This book demonstrates that philosophy matters to everyday living and that people who ignore the enduring, fundamental questions of life thereby unwittingly relinquish part of their humanity. The question – “How should I live my life?” – along with cosmological inquiries about the nature of the world, animated Western philosophy during its earliest recorded years. Given that belief in the Greek and Roman gods failed to provide substantive guidelines for everyday living, philosophy arose in large measure as practical instruction in the art of living the good human life. Throughout history, philosophers have provided vastly different answers to the question of what constitutes such a life. By analyzing carefully their disparate definitions, recipes, and accounts of the good human life we can understand better who we are and who we might be. This work examines the answers provided by over thirty philosophers to aspects of building character, forging personal relations, promoting sound political strategies, living meaningfully, and dying gracefully. In so doing, over twenty lessons for living a worthy life emerge.
In this interdisciplinary work, Raymond Angelo Belliotti presents an interpretation of The Godfather as, among other things, a commentary on the transformation of personal identity within the Sicilian and Italian immigrant experience. The book explores both the novel and the film sequence in terms of an existential conflict between two sets of values that offer competing visions of the world: on the one hand, a nineteenth-century Sicilian perspective grounded in honor and the accumulation of power within a culturally specific family order; and on the other, a twentieth-century American perspective that celebrates individualism and commercial success. Analyzing concepts such as honor, power, will to power, respect, atonement, repentance, forgiveness, and a meaningful life, Belliotti applies these analyses to the cultural understandings transported to America by nineteenth-century Italian immigrants, casting fresh light on Old World allegiances to l'ordine della famiglia (the family order), la via vecchia (the old way), and the patriarchal ideal of uomo di pazienza (the man of patience), as well as the Sicilian code of honor. The two sets of values—Old World Sicilian and twentieth-century American—coalesce uneasily in the same cultural setting, and their conflict is irresolvable.
This book examines core concerns of human life. What is the relationship between a meaningful life and theism? Why are some human beings radically adrift, without radical foundations, and struggling with hopelessness? Is the cosmos meaningless? Is human life akin to the ancient Myth of Sisyphus? What is the role of struggle and suffering in creating meaning? How do we discover or create value? Is happiness overrated as a goal of life? How, if at all, can we learn to die meaningfully?
This is an interdisciplinary work that philosophically analyzes concepts such as heroism; practical wisdom; honor; Nietzsche’s notions of will to power, the overman, and the three metamorphoses; Plato’s understanding of love; creating meaning in life; the issue of morally dirty hands in political administration; the relationship between political means and ends; the proper role of positive duties in society; the aspirations of grand strivers; and the linkages between biological, biographical, and autobiographical lives, all in the context of explaining and evaluating the lives and works of fourteen historically significant Italian: Gaius Julius Caesar, Brunetto Latini, Dante Alighieri, Caterina Sforza, Niccolò Machiavelli, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Francesca Cabrini, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Antonio Gramsci, Salvatore Giuliano, Oriana Fallaci, Giovanni Falcone, and Paolo Borsellino. By dissecting the lives and philosophies of the figures discussed in this work, by extracting moral, political, and existential lessons from their aspirations and enterprises, by reflecting on their ideals from the vantage point of our divergent social context, by evaluating their virtues and vices from a wider perspective, and by confronting the conceptual puzzles and social impediments hampering the exercise of practical wisdom and heroism, we may confront the people that we are and reimagine the people we might become.
Frequently understood in simplistic and often highly negative terms, the concept of power has proven to be both uncommonly intriguing and maddeningly elusive. In Power, Raymond Angelo Belliotti begins by fashioning a general definition of power that is refined enough to capture the numerous types of power in all their multifaceted complexity. He then proceeds in a series of discrete yet thematically connected meditations to explore the meaning of power in ancient, modern, and contemporary thought. In grappling with the critical questions surrounding the accumulation, distribution, and exercise of personal and social power, this work allows us to confront fundamental questions of who we are and how we might live better lives.
Jesus the Radical: The Parables and Modern Morality connects the lessons of six parables of the New Testament with philosophical issues structured around contemporary morality and the art of leading a good human life. In this manner, Raymond Angelo Belliotti highlights just how radical was the historical Jesus’ moral message and how enormous a challenge he raised to the conventional wisdom of his time. More important, this book demonstrates how deeply opposed is Jesus’ moral message to the dominant moral understandings of our time. Although our conventional morality is generally profoundly influenced by Judeo-Christianity, several of Jesus’ revolutionary insights have been marginalized. By imagining how our world would appear if those insights were highlighted, we can perceive more clearly the people we are and the people we might become. Belliotti's analysis of the parables will be of keen interest to professional philosophers, theologians, and educated lay people interested in the connections between religion and philosophy.
