning, Is Not Neutral.

Much As Being Active In The Antislavery Movement Of The Last Century Involved More Than Not Engaging In Slavery Oneself, So Joining In An Antiviolence Movement Has To Go Beyond Opting For Nonviolence In One's Personal Life. It Calls For Engaging In Imaginative And Forceful Practices Of Nonviolent Resistance To Violence, Including Taking A Stand Toward Entertainment Violence.

Three Sorts Of Goods, Aristotle Specified, Contribute To Happiness: Goods Of The Soul, Including Moral And Intellectual Virtues And Education; Bodily Goods, Such As Strength, Good Health, Beauty, And Sound Senses; And External Goods, Such As Wealth, Friends, Good Birth, Good Children, Good Heredity, Good Reputation And The Like.