What Mortimer Adler thinks about happiness
American philosopher and educator (1902 to 2001); taught at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, chaired the board of editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica and founded the Institute for Philosophical Research.
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Mortimer Adler did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
2 dated positions, c. 1970, in their own words. Our reading of what Mortimer Adler has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsWhat is required to make the moral choices we ought to make in order to work for the end we ought to seek -- a whole life that is really good because it involves all the things that are really good for a man, all of them in the right order and proportion -- is moral virtue, which is nothing but a habitual disposition to prefer a good life to a good time, to choose what is really good in the long run over what is apparently good here and now.
↗Why Strength of Character Is Needed to Lead a Good Life (from The Time of Our Lives, 1970; The Great Ideas Online no. 40)thegreatideas.org 3rd of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsFinally, let it be said, as emphatically as possible, that these dispositions of character and of mind, which are virtuous insofar as they are employed in making a good life, cannot be formulated in rules or guidelines for action.
↗Why Strength of Character Is Needed to Lead a Good Life (from The Time of Our Lives, 1970; The Great Ideas Online no. 40)thegreatideas.org 6th of 6 in this piece
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