Jacques Maritain’s "Democratic Faith": Heretical or Orthodox?
By Thaddeus J. Kozinski

First Things: The Beauty of the Ethical
A everyday ethics that brings grace to life
Ross McCullough

A new group blog for Catholic moral theology

Catholic Moral Theology (via MOJ)

The only one I've heard of is John Berkman. This one hits close to home:

Thomas Bushlack
Thomas J. Bushlack (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is an assistant professor of moral theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. He recently defended his dissertation titled Justice in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas: Rediscovering Civic Virtue, and he is also an Oblate of St. Benedict

Not sure if I ran into him during one of my visits to UND.  He is still listed here. Is he publishing his dissertation, or is it available online? Not yet. Not surprisingly he is associated with ">New Wine, New Wineskins

Thomistica.net: Gilles Emery, OP, to speak at Lumen Christi Institute (UChicago)

The ordinary magisterium's infallibility
Theological Studies, Dec, 1994 by Germain Grisez,
(pdf)

"Master of the Sacred Palace" trailer

"Master of the Sacred Palace" trailer from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

How many zeroes are there in a trillion? On economics, neoliberalism and economic justice by Nitasha Kaul (EB)

What is the author's alternative to neoliberalism? I suspect it would not be a third way.

Ite Ad Thomam: Commemorating the Last of the Fathers, the First of the Scholastics

CE
Some of his writings.

From 2009:


Something for the Sunday of Orthodoxy:

Ecce Virgo concipiet

Philotheus Boehner, Medieval Logic: An Outline of Its Development from 1250 to c.1400
(via The Smith)

Google Books
Amazon

op-stjoseph: The Pritzl Chair - Endowed Philosophy Chair to Be Named for Friar

Insight Scoop: Jimmy Akin carefully considers Benedict XVI's thoughts on the conversion of Jews

Insight Scoop: New: "What Is Dogma?" by Charles Cardinal Journet

The Divine Will and Human Freedom: A Thomistic Analysis by Dr. Kevin G. Rickert (via Insight Scoop)

Rorate Caeli: Vatican orders reforms in the philosophical formation of seminarians

Another article covering the same decree mentioned in the Zenit article linked here.

Dominican Salve Regina and O Lumen Ecclesiae

First Things: Inevitable Scholasticism
A review of Introduction to Scholastic Theology
Thomas Joseph White

Zenit: Vatican: Priests Can't Skip Metaphysics


(via The Hermeneutic of Continuity)

Vox Nova: The Vocation of the Theologian: An Interview with Matthew Levering, Part II


Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths
Matthew Levering

Thomistica.net: International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI May 12-15, 2011)

Fordham's upcoming conference: the metaphysics of Aquinas and its modern interpreters
More on the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI May 12-15, 2011)

Pope Benedict XVI and the Failure of “Oinkonomics” by Rupert J. Ederer

OUP: The Biblical Interpretation of William of Alton by Timothy F. Bellamah

OUP: Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism by Richard Dagger

(alt)

(Google Books)

The author's faculty page.

Ite ad Thomam: Gardeil, OP on Aristotelian Mixtures as Substances

MOJ: Introduction to Retributivism: Essays on Theory and Policy

Oxford University Press

The author's faculty page, and this.
He contributes to this blog.
Psychology Today

Rome Reports: Cardinal Marc Ouellet and Claudio Magris speak about the Pope's new book in the Vatican

Rome Reports: François-Marie Lethel explains what he is saying to the pope in spiritual retreat

Is Aquinas a liberal?

In this one respect -- how he defines injustice.

Lydia McGrew: Contract killing

As Wesley J. Smith points out, when he was in law school he was taught that X's agreeing to be murdered does not make killing X legally something other than murder. And a good thing, too. Well, as usual, the UK is leading us into a new world. In Brave New Britain, that isn't true anymore, evidently.


Michael Bateman put a bag over the head of his wife Margaret and pumped in gas to kill her. She was in a lot of pain that wasn't getting properly treated because the moronic medical establishment didn't diagnose her broken pelvis. (It was discovered after her death.) She was also depressed about not being able to do normal things like taking showers. That's it. She wasn't dying, if you think that's a relevant consideration. (I don't.) So she and Michael planned her death, and he killed her, because she apparently couldn't do it herself. The prosecutor has declared that it "isn't in the public interest" to prosecute Michael, presumably because Margaret agreed to be murdered.


