Your complimentary articles
You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please
If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.
To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.
If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.
Arts & Letters
Should We Pursue Happiness?
Vincent Kavaloski reviews both Tolstoy’s insights and his oversight.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
(United States Declaration of Independence, 1776)
Do we all pursue happiness? Should we? And what would it even mean? Is happiness something that can be chased and sometimes captured? What does it mean to pursue happiness? The phrase ‘the pursuit of happiness’ (as featured for example in the U.S. Declaration of Independence) contains at least two major assumptions: (1) that happiness lies outside of us, out there in the world; and (2) it is elusive, requiring intention and effort to capture it. Are those accurate assumptions?
The Paradox of Personal Happiness
The novels of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) explore these assumptions in great and instructive depth. His books are filled with characters in feverish pursuit of happiness in many different ways.
…