This fall, I am teaching a class at Vanderbilt called “Morality & Happiness in a Post-Corona World.” We are exploring morality, how the pandemic has permanently altered certain aspects of our culture (workplace, school, health care, religion, community life), and the different ways that we all seek to pursue happiness and live meaningful lives. In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt identifies three different theories of human happiness. The first theory is called the “progress principle:” happiness comes from success and acquiring things. This principle clearly dominates our consumer culture. We......

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