In the current context of recent posts, I'm almost afraid to ask whether mere libertarianism would mean that agreeing to have yourself killed with plastic bags and gas means that everything is A-okay and no prosecution should be carried out against your killer. I'm pretty sure I know the answer. And that, folks, is just one reason that, while I'll defend small government all over the place, I don't carry a libertarian card.

Aquinas asks, "Whether we can suffer injustice willingly?" Is it no longer injustice if we suffer the action willingly? In the body, Aquinas argues that no one can suffer an injustice except involuntarily. But he adds in the response to the third objection:

Suffering is the effect of external action. Now in the point of doing and suffering injustice, the material element is that which is done externally, considered in itself, as stated above (Article 2), and the formal and essential element is on the part of the will of agent and patient, as stated above (Article 2). Accordingly we must reply that injustice suffered by one man and injustice done by another man always accompany one another, in the material sense. But if we speak in the formal sense a man can do an injustice with the intention of doing an injustice, and yet the other man does not suffer an injustice, because he suffers voluntarily; and on the other hand a man can suffer an injustice if he suffer an injustice against his will, while the man who does the injury unknowingly, does an injustice, not formally but only materially.

And so the agent may nonetheless be guilty of committing an injustice, even if the victim consents to it. How is this so? Because the action in itself is unequal. That is to say, injustice is not defined by consent, but by the lack of what is due.

More from Miller on MacIntyre

He writes in response to David Schaengold's Defending Alasdair MacIntyre’s Economics: On Aristotle’s Wide Applicability.

(The link to the First Things piece that started this discussion can be found here.)

Interview with Matthew Levering

Over at Vox Nova: The Vocation of the Theologian: An Interview with Matthew Levering

OP Vocations: Salve Regina - Ordo Praedicatorum

Evidence against heliocentrism?

Japan’s earthquake shifted balance of the planet

Unless plate tectonic theory is incorrect or incomplete for understanding earthquakes and the shift of the earth's axis.

Fr. Anthony mentioned this book in his homily today: The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy, by C. FitzSimons Allison

A public police force: a fitting republican institution?

ARE COPS CONSTITUTIONAL? by Roger Roots

The Object of the External Act

A source of confusion for some trying to understand Catholic moral theology. St. Thomas teaches that the object is the term of the act--what it brings about. We often have an implicit understanding of this, as is shown by our use of a name for both a thing and the action that leads to the making of that thing. For example, section and partition. What are some other examples of this analogical naming?

Swinburne on science

BQO: The True Morality.Is science capable of providing a common morality? Philosopher Richard Swinburne answers.

Richard Swinburne, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, answers the question, "Is science capable of providing a common morality?"

"An historic book, which inaugurates a new era of theological exegesis"
The new "Jesus of Nazareth" by Benedict XVI explained by a cardinal theologian raised in his school

by Marc Ouellet

"Attende Domine"

Video: The 21st Annual Aquinas Lecture
The Dead in Christ Will Rise: Thomas Aquinas and Current Ideas on the Time of the Resurrection by Fr. Bryan Kromholtz, OP

Arete Initiative at the University of Chicago

MOJ: "A New Science of Virtues"

Arete Initiative at the University of Chicago
Stuck with Virtue Conference Series
Science of Virtues
Defining Wisdom

Michael Sandel's Liberalism

From Oz Conservative: Hank Pellissier criticises male-identified males

In the preface, Sandel defines the liberal conception of the person this way:


According to this conception, my dignity consists not in any social roles I inhabit but instead in my capacity to choose my roles and identities for myself. (xiv)

Do all academic liberals believe this, and are they this blunt? Amazing -- no obfuscation here, and Sandel deserves to be labelled an enemy of the true and good.