This book represents a unique contribution to Nietzschean scholarship in its analysis of the concept of power as preliminary to addressing Nietzsche’s psychological version of will to power. It advances a fresh interpretation of will to power that connects it explicitly to the meaning of human life, and, in so doing, the author addresses major questions such as: What does will to power designate? What does it presuppose? What effects does it engender? What is its status, epistemologically and metaphysically? How is will to power to be evaluated? How persuasive is will to power as an explanation of fundamental human instincts and as the lynchpin of a way of life? The volume argues that Nietzsche’s psychological notion of will to power cannot plausibly be understood as merely a first-order drive to attain and exert power. Moreover, despite some of the philosopher’s extravagant rhetoric, will to power is not an inherent instinct to oppress other people or things. Instead, will to power, understood generically, is a second-order desire to have, pursue and attain first-order desires; it bears a relationship to confronting and overcoming resistances and obstacles, and is related to the pursuit of excellence and personal transformation, as well as to experiences of feeling power. As, according to Nietzsche’s account, all human beings embody will to power, the book concludes that we should distinguish at least three varieties: robust, moderate, and attenuated will to power. Only by doing this, can we understand and evaluate will to power concretely.
Values, Virtues, and Vices, Italian Style illustrates the story of the evolution of Italian values, virtues, and vices is a narrative of longing, exhilaration, and devastation, a journey of the spirit that all human beings necessarily undertake but navigate with varying degrees of success. The lives of Caesar, Dante, Machiavelli, and Garibaldi demonstrate how we can lead staunchly meaningful lives even within an inherently meaningless universe. The ambition of this work is nothing more, nothing less, than entangling, through a careful examination of the values, virtues, and vices of four famous historical figures, a host of overlapping but distinct concepts, such as pride, honor, justification, excuse, repentance, and forgiveness that frame human existence. Belliotti’s objective is that by conducting such an interdisciplinary inquiry we might better position ourselves to craft our characters within the limitations enjoined by our cosmic circumstances. As always, however, we must deliberate, choose, and act under conditions of inescapable uncertainty; assume responsibility for the people we are becoming; and, hopefully, depart the planet with honor and merited pride. Along the way, we might even magnify our link in the generational chain that defines our identity.
This book provides a recipe for healthy moral and personal transformation. Belliotti takes seriously Dante’s deepest yearnings: to guide human well-being; to elevate social and political communities; to remedy the poisons spewed by the seven capital vices; and to celebrate the connections between human self-interest, virtuous living, and spiritual salvation. By closely examining and analyzing five of Dante’s more vivid characters in hell—Piero della Vigna, Brunetto Latini, Farinata degli Uberti, Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, and Guido da Montefeltro—and extracting the moral lessons Dante intends them to convey, and by conceptually analyzing envy, arrogance, pride, and human flourishing, the author challenges readers to interrogate and refine their modes of living.
This book places Machiavelli in historical context but argues that his understanding of moral conflicts is well ahead of his time. Instead of arguing for the autonomy of politics, as is commonly supposed, Machiavelli grapples with the special problems of role-differentiated morality, where the duties of public office often conflict with the demands of conventional morality.
Happiness Is Overrated begins with an historical overview of the development of the concept of 'happiness' from Plato to contemporary writers, highlighting the best scholarship emerging from philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Belliotti includes practical advice on how to attain happiness and addresses issues centered on the meaning of life. Happiness, he argues, is not the greatest personal good, or even a great good in itself. In fact, sometimes happiness isn't a good at all. If we pursue worthwhile, exemplary lives and find happiness along the way, then we are lucky. If we don't, then we can take pride and derive satisfaction from a life well lived. Ultimately, the greatest personal good is realized in leading a robustly meaningful, valuable life.
Belliotti unravels the paradoxes of human existence to reveal paths for crafting meaningful, significant, valuable, even important lives. He argues that human life is not inherently absurd; examines the implications of mortality; contrasts subjective and objective meaning, and evaluates contemporary renderings of meaningful human lives.
