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Intellect

Forum: “The Pursuit of happiness”

Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, spoke to BYU students and employees at the Marriott Center in this week’s forum address. He emphasized the importance of self-improvement through the pursuit of virtue.

Rosen, who is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, began his address focusing on the phrase penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of happiness.”

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Photo by Olivia Taylor/BYU

In effort to understand what was originally meant by the phrase, Rosen studied a book often read by Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson: “Tusculan Disputationsby Cicero.

“For the Founders [of our nation,] the ‘pursuit of happiness’ meant not feeling good, but being good, not the pursuit of immediate pleasure, but the pursuit of long-term virtue,” Rosen said.

Rosen continued his studies by examining other classical books focused on moral philosophy.

That study helped Rosen to realize that the founders believed that long-term virtue “meant self-mastery, self-improvement, character improvement, being your best self, overcoming your ego-based passions and emotions so that you can serve other people and connect to the Divine.”

Jeff Rosen forum.JPG
Photo by Olivia Taylor/BYU

He connected principles of virtue taught by the classical moral philosophers to the central idea of moral agency and accountability so often emphasized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
 
“Friends, you are uniquely well-prepared for the daily cultivation of virtue because you live it,” Rosen said. “It’s a daily and an hourly quest. … We’re not going to achieve [perfection], but we can become more perfect in trying.”

Referencing Luke 2:52, Rosen used Jesus Christ as an example of someone striving for improvement and development.

Rosen concluded his studies on virtue and self-mastery with John Adam’s creed after his lifetime of the pursuit of spiritual self-mastery, “Love God and all His creatures, rejoice in all things.”

Rosen recommended carving out time to read for our own self-improvement and to learn something new every day.

“Continue to take advantage of the fact that you are blessed to be at this great university which has put learning about the Constitution front and center,” Rosen said. “You have a right, an opportunity and even a duty to do it.”

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