Justice With Michael Sandel
faculty page


Playlist
itunes



Michael Sandel on Markets and Morals

Michael Sandel’s Reith Lectures.
Chautauqua Institution

Benedict XVI: Our World Needs a New Heart

(via DSPT FB)

Re: the discussion of (public) unions, collective bargaining, and benefits, what does CST say about renumeration for labor? Does it extend to benefits after employment? Fostering the ability to provide the highest level of health care? I don't see anything in that particular section of the Compendium. One could argue that pension and other retirement benefits are included under remuneration, but that would appear to be stretching the meaning of the word remuneration -- what is owed is payment for services rendered only while employed. If the pension is actually something owed for labor that has been provided, then to take it away would be unjust. But it is commonly understood not to be such?

Living in a welfare state, we may think of entitlements and pensions as being owed to us (out of justice) but we may be wrong on these points.

Father Gabriel (Bunge) “Orthodoxy is the Fruit of My Whole Life as a Christian and a Monk”
By Archpriest Pavel Velikanov

A link to a copy of the next Orthodoxy in the World post, part two of this interview, was already posted by me here.

OP Vocations: The New Wine of Dominican Spirituality: A Drink Called Happiness

CNN: How the human penis lost its spines

thomistica.net: Pdfs available of the first thirteen volumes of the Leonine edition

St. Alphonsus Liguori on the Order of Charity?

Found what I was looking for. From Volume 1 of Theologia Moralis.

OP Vocations: Preaching the Gospel of Life as Dominicans

I've been looking for an outline of St. Alphonsus Liguori's Theologia Moralis so I can search the contents of his multivolume work more easily, but no luck so far.

How does this work compare?
Compendium theologiae moralis Sancti Alphonsi Mariae de Liguori

First Things: Waiting for St. Vladimir
An admirer of Alasdair MacIntyre’s moral philosophy rejects his political economy
by Robert T. Miller

Mr. Miller's treatment of MacIntyre and capitalism merits a response, but there are so many things that need to be countered and clarified that I do not think I have time. First Things has not changed its basic economic beliefs, even though it may have a new editor?
MacIntyre on money

Ancient Faith Radio: Lectures by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

here

Archbishop Hilarion on Music and Faith

Russian Orthodox Archbishop on Music and Faith

video (flv)

Chant - Music for paradise - Music for the soul - Stift Heiligenkreuz

Emmanuel Mounier

(source of image)

A Theory of Personalism (New York: Lexington Books, 2005, by Thomas and Rosita Rourke (Google Books)
Reviewed by John Francis Burke, Professor of Political Science, University of St. Thomas, Houston

Roots of the Movement: Emmanuel Mounier and Personalism:

Personalism


Personalism requires an affirmation of value, viz., the affirmation of the absolute value of the human person. We are not asserting that the human person is an absolute, although for a Christian believer the Absolute is indeed a person, and in strict terminology the spiritual does not exist except as personal. But we do assert that the human person as defined by us is an absolute in comparison with any other material or social reality and with any other human person. It can never be considered merely as part of a whole, whether of family, class, state, nation or even humanity. God himself, in the doctrines of Christianity, respects the liberty of the person, even while vivifying it from within. The whole theological mystery of free will and original sin is based on the dignity of free choice conferred on man. The Christian accepts it because he believes that man was in his very nature made according to the image of God, that he is called to perfect that image by an ever increasing participation in the supreme liberty of the children of God.


Any discussion of personalism must thus begin at the basic roots of all human existence. If our efforts were confined merely to a defence of man's public liberties or to any rights not further grounded, then our position would be weak indeed; for there would then be danger of defending only individual privileges.

Emmanuel Mounier, Personalism, and the Catholic Worker movement
Association des Amis d'Emmanuel Mounier
The Personalism of Emmanuel Mounier (pdf)
Personalism (Hardcover, from Boughton Press)

SEP: European Personalism (from the entry on Personalism)

Links:
Personalismo

Catholic Moral Tradition by David Bohr

Wipf and Stock
Liturgical Press

The other survey on happiness I had in mind

Gross National Happiness Index

op-srjoseph: "I Shall Go Forward, Stripped and Trembling"
Yves Simon on the Daily Struggle for Freedom
by Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P.

CRC 21st ce: TO PREPARE VATICAN III
THIRD DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNCIL
WHAT LITURGY FOR TOMORROW?