There are uncanny connections between nine baseball greats and the great thinkers of the West. This book offers a very practical application of Western philosophy by examining these icons of American sport and culture. The intensity and single-mindedness of Ted Williams breathes life into Camus' Sisyphus; Billy Martin's maniacal competitiveness recalls Niccolo Machiavelli's take on politics, which he characterized as a zero-sum game; the homespun philosophy of Satchel Paige echoes the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius; and the many facets of Joe DiMaggio's personality cry out for the resolution that Nietzsche's doctrine of perspectivism might have given. Also covered are the connections between Joe Torre and Aristotle; Jackie Robinson and Antonio Gramsci; Mickey Mantle and St. Thomas Aquinas; John Franco and William James; and Jose Canseco and Immanuel Kant.
After introducing the early work of philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Machiavelli, and Kant on the matter, this book critically examines the literature over the past four decades on the topic of posthumous harm.
A practical people not prone to be lured to philosophical abstraction for its own sake, the Romans looked toward philosophy for guidance on how to live. Though wary of Greek philosophy, the Romans would come to see the need for philosophies such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism to point the way to leading the good life. With the help of these philosophies, they attempted to grapple with some of most enduring concerns of the human condition: Who am I? How should I live my life? What, if anything, is my destiny? Raymond Angelo Belliotti's Roman Philosophy and the Good Life provides an accessible picture of these major philosophical influences in Rome and details the crucial role they played during times of major social upheaval. Belliotti demonstrates the contemporary relevance of some of the philosophical issues faced by the Romans, and offers ways in which today's society can learn from the Romans in our attempt to create meaningful lives. Roman Philosophy and the Good Life will certainly intrigue those who are drawn to Roman history and politics, and especially those who enjoy viewing philosophy in action.
Uncovers clues regarding the inner life of Machiavellis political leaders. The political statesman, Machiavelli tells us, must love his country more than his own soul. Political leaders must often transgress clear moral principles, using means that are typically wrong, even horrifying. What sort of inner life does a leader who uses evil well experience and endure? The conventional view held by most scholars is that a Machiavellian statesman lacks any inwardness because Machiavelli did not delve into the state of mind one might find in a politician with dirty hands. While such a leader would bask in his glory, the argument goes, we can only wonder at the condition of the soul they have presumably risked in discharging their duties. In Machiavellis Secret, Raymond Angelo Belliotti uncovers a range of clues in Machiavellis writings that, when pieced together, reveal that the Machiavellian hero most certainly has inwardness and is surely deeply affected by the evil means he must sometimes employ. Belliotti not only reveals the nature of this internal condition, but also provides a springboard for the possibility of Machiavellis ideal statesman. Belliotti identifies an important cluster of philosophical problems, including the extent to which statesman should bend the moral rules for the collective good and what implications such decisions might have for the statesman. Moreover, using Machiavelli to tie together this discussion both illustrates the timeless quality of the problem and provides a fresh way of thinking about the problem. The book nicely demonstrates the ways that contemporary philosophers can benefit from knowing more about history and also how historians can make use of contemporary discussions. John Draeger, State University of New York College at Buffalo
This book reconstructs the cornerstones of Jesus's moral teachings about how to lead a good, even exemplary, human life. It does so in a way that is compatible with the most prominent, competing versions of the historical Jesus. The work also contrast Jesus' understanding of the best way to lead our lives with that of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both Jesus and Nietzsche were self-consciously moral revolutionaries. Jesus refashioned the imperatives of Jewish law to conform to what he was firmly convinced was the divine will. Nietzsche aspired to transvalue the dominant values of his time in service of a higher vision. The interplay of these radical versions of the good human life, seasoned with critical commentary from the sciences and humanities, opens lines of inquiry that can help us answer that enduring, paramoun t question, "How should we live our lives?".
This book is an interdisciplinary work that weaves literary interpretation, legal theory, and philosophical doctrine about sex and love into a coherent mosaic in the context of two of Shakespeare’s plays: The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure. In the process, the work advances literary interpretations of the plays including character studies of some of the main protagonists. The aim is partly theoretical but mostly practical: to demonstrate what we can learn about living a robustly meaningful and significant human life by taking Shakespeare’s work seriously from contemporary philosophical and legal vantage points. Shakespeare does not reveal a tightly defined moral system that he is trying to urge upon his audience. Instead, Shakespeare challenges his audience to struggle with moral complexity as they confront conflicting elements surrounding legal and moral issues presented in his work and within the souls of his characters. His issues and their conflicts are also ours. Much of Shakespeare’s work consists of raising weighty questions inextricably connected to the human condition and inviting his audience to ponder possible answers. The philosophical lessons about living our lives meaningfully and significantly that we can derive from Shakespeare are simple yet powerful.
