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U3,Additional lnformation for the Teachers Reference,Text We Have No “Right to Happiness”,Warm-up Activities,Further Reading,Writing Skills,Additional Work,Warm-up Activities,Warm-up 1,1. If everyone has a right to be happy, what if one persons happiness destroys another persons happiness and vice versa? Whose happiness takes precedence? Use example(s) to make your point clear and valid. 2. Is the pursuit of happiness a tribute to American individualism? Discuss and try to reach some relevant conclusions.,1. C.S. Lewis C. S. Lewis was an Irish writer and scholar. Lewiss works are diverse and include medieval literature, Christian apologetics, literary criticism, radio broadcasts, essays on Christianity, and fiction relating to the fight between good and evil. Examples of Lewiss allegorical fiction include The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.,AIFTTR1.1,Additional lnformation for the Teachers Reference,AIFTTR1.2,2. Puritan A Puritan of 16th and 17th century England was an associate of any number of disparate religious groups advocating for more “purity” of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group piety.,3. Venus Venus a major Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty and fertility, the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Venus was the consort of Vulcan. She was considered the ancestor of the Roman people by way of its legendary founder, Aeneas, and played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths.,Text,We Have No “Right to Happiness”,Notes,Introduction to the Author and the Article,Phrases and Expressions,Exercises,Main Idea of the Text,Main Idea of the Text,Main Idea of the Text,In the writing, the author is convinced that while we have a right to seek happiness, this seeking of happiness should not go against any natural or moral law. In other words, this right to happiness should not be pursued at the expense of loyalty, humanity, and honesty. It is equally not okay to pursue happiness at the expense of anothers happiness.,Introduction to the Author and the article,Introduction to the Author and the Article,Clive Staples Lewis （1898-1963） was an Irish author and scholar. He is known for his work on medieval literature, Christian apologetics, literary criticism and fiction. During his whole life, Lewis wrote many books, most of which have been translated into over 30 languages and continue to sell over a million copies a year. His best known work is The Chronicles of Narnia, a childrens book series. Now The Chronicles of Narnia have sold over 100 million copies. A number of stage and screen adaptations of Lewiss works have also been produced, the most notable of which is the 2005 Disney film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.,Introduction to the Author and the article2,This essay is chosen from Reading Life. In this essay, Lewis claims that while we have a right to seek happiness, this seeking of happiness should not go against any natural or moral law. In other words, this right to happiness should not be pursued at the expense of loyalty, humanity, and honesty.,Part2_T1,“After all,” said Clare, “they had a right to happiness.” We were discussing something that once happened in our own neighborhood. Mr. A. had deserted Mrs. A. and got his divorce in order to marry Mrs. B., who had likewise got her divorce in order to marry Mr. A. And there was certainly no doubt that Mr. A. and Mrs. B. were very much in love with one another. If they continued to be in love, and if nothing went wrong with their health or their income, they might reasonably expect to be very happy.,C.S. Lewis,We Have No “Right to Happiness”,Text,It was equally clear that they were not happy with their old partners. Mrs. B. had adored her husband at the outset. But then he got smashed up in the war. It was thought he had lost his virility, and it was known that he had lost his job. Life with him was no longer what Mrs. B. had bargained for. Poor Mrs. A., too. She had lost her looks and all her liveliness. It might be true, as some said, that she consumed herself by bearing his children and nursing him through the long illness that overshadowed their earlier married life. You mustnt, by the way, imagine that A. was the sort of man who nonchalantly threw a wife away like the peel of an orange hed sucked dry. Her suicide was a terrible shock to him. We all knew this, for he told us so himself. “But what could I do?” he,Part2_T2,said. “A man has a right to happiness. I had to take my one chance when it came.”,Part2_T3,I went away thinking about the concept of a “right to happiness.” At first this sounds to me as odd as a right to good luck. For I believe whatever one school of moralists may say that we depend for a very great deal of our