Zenit: JOSEPH RATZINGER'S PRIMER ON ECCLESIOLOGY (PART 1)
Interview With Ave Maria University's Father Matthew Lamb

(Part 2)

Related:
The Benedict Blog

O VOS OMNES . TOMAS LUIS DE VICTORIA . CAMERATA ABULENSE

SANCTUS BENEDICTUS - TOMAS LUIS DE VICTORIA - CAMERATA ABULENSE

Medievalists.net: Why Medieval? with Philip McDonnell

Russell Hittinger was recently at the University of St. Thomas to give a lecture on St. Benedict. Will he repeat this lecture elsewhere?

If I recall correctly, MacIntyre advances the thesis that Renaissance Aristotelians brought discredit to academic moral philosophy (and to Aristotelian moral philosophy in particular) with their claim that what they taught was sufficient by itself to make a student good. With a proper understanding of human nature (and of sin) we know that this claim is wrong.

Still, it is "natural" (even if fallacious) to judge a moral philosophy to be false if its teacher lived a rather immoral life. Or, we would think the teacher to lack any credibility and his teaching suspect.

Homily at the National Shrine by Fr. Ed Gorman OP for the Funeral Mass for Fr. Pritzl

pritzl gorman from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

Vimeo

Hmmm

Relativity and the Priesthood of Science by Tom Bethell

Petr Beckmann
memorial page

Review: A History of Pi, by Petr Beckmann (Google Books)

Canterbury Cathedral Choir - Song of Wisdom

The World Database of Happiness

Compiled by Dutch researcher Ruut Veenhoeven.

Related:
Cato Unbound profile
Thoughts on Happiness





See this previous post.

Dominican Liturgy: "Life in A Monastery": St. Albert the Great Priory, Oakland CA, 1961

“The Blessed Passion of Holy Love”: Maximus the Confessor’s Spiritual Psychology By Bronwen Neil (via Medievalists.net)

Reminder: DSPT 2011 Aquinas Lecture on March 2

Aquinas Lecture 2011: Fr. Bryan Kromholtz, OP "The Dead in Christ Will Rise: Thomas Aquinas and Current Ideas on the Time of the Resurrection"

His Doctoral dissertation: On the Last Day - The Time of the Resurrection of the Dead according to Thomas Aquinas.

Aquinas Lecture 2011:"Got Freedom?"

Via the Aquinas Institute of Theology's FB page --



The Most Reverend Daniel Flores

Op-St. Joseph: Prayer and Study
A Talk by Fr. Kurt Pritzl, O.P

Prayer and Study from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

Juan R. Vélez, Newman's Idea for Catholic Higher Education

Parts 1 and 2.

Tu es Petrus, Feast of the Chair of St. Peter by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P.

h2o news: Reflections on the Common Good and Catholic Social Teaching



Wish I had the full paper to read.

Fr. William Rehg's faculty page
MIT Press
Crossing Boundaries: Contexts of Practices as Common Goods
Solidarity and the Common Good: An Analytic Framework (Journal of Social Philosophy)

Fr. Aidan Nichols on the Second Volume of Joseph Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth

The Beauty of the Pope’s New Book – Aidan Nichols O. P

Canterbury Tales: The Two Marian Maxims of St Bonaventure

First Maxim: "One should carefully beware of decreasing, even in the slightest, the honor that is due to Mary."


Second Maxim: "One should be ready to defend the privileges of Mary even at the risk of his life."

Where are they to be found in his corpus of writings?

Fr. Pritzl, RIP

Kurt Pritzl, O.P., RIP (via Mirror of Justice) (See also the post at Thomistica.net.)

He was the head when I was accepted at CUA. He sounded a bit disappointed on the phone when I told him that I would be going back on my acceptance and going elsewhere for my graduate education. But when I met him in person several years later over at Notre Dame he was friendly. May he rest in peace.

This article by Thomas Osborne is available online: MacIntyre, Thomism, and the Common Good.

Orthodox Thoughts on Capital Punishment
By Peter-Michael Preble

What do other Orthodox priests and theologians make of the following statements?

