Happiness and the Good Life

Create an 800 word (minimum) hypothetical roundtable discussion between three representatives from three different historical eras. The subject of the dialogue is “The Happy Life.”

Using only primary texts provided to you, your task is to set up a hypothetical round table discussion in which your three representatives debate what “The Happy Life” entails. The dialogue may be either argumentative, agreeable, or both, but the discussion should reflect that you have properly interpreted the primary documents in developing the positions of your debate representatives.

There are three categories of representatives. You must choose one representative from each category. This means that you debate will include one representative from the Pre-Classical era, one representative from the Classical era, and one representative from the Post-Classical era. Your choices are as follow

Category A (Pre-Classical)

Category B (Classical)

Category C (Post-Classical)

Gilgamesh

Socrates

Thomas Acquinas

Solomon

Aristotle

Boethius

Jesus

Cicero

You should be creative in how you conceive hypothetical dialogue, so preparing an essay in script form is encouraged. Some important questions for your debate representatives to consider while thinking about what “The Happy Life” entails, include the following:

What is happiness?
Is it possible to find happiness in this life?
Does happiness emanate from extrinsic (outside) or intrinsic (inside) rewards?
Can one be selfless and still be happy?
Is happiness a permanent or fleeting state of being?

Again, you should allow the primary documents to guide how you shape the perspectives of the representatives you select for your dialogue. Feel free to have characters find both points of agreement and disagreement as that is what one would expect to see or hear in a roundtable discussion. Ultimately, your essay should arrive at some final conclusions by the end of the hypothetical debate.(1)