ABSTRACT
As Helen Keller eloquently stated, true happiness stems from our ‘fidelity’, our capacity to identify and invest ourselves in ‘a worthy purpose’. In my own experience as a professor, I have found that many students-even those who seem externally successful-are disillusioned precisely because they lack this sense of purpose, as well as the guidance or habits of reflection that would facilitate their search for worthy goals. Chuck Eesley, a recent graduate from Duke University, describes the crisis of meaning that so many university students are facing: The thing that concerns me most is the amount of apathy and disillusionment I see around me…. People get such tunnel vision from…their busy, hectic lives of adding to a resume, racking up accomplishments, getting ahead, that no one has time to really step back and try to see the forest instead of just the trees.’ To be able to develop this larger vision and to live in accordance with it, virtueboth moral and intellectual-is essential. Virtue has much to do with happiness because, as Aristotle observes, living virtuously-far from following a rigid code or arbitrary set of values-is directly related to happiness, eudaimonia or human flourishing. Virtue provides an internal compass, a wisdom that enables one to discover worthwhile goals, and a set of dispositions-self-mastery, courage, justice-that facilitate the pursuit of these goals.
