The Pursuit of Happiness How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America

Cato Event Podcast

“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.”

The second sentence of the Declaration of Independence is perhaps one of the most resonant of all phrases from the American Founding. But what did the Founders mean by “Happiness”? And how, exactly, was it to be pursued? In his new book, The Pursuit of Happiness, Jeffrey Rosen examines the many ways that key figures of the American Founding turned to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers as guides toward a better understanding of happiness and the good life. Through the eyes of American figures such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Frederick Douglass, Rosen explores virtues such as temperance, humility, and moderation and their relationship to self‐​improvement and good governance. What emerges is a set of important insights about the relationship between the quality of character and the nature and success of political and social organization. Rosen’s concluding pages offer a sobering set of reflections about our own culture currently marinating in social media and internet excess and asks how we might rediscover a path that the Founders themselves worked to keep alive more than 200 years ago.

Join Jonathan Fortier, director of Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org, for a discussion with author Jeffrey Rosen and Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

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