Plato's Republic (380 B.C.E.) includes claims about happiness that rest on a divided view of the self. According to Plato, the self has three parts. Rather than characterize happiness as some kind of unification of the self’s parts, Plato’s account of happiness (and justice!) is hierarchical, one part rules over the others. This view is so deep in our culture that it will probably resonate with some of your intuitions about how you should live——and these intuitions may or may not lead to happiness. Discovering what may be behind some of your intuitions is one benefit of learning about Plato’s view. Another benefit is that this process may give us hints about what an alternative view of happiness would look like.