The Happy Life

391 Words2 Pages
Answer Key 1. In the opening paragraph, Bertrand Russell says, “The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life.” What does he mean? Is this statement paradoxical? He means that by being a good person, doing good for other people and trying to make other people happy, you will also be happy. This statement is not paradoxical because we do not have to sacrifice ourselves to help others. Helping others gives people a sense of humanity and a feeling of hope. 2. According to Russell, what would the traditional moralist say about the belief that” love should be unselfish.” According to Russell, a traditional moralist would agree with this statement. A traditional moralist supports this statement and says that if you love someone what you do should be for their benefit. 3. What does Russell mean by his claim that “the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world…disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves”? By this Russell means that by being good people and having an outward focus we are a part of the world around us and it is a part of us. He says this in contrast to the belief that the only way we can be good is through self-denial, focusing only on the world as opposed to the world and all its people, including ourselves. 4. In the second paragraph how does Russell construct his argument? 5. Do you find Russell’s simile of the billiard ball effective or ineffective? Explain why? A billiard ball hits the next ball and the next ball goes in a different direction. The two do not follow each other or stay together for more than a second where they hit. I think this is an ineffective simile mainly because it takes too long to think about and in this specific example it just doesn’t make a very strong point. 6. What does Russell mean by “a citizen of the
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