This work closely examines the trial of Dmitri Karamazov as the springboard to explaining and critically assessing Dostoevsky's legal and moral philosophy. The author connects Dostoevsky's objections to Russia's acceptance of western juridical notions such as the rule of law and an adversary system of adjudication with his views on fundamental human nature, the principle of universal responsibility, and his invocation of unconditional love. Central to Dostoevsky's vision is his understanding of the relationship between the dual human yearnings for individualism and community. In the process, the author related Dostoevsky's conclusions to the thought of Plato, Augustine, Anselm, Dante, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Throughout the work, the author compares, contrasts, and evaluates Dostoevsky's analyses with contemporary discussions of the rule of law, the adversary system, and the relationship between individualism and communitarianism.
The political statesman, Machiavelli tells us, must love his country more than his own soul. Political leaders must often transgress clear moral principles, using means that are typically wrong, even horrifying. What sort of inner life does a leader who "uses evil well" experience and endure? The conventional view held by most scholars is that a Machiavellian statesman lacks any "inwardness" because Machiavelli did not delve into the state of mind one might find in a politician with "dirty hands." While such a leader would bask in his glory, the argument goes, we can only wonder at the condition of the soul they have presumably risked in discharging their duties. In Machiavelli's Secret, Raymond Angelo Belliotti uncovers a range of clues in Machiavelli's writings that, when pieced together, reveal that the Machiavellian hero most certainly has "inwardness" and is surely deeply affected by the evil means he must sometimes employ. Belliotti not only reveals the nature of this internal condition, but also provides a springboard for the possibility of Machiavelli's ideal statesman.
This is an interdisciplinary work that philosophically analyzes concepts such as heroism; practical wisdom; honor; Nietzsche’s notions of will to power, the overman, and the three metamorphoses; Plato’s understanding of love; creating meaning in life; the issue of morally dirty hands in political administration; the relationship between political means and ends; the proper role of positive duties in society; the aspirations of grand strivers; and the linkages between biological, biographical, and autobiographical lives, all in the context of explaining and evaluating the lives and works of fourteen historically significant Italian: Gaius Julius Caesar, Brunetto Latini, Dante Alighieri, Caterina Sforza, Niccolò Machiavelli, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Francesca Cabrini, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Antonio Gramsci, Salvatore Giuliano, Oriana Fallaci, Giovanni Falcone, and Paolo Borsellino. By dissecting the lives and philosophies of the figures discussed in this work, by extracting moral, political, and existential lessons from their aspirations and enterprises, by reflecting on their ideals from the vantage point of our divergent social context, by evaluating their virtues and vices from a wider perspective, and by confronting the conceptual puzzles and social impediments hampering the exercise of practical wisdom and heroism, we may confront the people that we are and reimagine the people we might become.
This book is an interdisciplinary work that weaves literary interpretation, legal theory, and philosophical doctrine about sex and love into a coherent mosaic in the context of two of Shakespeare’s plays: The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure. In the process, the work advances literary interpretations of the plays including character studies of some of the main protagonists. The aim is partly theoretical but mostly practical: to demonstrate what we can learn about living a robustly meaningful and significant human life by taking Shakespeare’s work seriously from contemporary philosophical and legal vantage points. Shakespeare does not reveal a tightly defined moral system that he is trying to urge upon his audience. Instead, Shakespeare challenges his audience to struggle with moral complexity as they confront conflicting elements surrounding legal and moral issues presented in his work and within the souls of his characters. His issues and their conflicts are also ours. Much of Shakespeare’s work consists of raising weighty questions inextricably connected to the human condition and inviting his audience to ponder possible answers. The philosophical lessons about living our lives meaningfully and significantly that we can derive from Shakespeare are simple yet powerful.
After introducing the early work of philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Machiavelli, and Kant on the matter, this book critically examines the literature over the past four decades on the topic of posthumous harm.
This book places Machiavelli in historical context but argues that his understanding of moral conflicts is well ahead of his time. Instead of arguing for the autonomy of politics, as is commonly supposed, Machiavelli grapples with the special problems of role-differentiated morality, where the duties of public office often conflict with the demands of conventional morality.
