Please choose ONE of the following as the topic for your fourth essay:
Write an argument answering the question: “What is happiness?”
In your response, please use at least four of the essays I assigned, those listed below, either to support your
definition of happiness or to contrast with it or to otherwise qualify it. However, the bulk of the essay will use
your own experiences and/or ideas.
Gilbert, “Does Fatherhood Make You Happy?”
Thoreau, “Selections from Walden”
Epictetus, “From The Handbook”
Russell, “The Happy Life”
The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, “Inner Contentment”
Lewis, “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness’”
Crittenden, “About Love”
Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Sample Solution