Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 What Is Happiness?
- 2 Happiness as Fulfillment
- 3 Aristotle's Ethics
- 4 Actualization: Psychological Views
- 5 Finding Potentials
- 6 The Things We Need to Be Happy: Goods, Intrinsic Motivation, and The Golden Mean
- 7 Introduction to Virtue
- 8 Some of the More Important Moral Virtues
- 9 Virtue and Emotion
- 10 Early Psychological Views of Virtue and Emotion
- 11 Virtue and Emotion: Recent Psychological Views
- 12 The Physiological Basis of Virtue
- 13 Emotional Intelligence
- 14 The Development of Virtue
- 15 Psychological Views of Virtue Development
- 16 The Polis
- 17 Contemplation: A Different Kind of Happiness
- References
- Index
- References
16 - The Polis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 What Is Happiness?
- 2 Happiness as Fulfillment
- 3 Aristotle's Ethics
- 4 Actualization: Psychological Views
- 5 Finding Potentials
- 6 The Things We Need to Be Happy: Goods, Intrinsic Motivation, and The Golden Mean
- 7 Introduction to Virtue
- 8 Some of the More Important Moral Virtues
- 9 Virtue and Emotion
- 10 Early Psychological Views of Virtue and Emotion
- 11 Virtue and Emotion: Recent Psychological Views
- 12 The Physiological Basis of Virtue
- 13 Emotional Intelligence
- 14 The Development of Virtue
- 15 Psychological Views of Virtue Development
- 16 The Polis
- 17 Contemplation: A Different Kind of Happiness
- References
- Index
- References
Summary
To establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.
The Constitution of the United States of AmericaThe parents, teachers, and friends who are responsible for virtue development in children are part of a larger community that Aristotle called the polis. The polis is necessary for our well-being and even for our very survival. It is only in the polis that we can obtain the goods we need to actualize potentials. We need food from the grocery store, books from the library, heat from the utility company, and police protection from those who would harm us. Of course, we can obtain some goods ourselves, alone in the wilderness, but the fact that almost all of us choose to live among others testifies to the need for the polis. Yes, it is common to want to be away and free from the maddening crowd for a short time but we don't want to remain there for very long. Our home is with others.
Whether we prefer the tranquil village or the teeming metropolis, we wish to be with our kind. And to live together we must agree to certain ethical principles, at least at some minimal level.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychology of HappinessA Good Human Life, pp. 149 - 157Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
References
(1990). Moral education in Aristotle. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, Chapter 2, especially p. 77Google Scholar
(1996/1970). The time of our lives: The ethics of common sense. New York: Fordham University PressGoogle Scholar
(2000). The loss of happiness in market democracies. New Haven, CT: Yale University PressGoogle Scholar
(1947). Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications. See especially Chapter IV on “Problems of Humanistic Ethics.”Google Scholar
(1961). On becoming a person: A therapist's view of psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton MifflinGoogle Scholar
, & (1983). Psychology's sanction of selfishness. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co. See especially p. 90Google Scholar
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