Megan Sullivan

Oh, that's fun.

Nice, Megan.

How does that change their vision about...

what makes this limited time that they have in life valuable.

Most major philosophers in nearly every major world religion puts the virtue of love at the center of the good life.

But what exactly does it mean to practice this virtue?

To get my students thinking about this, I give them a thought experiment.

Suppose I had a pill, and if you took it, it would cause you to experience love for absolutely anyone you met.

Would you take it?

I've asked this to thousands of students and the answer I overwhelmingly get from my very earnest, very Catholic freshmen is no.

They wouldn't take the love everyone pill.

And in hearing their answers, I start to get some insight into how they're thinking about this virtue.

One thing that's kind of funny is we have all these complex thinkings about the virtue of love, but when it comes to hate and resentment, those are easy.

We can absolutely cultivate those.

In fact, our current politics, the internet, it has us taking a hate everyone pill just about voluntarily every day.

So I put this question to them and it sets off this conversation.

Okay, love is essential to your happiness, right?

I have a way of giving you the thing that will solve that problem for you.

It will cause you to experience that love for everyone.

You'll just have it automatically.