Belliotti analyzes the role of positive duties in moral theory, the efficacy of theocratic republicanism, strategies for political revolutions, the implications of an enduring Sicilian ethos, and the profits and perils of the individual-community continuum, while distinctively interpreting the lives and ideologies of Mazzini, Gramsci, and Giuliano.
In this interdisciplinary work, Raymond Angelo Belliotti presents an interpretation of The Godfather as, among other things, a commentary on the transformation of personal identity within the Sicilian and Italian immigrant experience. The book explores both the novel and the film sequence in terms of an existential conflict between two sets of values that offer competing visions of the world: on the one hand, a nineteenth-century Sicilian perspective grounded in honor and the accumulation of power within a culturally specific family order; and on the other, a twentieth-century American perspective that celebrates individualism and commercial success. Analyzing concepts such as honor, power, will to power, respect, atonement, repentance, forgiveness, and a meaningful life, Belliotti applies these analyses to the cultural understandings transported to America by nineteenth-century Italian immigrants, casting fresh light on Old World allegiances to l'ordine della famiglia (the family order), la via vecchia (the old way), and the patriarchal ideal of uomo di pazienza (the man of patience), as well as the Sicilian code of honor. The two sets of values—Old World Sicilian and twentieth-century American—coalesce uneasily in the same cultural setting, and their conflict is irresolvable.
A practical people not prone to be lured to philosophical abstraction for its own sake, the Romans looked toward philosophy for guidance on how to live. Though wary of Greek philosophy, the Romans would come to see the need for philosophies such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism to point the way to leading the good life. With the help of these philosophies, they attempted to grapple with some of most enduring concerns of the human condition: Who am I? How should I live my life? What, if anything, is my destiny? Raymond Angelo Belliotti's Roman Philosophy and the Good Life provides an accessible picture of these major philosophical influences in Rome and details the crucial role they played during times of major social upheaval. Belliotti demonstrates the contemporary relevance of some of the philosophical issues faced by the Romans, and offers ways in which today's society can learn from the Romans in our attempt to create meaningful lives. Roman Philosophy and the Good Life will certainly intrigue those who are drawn to Roman history and politics, and especially those who enjoy viewing philosophy in action.
This work closely examines the trial of Dmitri Karamazov as the springboard to explaining and critically assessing Dostoevsky’s legal and moral philosophy. The author connects Dostoevsky’s objections to Russia’s acceptance of western juridical notions such as the rule of law and an adversary system of adjudication with his views on fundamental human nature, the principle of universal responsibility, and his invocation of unconditional love. Central to Dostoevsky’s vision is his understanding of the relationship between the dual human yearnings for individualism and community. In the process, the author related Dostoevsky’s conclusions to the thought of Plato, Augustine, Anselm, Dante, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Throughout the work, the author compares, contrasts, and evaluates Dostoevsky’s analyses with contemporary discussions of the rule of law, the adversary system, and the relationship between individualism and communitarianism.
This book examines core concerns of human life. What is the relationship between a meaningful life and theism? Why are some human beings radically adrift, without radical foundations, and struggling with hopelessness? Is the cosmos meaningless? Is human life akin to the ancient Myth of Sisyphus? What is the role of struggle and suffering in creating meaning? How do we discover or create value? Is happiness overrated as a goal of life? How, if at all, can we learn to die meaningfully?
Belliotti unravels the paradoxes of human existence to reveal paths for crafting meaningful, significant, valuable, even important lives. He argues that human life is not inherently absurd; examines the implications of mortality; contrasts subjective and objective meaning, and evaluates contemporary renderings of meaningful human lives.
This book provides a recipe for healthy moral and personal transformation. Belliotti takes seriously Dante’s deepest yearnings: to guide human well-being; to elevate social and political communities; to remedy the poisons spewed by the seven capital vices; and to celebrate the connections between human self-interest, virtuous living, and spiritual salvation. By closely examining and analyzing five of Dante’s more vivid characters in hell—Piero della Vigna, Brunetto Latini, Farinata degli Uberti, Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, and Guido da Montefeltro—and extracting the moral lessons Dante intends them to convey, and by conceptually analyzing envy, arrogance, pride, and human flourishing, the author challenges readers to interrogate and refine their modes of living.
