Volume 65 No.1 - 2019-03-31

A Philosophical Examination of I. Morris’s Happiness Curriculum

I. Morris幸福課程的哲學檢視

Author：
Yi-Lin Chen / 陳伊琳
Keyword：
Aristotle, positive psychology, happiness, character education, virtue / Aristotle、正向心理學、幸福、品格教育、德行
  • Summary
  • Chinese Summary
  • Reference
  • Scholarly references
Wellington College introduced happiness curriculum to teach students to be happy. This paper aims to analyze I. Morris’s conception of happiness manifested in Teaching Happiness and Well-Being in Schools, and evaluate whether happiness can be taught. The author points out that Morris’s conception of happiness has gone through some changes. Initially, he inherits positive psychology’s (PP for short) idea of happiness, placing emphasis on mastering the subject’s attitudes of mind such as learning mindfulness meditation, optimism, and gratitude. Afterwards, Morris specified his conception to be Aristotle’s activity theory of happiness. He considered happiness to be feelings experienced as a corollary of these activities. Finally, Morris indicated that happiness is an activity in accordance with virtue. Happiness curriculum therefore shall take character education as its framework. On the whole, Morris’s happiness curriculum can be seen as a compound product of PP and Aristotelian eudaimonism. The subjects included in the curriculum are derived from the main themes of PP, aiming at teaching the empirically validated “techniques for happiness”. Later on, the essential role of virtue was underscored. It is concluded that happiness can and should be taught. However, considering the ambiguity of happiness, we should put the conception of happiness into critical scrutiny.
為了教導學生變得幸福/快樂，英國Wellington公學首創幸福課程。本文旨 在分析I. Morris《在學校中教導幸福與福祉》的幸福觀，據以判斷幸福可教嗎? 本文指出Morris的幸福觀歷經轉變，起始直接承襲自正向心理學觀點，側重主 體心態的調整(如學習正念冥想、樂觀、感恩)。中期採取Aristotle幸福行動理 論，他將幸福視為活動過後自然體驗到的感受與狀態。後期明確主張幸福是依德 而行的活動，因此幸福課程應以品格教育為架構。整體而言，Morris幸福課程可 視為正向心理學與Aristotle幸福論的複合物。基本上，幸福課程的單元自始至終 皆取自正向心理學主題，強調讓學生學會經實證有效的幸福技巧，而後改為強調 這些主題皆須與個體德行的施展連結。幸福課與品格教育於是密不可分。本文結 論是:幸福不但可教，且需要教，但鑑於幸福的多義性，幸福的教學也有必要從 後設觀點檢視其所反映的幸福觀。

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