happiness or misery on circumstances outside all human contro. A right to happiness doesnt, for me, make much more sense that a right to be six feet tall, or to have a millionaire for your father, or to get good weather whenever you want to have a picnic.,Part2_T4,I can understand a right as a freedom guaranteed me by the laws of the society I live in. Thus, I have a right to travel along the public roads because society gives me that freedom; thats what we mean by calling the roads “public.” I can also understand a right as a claim guaranteed me by the laws, and correlative to an obligation on some one elses part. If I have a right to receive 100 from you, this is another way of saying that you have a duty to pay me 100. If the laws allow Mr. A. to desert his wife and seduce his neighbors wife, then, by definition, Mr. A. has a legal right to do so, and we need bring in no talk about “happiness.”,Part2_T5,But of course that was not what Clare meant. She meant that he had not only a legal but a moral right to act as he did. In other words, Clare is or would be if she thought it out a classical moralist after the style of Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, Hooker and Locke. She believes that behind the laws of the state there is a Natural Law. I agree with her. I hold this conception to be basic to all civilization. Without it, the actual laws of the state become an absolute. They cannot be criticized because there is no norm against which they should be judged.,Part2_T6,The ancestry of Clares maxim, “They have a right to happiness,” is august. In words that are cherished by all civilized men, but especially by Americans, it has been laid down that one of the rights of man is a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” And now we get to the real point. What did the writers of that august declaration mean? It is quite certain what they did not mean. They did not mean that man was entitled to pursue happiness by any and every means including, say, murder, rape, robbery, treason and fraud. No society could be built on such a basis.,Part2_T7,They meant “to pursue happiness by all lawful means;” that is, by all means which the Law of Nature eternally sanctions and which the laws of the nation shall sanction. Admittedly this seems at first to reduce their maxim to the tautology that men (in pursuit of happiness) have a right to do whatever they have a right to do. But tautologies, seen against their proper historical context, are not always barren tautologies. The declaration is primarily a denial of the political principles which long governed Europe: a challenge flung down to the Austrian and Russian empires, to England before the Reform Bills, to Bourborn France. It demands that whatever means of pursuing happiness are lawful for any should be lawful for all;,Part2_T8,that “man,” not men of some particular caste, class, status or religion, should be free to use them. In a century when this is being unsaid by nation after nation and party after party, let us not call it a barren tautology. But the question as to what means are “lawful” what methods of pursuing happiness are either morally permissible by the Law of Nature or should be declared legally permissible by the legislature of a particular nation remains exactly where it did. And on that question I disagree with Clare. I dont think it is obvious that people have the unlimited “right to happiness” which she suggests.,For one thing, I believe that Clare, when she says “happiness,” means simply and solely “sexual happiness.” Partly because women like Clare never use the word “happiness” in any other sense. But also because I never heard Clare talk about the “right” to any other kind. She was rather leftist in her politics, and would have been scandalized if anyone had defended the actions of a ruthless man-eating tycoon on the ground that his happiness consisted in making money and he was pursuing his happiness. She was also a rabid teetotaler; I never heard her excuse an alcoholic because he was happy when he was drunk.,Part2_T9,A good many of Clares friends, and especially her female friends, often felt Ive heard them say so that their own happiness would be perceptibly increased by boxing her ears. I very much doubt if this would have brought her theory of a right to happiness into play. Clare, in fact, is doing what the whole western world seems to me to have been doing for the last forty-odd years. When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, “why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses.” I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit,Part2_T10,Part2_T11,have to be bridled. Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice; to your acquisitive impulse, avarice. Even sleep must be resisted if youre a sentry. But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is “four bare legs in a bed.” It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong unless you steal nectarines. And if you protest against this view you are usually met with chatter about the legitimacy and beauty and sanctity of “sex” and accused of harboring some Puritan prejudice against it as something disreputable or shameful. I deny the charge.,Part2_T12,Foam-born Venus . golden Aphrodite . Our Lady of Cyprus . I never breathed a word against you. If I object to boys who steal my nectarines, must I be supposed to disapprove of nectarines in general? Or even of boys in general? It might, you know, be stealing that I disapproved of. The real situation is skillfully concealed by saying that the question of Mr. A.s “right” to desert his wife is one of “sexual morality.” Robbing 135an orchard is not an offense against some special morality called “fruit morality.” It is an offense against honesty. Mr. A.s action is an offense against good faith (to solemn promises), against gratitude (toward one to whom he was deeply indebted) and against common humanity.,Our sexual impulses are thus being put in a position of preposterous privilege. The sexual motive is taken to condone all sorts of behavior which, if it had any other end in view, would be condemned as merciless, treacherous and unjust. Now though I see no good reason for giving sex this privilege, I think I see a strong cause. It is this. It is part of the nature of a strong erotic passion as distinct from a transient fit of appetite that it makes more towering promises than any other emotion. No doubt all our desires make promises, but not so impressively. To be in love involves the almost irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies, and that possession of the beloved will confer, not merely frequent ecstasies, but settled, fruitful, deep-rooted,Part2_T13,Part2_T14,lifelong happiness. Hence all seems to be at stake. If we miss this chance we shall have lived in vain. At the very thought of such a doom we sink into fathomless depths of self-pity. Unfortunately these promises are found often to be quite untrue. Every experienced adult knows this to be so as regards all erotic passions (except the one he himself is feeling at the moment). We discount the world-without-end pretensions of our friends amours easily enough. We know that such things sometimes last and sometimes dont. And when they do last, this is not because they promised at the outset to do so. When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also I must put it crudely good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people.,Part2_T15,If we establish a “right to (sexual) happiness” which supersedes all the ordinary rules of behavior, we do so not because of what our passion shows itself to be in experience but because of what it professes to be while we are in the grip of it. Hence, while the bad behavior is real and works miseries and degradations, the happiness which was the object of the behavior turns out again and again to be illusory. Everyone (except Mr. A. and Mrs. B.) knows that Mr. A. in a year or so may have the same reason for deserting his new wife as for deserting his old. He will feel again that all is at stake. He will see himself again as the great lover, and his pity for himself will exclude all pity for the woman. Two further points remain.,Part2_T16,One is this. A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women, whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary, are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victim than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us. And the quality by which they most easily hold a man, their beauty, decreases every year after they have come to maturity, but this does not happen to those qualities of personality women dont really care two pence about our looks by which we hold women. Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and,Part2_T17,are also more likely to lose. I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity. Secondly, though the “right to happiness” is chiefly claimed for the sexual impulse, it seems to me impossible that the matter should stay there. The fatal principle, once allowed in that department, must sooner or later seep through our whole lives. We thus advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche. And then, though our technological skill may help us survive a little longer, our civilization will have died at heart, and will one dare not even add “unfortunately” be swept away.,Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Italian philosopher Grotius (Hugo, 1583-1645): Dutch statesman and jurist Hooker (Richard, 1554-1600): English theologian Locke (John, 1632-1704): English philosopher She believes that behind the laws of