This book is for any among us who has ever had a discussion that turned on the subject of “happiness” which went nowhere, or nowhere good, because the word “happiness” itself has become so ambiguous that it seems at times to have lost any common meaning. Deal Hudson here clearly articulates the range of meaning packed into the word, by contrasting happiness and satisfaction, well-being and well-feeling, objective eudaimonism and the view that any subjective profession of happiness is unimpeachable. Since (...) the ascendancy of one or the other views has such radical personal, intellectual, and social implications, any of us who are interested in speaking more clearly with each other, across lives or disciplines or generations, might do well to take this book as a starting point for that conversation. (shrink)

Thomas articulates the proper priority among charity’s objects based on his understanding of charity as rooted in the fellowship of eternal happiness. God, as the source of the happiness, is our principal “fellow” in it and so first in the order of charity. The individual’s fellowship with himself or herself, with the “inner man,” is most intimate, and so the individual comes next in the order. Then come our neighbors, all of whom are our fellows now and may be our (...) fellows for eternity. Finally, the body is itself properly an object of charity, for it is by means of the acts we perform in the body that we may come to share in the fellowship of eternal happiness. (shrink)

The author seeks to respond to the philosophical appeal of W. Norris Clarke, S.J., “to uncover the personalist dimension lying implicit within the fuller understanding of the very meaning and structure of the metaphysics of being itself, not hitherto explicit in either the metaphysical or personalist traditions themselves.” She does this by discussing the distinctions drawn by Karol Wojtyla: (1) between a human being’s personhood and his humanity, and (2) between the ontological dignity and the ethical dignity of the human (...) person. (shrink)