UNIT II.THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Can social media help us be happier?

Theme : Citizenship & Virtual Worlds

FINAL TASK II

You are young actors asked to express your point of view on the link between technology and happiness in the world during the World Happiness Week.
In order to do this, you’ll have to create your own short play that will be played in front of an audience.
You may choose to decide that technology brings happiness but in the event that you actually think the opposite, you will have to bring solutions as to how to be happy.

Good luck!

LESSON 1. WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

Official definition:

 'Happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction'.' (verywellmind.com) 

In this first lesson, students will be required to introduce a philosopher to the class as well as his views on happiness among the following:

Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Epicurus, Stuart Mill, Nietzsche

ACTIVITY 1.

Gather in groups of three-four, pick a philosopher and introduce the class to his own notion/concept of happiness

Your assignment should last about five minutes. You may add a short biography of your subject.

LESSON 2. IS TECHNOLOGY AN ALLY?

Adam Alter, 'Why our screens make us less happy', Ted Talk, 2017.

ATTRIBUTIVE NOUNS

Attributive nouns are nouns that function like adjectives just like in the following noun phrases: chicken soup, coffee cup or flower pot. (Do not mix it up with the genitive case!!)

What’s the difference between a noun and an adjective?

A noun is a part of speech that is used to name a place, a person, an action or a thing whereas an adjective is used to give us information about nouns. 

Sometimes, nouns can be used as adjectives and therefore become attributive nouns. They’re nouns used to give us information about another noun. They can be removed from a sentence without impacting the grammar of the sentence unlike regular nouns.

Exercise:

In the following phrases, identify whether it is an attributive noun phrase or an adjectival phrase:

Peanut butter, TV show, Huge building, Big Ben, Board games, Dramatic scene, Computer science, superhero, music instrument, elegant hat, sports car


LESSON 3. UTILITARIANISM

Try taking notes to summarise the following extract on utilitarianism:


‘Utilitarianism, in normative ethics, a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which an action (or type of action) is right if it tends to promote happiness or pleasure and wrong if it tends to produce unhappiness or pain—not just for the performer of the action but also for everyone else affected by it. Utilitarianism is a species of consequentialism, the general doctrine in ethics that actions (or types of action) should be evaluated on the basis of their consequences. Utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories are in opposition to egoism, the view that each person should pursue his or her own self-interest, even at the expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards some actions (or types of action) as right or wrong independently of their consequences’

- Britannica.com