state there is a Natural Law: Clare believes that the laws of a country or government are based on natural principles of what is right and what is wrong. . the actual laws of the state become an absolute . : the laws of a country become the highest authority and there is no way to question these laws or to say that they may be wrong or unjust.,Notes,Part2_TA_Notes1,Part2_TA_Notes2,England before the Reform Bills: England before the bills that liberalized representation in Parliament in the 19th century Bourbon France: France before the French Revolution of 1789-1799. Bourbon refers to the family name of the kings of France from 1589 to 1793 and from 1814 to 1830. . their own happiness would be perceptibly increased by boxing her ears: Clares friends would be much happier if Clare stopped talking so much.,Notes,Part2_TA_Notes3,It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong unless you steal nectarines: Here Lewis is showing the play that is going on within the previous arguments. He gives the example of a moral system in which one believes it is wrong to steal fruit, except for nectarines. As nectarines are a type of fruit, so this moral system has problems. It is not the type of fruit that creates the problem, but rather the stealing. What Lewis is getting at is that it is not wrong for a man to divorce his wife and seek happiness. The man has not broken any law, but he has broken the original promise he made to his wife when he got married. Lewis is not against the seeking of happiness; he is, rather, against the way that it is carried out; that is to say, he is against the man breaking the original promise of marriage.,Part2_TA_Notes4,Notes,Foam-born Venus . golden Aphrodite . Our Lady of Cyprus: Venus and Aphrodite are names for the goddess of love. The Roman goddess Venus was identified with Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. Aphrodite sprang from the foam, and was especially worshipped in Cyprus. Here Lewis alludes to the goddess of love to say that he is not against love and sex, but rather against particular attitudes toward love and sex.,We discount the world-without-end pretensions of our friendsamours easily enough: It is easy for us to disregard the stories of ever-lasting love told by our friends.,at the outset: at or from the beginning of an event or process on the ground that: on the basis that bring sth. into play: use sth. or make it have an effect disapprove of: consider sb. or sth. wrong or inappropriate at stake: to be won or lost; being risked in vain: with no result; uselessly,Phrases and Expressions,Part2_TA_ Phrases and Expressions1,我们没有“享受幸福的权利”,Part2_TA_t1,“毕竟，”克莱尔说，“他们拥有享受幸福的权利。” 我们当时是在讨论邻里发生的一件事。甲先生抛弃甲太太，离了婚，准备迎娶乙太太，而乙太太也同样办好了离婚手续准备嫁给甲。毫无疑问，甲先生和乙太太非常喜欢对方。如果他们继续相爱，且健康和收入不出什么差池，他们接下来的日子应该会过得很开心。 同样显而易见的是，他们与各自的前任相处不佳。乙太太最初还是喜欢她的丈夫的。但是后来他在战争中负伤，丢掉了工作，据说还已经失去了性能力。此后的生活已经不再是乙夫人当初所期待的。甲夫人也很凄惨。她容貌不再，也没有了生机活力。有人说她因为为他生儿育女，又为护理他度过漫长的疾病期而将自己的精力消耗殆尽，而先前的婚姻生活也因着疾病而黯然失色。,Translation of the Text,CS路易斯,Part2_TA_t2,但是不要以为甲是那种将糟糠之妻弃之如敝屣的一类人。我们都知道前妻的自杀让他非常震惊，他曾亲口对我们说：“我又能怎么样呢？每个人都有享受幸福的权利。我不能错过我的幸福机会。” 之后我就一直琢磨“享受幸福的权利”这句话。 起初这句话给我的感觉怪怪的，听起来就像是在说每个人都有走运的权利。无论会有哪个派别的道德学家如何评论，我们的幸福或痛苦很大程度上都非人力所能控制。在我看来，所谓享受幸福的权利并无依据，正如不能要求自己的身高要达到六英尺，应该有个百万富翁的老 爸，或者说无论什么时候自己想去野餐了，天气就必须晴朗。 权利作为所在的社会的法律所保障的自由是不难理解的。因此，我有权沿公共道路行驶，因为这是社会给赋予我的自由，也是“公共”道路意义之所在。我也能理解法律所保障的债权权益，和与之相应的他人的债务承担义务。如果我有权从你那里获取100英镑，也就等于说你有责任付我100英镑。如果法律允许甲先生抛弃发妻而去勾引邻人之妻，那么甲就有这项法律权利，我们也没有必要在此谈论所谓“幸福”的权利。,Part2_TA_t3,但是克莱尔意非如此。她是说甲的行为不但符合法律权利，还符合道义上的权利。换句话说，克莱尔是继托马斯阿奎那，格劳修斯，胡克和洛克之后的又一个古典道德学派人物，或者说经过深思熟虑之后她或许会成为这样的人物。她认为国家法律之后还有“自然之法”。 我同意她的观点。我认为这种观念是所有文明的根本，没有它，现实国家法律变成了绝对准则。人们将无法评判法律，因为没有评判它的基准。 克莱尔的格言源自“他们有享受幸福的权利”这句令人肃然起敬的一句话。所有的文明人，尤其是美国人，都信奉这样一个信念，“追求幸福”是人的诸项权利之一。这就是问题的关键所在。 “他们有享受幸福的权利”这句庄重宣言的本意何在？ 其意义并非如此是可以肯定的。它并不意味着一个人可以不择手段地追求幸福，比如谋杀、强奸、抢劫、叛国和欺诈。没有一个社会可以以此为根本。,Part2_TA_t4,宣言的本意为“通过一切合法手段追求幸福”，即自然之法所永久许可且国家法律所应当允许之手段。 诚然，这样格言听起来似乎变成了一句同义反复，人在追求幸福的时候有权做他们有权做的事。但是同义反复如果放到其历史背景中便并非总是毫无意义的重复。宣言的初衷是否定长久统治欧洲的一系列政治条例，是对奥地利帝国、俄国帝国，和改革法案前的英国，法国的波旁王朝的挑战。宣言主张一切追求幸福的手段都是合法的，因为合法的事物是应该面向所有人的；所有“人”都享有使用这些手段的自由，而不是特定种姓，阶级，地位或宗教派别的人。在任何一个国家任何一个党派都不曾发出这样声音的时代，这样的宣言不能被称为同义反复。 但是什么样的方式是“合法的”这个问题却悬而未决，即什么样的追求幸福的手段既被自然之法在道义上允许，又被某国家立法机关所颁布法律所许可？在这个问题上，我不能苟同克莱尔的见解，她所称道的人们拥有无限的追求幸福的权力对我来说并非是无可厚非的道理。,Part2_TA_t5,有一点我可以确信，克莱尔所说的“幸福”指的是简单和纯粹的“性快乐”。原因之一是克莱尔这样的女人在用这个词的时候从来不会另有所指，还有就是我从来没有听她谈过其他方面的“权利”。她非常“左倾”。如果有人为一个心狠手辣，不择手段消灭竞争对手的大亨辩护，理由是他的幸福就在于赚钱，他不过在追求自己的幸福而已，她便会义愤填膺。克莱尔还是一个激进的禁酒主义者，我从来没有听说她会接受一个酗酒者把享受幸福作为喝醉的理由。 克莱尔的许多朋友，尤其女性朋友，经常觉得我听她们这样讲过如果克莱尔能够住嘴她们自己的幸福感将大大增加。因此我对克莱尔有关幸福一说能够站得住脚表示怀疑。 事实上克莱尔的观点与西方世界40多年来的行径在我看来并不相悖。当我还是个小伙子的时候，激进者就在讲，“何必如此假正经呢？我们应当像对待我们其他的冲动那样对待性冲动。”当时头脑简单的我便相信这就是他们的本意，后来却发现真正的意思刚好相反。他们是说,Part2_TA_t6,性欲应该以文明人处理其他的本能冲动所从未有过的方式对待。不可否认其他所有冲动都是要控制的。我们视为自保而绝对服从本能为胆怯的表现，视贪得的冲动为贪念。如果是哨兵的话连睡觉的欲望都得抗拒。但是，只要想要的东西是“床上的四条裸
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