One of the good things that giving in to Twitter has brought me is following the Twitter stream of Massimo Pigliucci (@mpigliucci), who is professor of philosophy at Lehman College at CUNY, and an activist for many 'rationalist' causes (science education, critical thinking etc.). He runs the site Rationally Speaking, which is full of interesting material; Massimo does the kind of 'empirically-informed philosophy' that I am so keen on, and brings in a wide range of empirical data relevant for philosophical discussion. (He also posts excellent quotes on his Twitter stream, such as: "Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex." -K. Marx. "Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love." -W. Allen.)
His latest podcast is on the science and philosophy of happiness, and I've just had the pleasure to listen to it (pun intended or not intended, whatever...). In the podcast he and his co-host Julia Galef discuss the concept of happiness from a philosophical point of view, drawing mostly from the familiar ancient sources (Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the concept of eudaimonia etc.), complemented by an array of data coming from the recent field of 'happiness studies'. They do a very good job at outlining how the two perspectives can complement and enrich each other, while also having an impact on very tangible aspects of human life. Naturally, they also discuss rankings of the happiest countries in the world, the latest version of which received quite some attention (see here for Berit Brogaard's analysis, herself a national of the country that came on top of the list, Denmark). It turns out that your typical 'happy' country is a Nothern European country with high levels of social equality, a strong welfare system and widely available healthcare and education (but countries such as Canada and Australia also do very well, for similar reasons).
This is not so surprising, but Massimo and Julia also discuss some unexpected results of happiness studies, such as that having children seems to correlate negatively with short-term happiness (it's a tough job!). I highly recommend the podcast if you have some time to spare; after all, thinking about happiness seems like a worthy time-investment, one should think.
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