LESSON 3: The Good Life

JOHANA

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this lesson, the learner should be able to:

-examine what is meant by a good life;

-identify how humans attempt to attain what is deemed to be a good life; and

-recognize possibilities available to human being to attain the good life.

"Happiness depends on ourselves."

Aristotle

Introduction

Many philosophers have attempted unlocking the old philosophical question, "What is the good life?"
"How should one live well?" "What does it take to live fruitfully? In this module, these questions will be
answered as we understand all about achieving the good life, what every individual strives throughout
his or her life.

PRE-ACTIVITY

Think-Pair-Share

From your own perspective, list down all the things that would make your life well-lived. Share them
with your partner.

ANALYSIS

After sharing your thoughts with your partner, answer the following questions:

1. What are the things that your partner shared about the things he or she

considers to achieve the good life?

2. How is your perspective about achieving the good life different from or is similar
to your partner's perspective?

3. Do you think one can really achieve a good life in a man's lifetime? How is it possible? If yes, how?

What is meant by a good life?

According to Westacott (2018), there are three ways by which we can understand what is meant by "a
good life" or "living well." These are the Moral Life, Life of Pleasure, and Fulfilled Life. Read the full
article below.

What is the Good Life?

The various meanings of "living well"

By Emrys Westacott

What is "the good life?" This is one of the oldest philosophical questions. It has been posed in different
ways-How should one live? What does it mean to "live well?"—but these are really just the same
question. After all, everyone wants to live well, and no-one wants "the bad life."

But the question isn't as simple as it sounds. Philosophers specialize in unpacking hidden complexities,
and the concept of the good life is one of those that needs quite a bit of unpacking. For what do phrases
like "the good life," or "living well," mean? They can be understood in at least three ways.

CARYL

The Moral Life

One basic way in which we use the word "good" is to express moral approval. So when we say that
someone is living well or that they have lived a good life, we may simply mean that they are a good
person, someone who is courageous, honest, trustworthy, kind, selfless, generous, helpful, loyal,
principled, and so on. They possess and practice many of the most important virtues. And they don't
spend all their time merely pursuing their own pleasure; they devote a certain amount of time to
activities that benefit others, perhaps through their engagement with family and friends, or through
their work, or through various voluntary activities.

This moral conception of the good Ilife has had plenty of champions. Socrates and Plato both gave
absolute priority to being a virtuous person over all other supposedly good things such as pleasure,
wealth, or power. In Plato's dialogue, Gorgias, Socrates takes this position to an extreme. He argues that
it is much better to suffer wrong than to do it; that a good man who has his eyes gouged out and is
tortured to death is more fortunate than a corrupt person who has uses wealth and power
dishonorably.

In his masterpiece, the Republic, Plato develops this argument in greater detail. The morally good
person, he claims enjoys a sort of inner harmony, whereas the wicked person, no matter how rich and
powerful he may be or how many pleasure he enjoys, is disharmonious, fundamentally at odds with
himself and the world. It is worth noting, though, that in both the Gorgias and the Republic, Plato
bolsters his argument with an speculative account of an afterlife in which virtuous people are rewarded
and wicked people are punished.

Many religions also conceive of the good life in moral terms as a life lived according to God's laws. A
person who lives this way, obeying the commandments and performing the proper rituals, is pious. And
in most religions such piety will be rewarded. Obviously, many people do not receive their reward in this
life. But devout believers are confident that their piety will not be in vain.

Christian martyrs went singing to their deaths confident that they would soon be in heaven. Hindus
expect that the law of karma will ensure that their good deeds and intentions will be rewarded, while
evil actions and desires will be punished, either in this life or in future lives.

SALVE

The Life of Pleasure

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was one of the first to declare, bluntly, that what makes life
worth living is that we can experience pleasure.