There are uncanny connections between nine baseball greats and the great thinkers of the West. This book offers a very practical application of Western philosophy by examining these icons of American sport and culture. The intensity and single-mindedness of Ted Williams breathes life into Camus' Sisyphus; Billy Martin's maniacal competitiveness recalls Niccolo Machiavelli's take on politics, which he characterized as a zero-sum game; the homespun philosophy of Satchel Paige echoes the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius; and the many facets of Joe DiMaggio's personality cry out for the resolution that Nietzsche's doctrine of perspectivism might have given. Also covered are the connections between Joe Torre and Aristotle; Jackie Robinson and Antonio Gramsci; Mickey Mantle and St. Thomas Aquinas; John Franco and William James; and Jose Canseco and Immanuel Kant.
Deepens our understanding of power through a survey of how its dynamics have been understood from ancient times to the present. Frequently understood in simplistic and often highly negative terms, the concept of power has proven to be both uncommonly intriguing and maddeningly elusive. In Power, Raymond Angelo Belliotti begins by fashioning a general definition of power that is refined enough to capture the numerous types of power in all their multifaceted complexity. He then proceeds in a series of discrete yet thematically connected meditations to explore the meaning of power in ancient, modern, and contemporary thought. In grappling with the critical questions surrounding the accumulation, distribution, and exercise of personal and social power, this work allows us to confront fundamental questions of who we are and how we might live better lives. Power is an impressive project for its breadth and insight. Belliotti offers an exhaustive discussion of the philosophical notion of power, which deepens the readers understanding of power and provides a powerful tool for assessing the proper uses of and abuses of social and dyadic power relations. The book is rich with material, expertly organized, and written in a clear and accessible style. Kimberly Blessing, Buffalo State, The State University of New York
Values, Virtues, and Vices, Italian Style illustrates the story of the evolution of Italian values, virtues, and vices is a narrative of longing, exhilaration, and devastation, a journey of the spirit that all human beings necessarily undertake but navigate with varying degrees of success. The lives of Caesar, Dante, Machiavelli, and Garibaldi demonstrate how we can lead staunchly meaningful lives even within an inherently meaningless universe. The ambition of this work is nothing more, nothing less, than entangling, through a careful examination of the values, virtues, and vices of four famous historical figures, a host of overlapping but distinct concepts, such as pride, honor, justification, excuse, repentance, and forgiveness that frame human existence. Belliotti’s objective is that by conducting such an interdisciplinary inquiry we might better position ourselves to craft our characters within the limitations enjoined by our cosmic circumstances. As always, however, we must deliberate, choose, and act under conditions of inescapable uncertainty; assume responsibility for the people we are becoming; and, hopefully, depart the planet with honor and merited pride. Along the way, we might even magnify our link in the generational chain that defines our identity.
Western philosophy began with two monumental aspirations: to unravel the mysteries of the universe and to construct the best recipe for living the good life. Today, sports play a major role in the lives of many people. A striking correlation exists between the noblest virtues of baseball and discussions of living the good life by the greatest thinkers in the history of philosophy. The book explains the nine virtues of playing and eleven commandments of coaching baseball. These virtues and commandments are then connected to the best ways to live the good life according to the wisdom of classical and contemporary philosophers such as Camus, Epictetus, Gramsci, Machiavelli, Marx, Nietzsche, Nozick, Plato, Sartre, Schopenhauer, Socrates, and Unger.
Happiness Is Overrated begins with an historical overview of the development of the concept of 'happiness' from Plato to contemporary writers, highlighting the best scholarship emerging from philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Belliotti includes practical advice on how to attain happiness and addresses issues centered on the meaning of life. Happiness, he argues, is not the greatest personal good, or even a great good in itself. In fact, sometimes happiness isn't a good at all. If we pursue worthwhile, exemplary lives and find happiness along the way, then we are lucky. If we don't, then we can take pride and derive satisfaction from a life well lived. Ultimately, the greatest personal good is realized in leading a robustly meaningful, valuable life.
This book reconstructs the cornerstones of Jesus’s moral teachings about how to lead a good, even exemplary, human life. It does so in a way that is compatible with the most prominent, competing versions of the historical Jesus. The work also contrast Jesus’ understanding of the best way to lead our lives with that of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both Jesus and Nietzsche were self-consciously moral revolutionaries. Jesus refashioned the imperatives of Jewish law to conform to what he was firmly convinced was the divine will. Nietzsche aspired to transvalue the dominant values of his time —which themselves were influenced greatly by Christianity— in service of what he took to be a higher vision. The interplay of these radical versions of the good human life, seasoned with critical commentary emerging from modern findings in the sciences and humanities, opens possibilities and lines of inquiry that can inform our choices in answering that enduring, paramount question, “How should we live our lives?”
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