1. "Without dwelling on the facts of the case mentioned above, let us look at the view of the Orthodox Church regarding capital punishment. First, no single official speaks for the Orthodox Church; each bishop is entitled to interpret church teaching and Scripture as he sees fit for his particular jurisdiction."

2. "The entire theory of capital punishment is based on retribution. All systems of law as far back as one can be certain espouse this right of the state. However, Jesus teaches that retribution is not right in the love that we are to have toward our neighbor.

In Matthew 5, Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil … love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

3. "Christians have always been opposed to capital punishment because it is the taking of a life – life that is created in the image and likeness of God. The clearest statement comes from the early Christian author Lactantius, who lived between 240 and 320 A.D:

'When God prohibits killing, He not only forbids us to commit brigandage, which is not allowed even by the public laws, but He warns us not to do even those things which are regarded as legal among men… and so it will not be lawful for a just man… to accuse anyone of a capital offense, because it makes no difference whether thou kill with a sword or with a word, since killing itself is forbidden. And so, in this commandment of God, no exception at all ought to be made to the rule that it is always wrong to kill a man, who God has wished to be regarded as a sacrosanct creature" (Institutes VI, XX, 15).'

4. "The bottom line in all of this is that each and every life is precious from conception until its natural death. Capital punishment not only plays into retribution, but it eliminates the possibility for reconciliation – another very important aspect of the life of a Christian. We now have the ability to keep a person incarcerated for the rest of his or her natural life, so the need for capital punishment no longer applies."

A New Wrinkle

Or just something I had forgotten...

For the discussion on torture over at WWWTW, I went back and reread what the CCC says about torture:

Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.[90]

2298 In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors.

So torture as defined in the CCC includes its use for punishment.

Is Christian personalism just a variant of liberal moral theory? I wrote that this is a novelty and the appeal to human dignity and respect for the person is not reducible to what has been written by Thomists about the virtues of charity and justice. So how much weight should the CCC carry? I do not hold it to be an infallible document, and while it should be respected, I think there is a break with the past with regards to punishment. Now it might be that Sacred Tradition does not explicitly maintain the infliction of pain as punishment is licit. But it would seem that various moral theologians (and bishops?) have taught it.

Again, how is torture as it is broadly defined here different from corporal punishment by parents or lawful authorities?

Fr. Brian Harrison has an article from 2006 for This Rock, but I would think it has been superceded by his addendum.

Edit. I vaguely recall an attempt to harmonize the CCC with "traditional" teaching on the infliction of pain as a punishment, but I can find no record of having written about it on this blog. I may have written it somewhere else, or just done it mentally. One could interpret the CCC as prohibiting the torture of those who have already been sentenced and punished for an offense -- torture (or any sort of maltreatment) would in their case be going beyond what has already been determined to be a proper punishment for their offense. (Maltreatment might be justified on the grounds that they have lost human dignity, etc., but I do not think that this would be in accord with a traditional understanding of justice.)

Still, I think the more obvious sense of the sentence in the CCC is that it prohibits torture as a form of punishment. But this would only be a problem if the CCC were represent the highest teaching authority of the Church and protected by infallibility.

Bill Luse Raises a Question about Punishment

Sunday Question: To Proceed with Gentlemanly Courtesy..or not

Psalm 111

Westminster Cathedral Choir:

Cristóbal de Morales - Lectio II, Taedet animam meam (Lamentatio Jeremiae)

Lying?

ML recommends this Thomistic response to a Recent Dispute about Lying. See also Everyday Thomist.

Live Action - The Rosa Acuna Project

More:
America
Robert George

Interview with the New Director of CUA Press

Publishing, Physics, and Rugby

Tufts Daily: At lecture, Greek Orthodox archbishop says psalms applicable to many traditions

Archbishop Demetrios

Science Daily: Regrowing Hair: Researchers May Have Accidentally Discovered a Solution

Video of the Western Dominican Province House of Studies in 1960

Western Dominican Province House of Studies in 1960 (Cross-posted at Dominican Liturgy)

Aquinas-Barth Conference

At Princeton in June.