Pleasure is enjoyable, it's fun, it's...welI...pleasant! The view that pleasure is the good, or to put it
another way, that pleasure is what makes life worth living, is known as hedonism. Now, the word
"hedonist," when applied to a person, has slightly negative connotations. It suggests that they are
devoted to what some have called the "lower" pleasures such as sex, food, drink, and sensual
indulgence in general. Epicurus was thought by some of his contemporaries to be advocating and
practicing this sort of lifestyle, and even today an "epicure" is someone who is especially appreciative of
food and drink. In fact, though, this is a misrepresentation of Epicureanism. Epicurus certainly praised all
kinds of pleasures. But he didn't advocate that we lose ourselves in sensual debauchery for various
reasons:

-Doing so will probably reduce our pleasures in the long run since over-indulgence tends to cause health
problems and limit the range of pleasure we enjoy.

-The so-called "higher" pleasures such as friendship and study are at least as important as "pleasures of
the flesh."
-The good life has to be virtuous. Although Epicurus disagreed with Plato about the value of pleasure, he
fully agreed with him on this point.

-Today, this hedonistic concept of the good life is arguably dominant in Western culture. Even in
everyday speech, if we say someone is "living the good life," we probably mean that they enjoying lots
of recreational pleasures: good food, good wine, skiing, scuba diving, lounging by the pool in the sun
with a cocktail and a beautiful partner.

-What is key to this hedonistic conception of the good life is that it emphasizes subjective experiences.
On this view, to describe a person as "happy" means that they "feel good," and a happy life is one that
contains many "feel good" experiences.

CHRISTY

The Fulfilled Life

If Socrates emphasizes virtue and Epicurus emphasizes pleasure, another great Greek thinker, Aristotle,
views the good life in a more comprehensive way. According to Aristotle, we all want to be happy. We
value many things because they are a means to other things: for instance, we value money because it
enables us to buy things we want; we value leisure because it gives us time to pursue our interests. But
happiness is something we value not as a means to some other end but for its own sake. It has intrinsic
value rather than an instrumental value.

So for Aristotle, the good life is the happy life. But what does that mean? Today, many people
automatically think of happiness in subjectivist terms: to them, a person is happy if they are enjoying a
positive state of mind, and their life is happy if this is true for them most of the time. There is a problem
with this way of thinking about happiness in this way, though. Imagine a powerful sadist who spends
much of his time gratifying cruel desires.

Or imagine a pot smoking, beer guzzling couch potato who does nothing but sit around all day watching
old TV shows and playing video games. These people may have plenty of pleasurable subjective
experiences. But should we really describe them as "living well?" Aristotle would certainly say no. He
agrees with Socrates that to live the good life one must be a morally good person. And he agrees with
Epicurus that a happy life will involve many and varied pleasurable experiences. We can't really say
someone is living the good life if they are often miserable.or constantly suffering.

But Aristotle's idea of what it means to live well is objectivist rather than subjectivist. It isn't just a
matter of how a person feels inside, although that does matter. It's also important that certain objective
conditions be satisfied. For instance:

-Virtue: They must be morally virtuous.

-Health: They should enjoy good health and a reasonably long life.
-Prosperity: They should be comfortably off (for Aristotle this meant affluent enough so that they don't
need to work for a living doing something that they would not freely choose to do).

-Friendship: They must have good friends. According to Aristotle human beings are innately social; so
the good life can't be that of a hermit, a recluse, or a misanthrope.

-They should enjoy the respect of others. Aristotle doesn't think that fame or glory is necessary; in fact, a
craving for fame can lead people astray, just as the desire for excessive wealth can. But ideally, a
person's qualities and achievements will be recognized by others.

-They need good luck. This is an example of Aristotle's common sense. Any life can be rendered unhappy
by tragic loss or misfortune.

-They must exercise their unique human abilities and capacities. This is why the couch potato is not
living well, even if they report that they are content. Aristotle argues that what separates human beings
from the other animals is reason. So the good life is one in which a person cultivates and exercises his
rational faculties by, for instance, engaging in scientific enquiry, philosophical discussion, artistic
creation, or legislation. Were he alive today he might well include some forms of technological
innovation.

