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The Religion of Nature Delineated · Theme
Happiness and Pleasure
How The Religion of Nature Delineated develops Happiness and Pleasure.
The text discusses happiness as the end of society and individual action, analyzing pleasure and pain in terms of their true quantities and proportions, and advocating for rational self-governance to achieve genuine well-being.
Where it surfaces
- II: Of Happiness
Defines happiness as the sum of true pleasures exceeding pains, and establishes the duty to pursue happiness.
- Truths Concerning Families and Relations
Marriage is founded on the pursuit of joint happiness, and natural affection is seen as a guide to well-being.
- IX: Truths Belonging to a Private Man, and Respecting (Directly) Only Himself
Discusses the pursuit of true happiness through virtue and reason, contrasting it with the fleeting pleasures of vice, and considers future happiness in an immortal state.