Google Books: 2 by Edward Grant

The Nature of Natural Philosophy in the Late Middle Ages
A history of natural philosophy: from the ancient world to the nineteenth century

The Art of Definition

Working with elementary school students, I noticed that when asked to give definitions, students usually just give synonyms. But this is true of teachers as well. Is it also a weakness of children's dictionaries? Does this instill a bad habit that gets in the way of acquiring the intellectual virtues later on in life?

Aristotle's theory of the syllogism By Günther Patzig

Zenit: ON ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
"If a Man Has a Great Love Within … He Endures Life’s Problems More Easily"

While I was driving home and thinking of my recent hospital experience, I asked if part of the problem was not an inordinate desire for health, and if the amount of money being spent on research was not an indication of our wrong priorities. If we found that a majority (if not most or all) diseases of civilization were due to diet, would our society continue to spend so much money on research? I say "so much" since the amount of funding and grant money required to pay scientists and their staff and keep medical, pharmaceutical, or biological research laboratories running must be great. Even if we eliminated 70 or 80% of the diseases that plague us as we age, would we nevertheless demand 100% eradication? Would we not be satisfied with our lot in life?
This is assuming that everyone doing research is doing so with pure intentions, and not because they seek to make money from it. We could once again ask how the surplus wealth that is necessary for research is being obtained--if our research is a form of prodigality and the means by which the money is being obtained involves great injustice, then wouldn't the whole enterprise be doubly compromised?

Still, collective sin as it is used in contemporary discourse can seem like it is poorly-defined. How much responsibility do those who benefit from the system bear, as compared to those who are in control of the system?

It's been a long day...

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council: A Counterpoint for the History of the Council Now Available

Fr. Z: Archbp. Marchetto’s book about “School of Bologna” and interpretations of Vatican II now in English

NLM

Happiness Surveys and the Good of Ethics

We have often received reports through the MSM of the results of surveys trying to find the world's happiest country, and so on.

The most recent item I've seen that makes use of such surveys is Jim Bannon's "The Pursuit of Happiness" (EB), which uses the results of astudy comparing the 50 states, which attempted to link objective criteria with respondents' subjective life-satisfaction scores.

How does one determine unhappiness, or dissatisfaction? The failure to attain the goods that one wants or expects? How is this quantified in a survey? Some surveys may find a correlation with simplicity in lifestyle--others may not, especially when the top 5 happiest countries are industrialized. The definition of happiness is left up to the individual -- though external markers are sought to justify their impression. As far as I have seen, these surveys do not rely upon a notion of happiness universally applicable to all, a standard by which societies (and their ways of life) everywhere can be judged.

But on to my main point: it seems natural to us to think of goods as things that we possess. If we have the good or goods, then we are happy. Is this a problem of language? Does the word "good" lend itself to thinking in terms of abstractions and habits, things that we have? That is, because the word "good" is an [abstract] noun, are we inclined to seek a res that is a substance, rather than an accident. Do we find this problematic conception in other languages, or is it limited only to English? (Merriam-Webster, etymology)
Or is it more the psychology of fallen nature -- we spend much time thinking about what we wish to acquire in order to satisfy inordinate desires? Then, when we come across the word in a writings dealing with ethics, we first think of things before anything else. (Did utilitarianism/consequentialism play any role in promoting this understanding?)

Which of the Greek or Latin Fathers talked about goods as being things that are possessed? I can't remember St. Augustine's treatment. I do remember Boethius talking about the goods that are constitutive of happiness. He seems to share that conception of  the relationship of "good" to happiness with many moderns. From The Consolation of Philosophy: Aristotle does enumerate "goods" (things to be possessed) which are identified by various people as being happiness in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, but this is a dialectical discussion(?) aimed at showing that these opinions are incorrect.

What needs to be recovered is an understanding of good(s) of happiness primarily as an activity, and not as something that we have/possess, either "internal" to us (e.g. virtue or office/power/ability) or external to us (e.g. family). These latter goods are instruments or occasions for activity or the exercise of virtue.

If they are to be really meaningful, these surveys should not be a "sociological" study of what people want and desire and are missing, but a study of how people live. But that would probably require too much of an academic survey.

*Boethius's account, or any traditional Catholic theology for that matter, does seem to be right with respect to  naming God as our first ("highest") good. But this requires a nuanced explanation.