If, at the end of your life, you can check all these boxes. then you could reasonably claim to have lived
well, to have achieved the good life. Of course, the great majority of people today do not belong to the
leisured class as Aristotle did.

They have to work for a living. But it's still true that we think the ideal circumstance is to be doing for a
living what you would choose to do anyway. So people who are able to pursue their calling are generally
regarded as extremely fortunate.

EDRE

The meaningful life

A lot of recent research shows that people who have children are not necessarily happier than people
who don't have children. Indeed, during the child raising years, and especially when the children have
turned into teenagers, parents typically have lower levels of happiness and higher levels of stress. But
even though having children may not make people happier, it does seem to give them the sense that
their lives are more meaningful.

For many people, the well-being of their family, especially their children and grandchildren, is the main
source of meaning in life. This outlook goes back a very long way. In ancient times, the definition of good
fortune was to have lots of children who do well for themselves. But obviously, there can be other
sources of meaning in a person's life.
They may, for instance, pursue a particular kind of work with great dedication: e.g. scientific research,
artistic creation, or scholarship. They may devote themselves to a cause: e.g. fighting against racism;
protecting the environment. Or they may be thoroughly immersed in and engaged with some particular
community: e.g. a church; a soccer team; a school.

JASCHA

The Finished Life

The Greeks had a saying: Call no man happy until he's dead. There is wisdom in this. In fact, one might
want to amend it to: Call no man happy until he's long dead. For sometimes a person can appear to live.
a fine life, and be able to check all the boxes-virtue, prosperity, friendship, respect, meaning, etc.-yet
eventually be revealed as something other than what we thought they were. A good example of this is
Jimmy Saville, the British TV personality who was much admired in his lifetime but who, after he died,
was exposed as a serial sexual predator.

Cases like this bring out the great advantage of an objectivist rather than subjectivist notion of what it
means to live well. Jimmy Saville may have enjoyed his life. But surely, we would not want to say that he
lived the good life. A truly good life is one that is both enviable and admirable in all or most of the ways
outlined above.

Source: Westacott E. (2018) What is the good life? https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-good-life-

4038226

JASCHA ULIT

From the above article, good moral would mean to lead us to the good and happy life. Throughout
history, man has persistently struggled in order to attain human flourishing and has given birth to
different schools of thought, which aim for the good and happy life.

SALVE

Materialism

The first materialists were the atomists in Ancient Greece. The atomist philosophers thought that
universe and matter are only made up of atoms "atomos" or seeds. These are indivisible particles,
assembled by chance and in a purely mechanical way. The founders of this theory was the Greek
philosopher Leucippus and his disciple Democritus (around 460 370 B.C.). This, belief aims that comfort,
pleasure, and wealth are the only highest goals.

CARYL

Hedonism
Epicurus continued the theory of materialism, which does not buy any notion of afterlife. The hedonists
see the end goal of life in attaining pleasure. For hedonists, since life is limited, one must indulge itself
with pleasures- "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die". They strive to maximize their total
pleasure, the difference of pleasure and pain, and if the pleasure was finally gained, happiness remains
fixed.

CHRISTY

Stoicism

Stoicism is one of the schools of thought in philosophy created for those who live their lives in the real
world. It was founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium (early 3rd century BC). Stoicism asserts that virtue
(e.g. wisdom) is happiness and judgment should be based acts on behavior rather than words. People do
not have any control and must not rely on external events, only for themselves and their responses. This
philosophy, helps a person to overcome destructive emotions and acts on what can be acted upon.
Stoicism also differs from other schools of thought with its purpose as a practical application rather than
intellectual enterprise.

JOHANA

Theism

The ultimate basis of happiness for theists is the communion with God. They believe that they can find
the meaning of their lives by using God as the creator of their existence. Theism is a belief that one or
more gods exist within the universe, and that gods are often omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-
powerful), and omnipresent (all-pervasive). This belief incorporates Monotheism (belief in one god) and
Polytheism (belief in many gods). The Abrahamic faiths such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as
Hinduism are all theistic religions.

EDRE

Humanism

Humanism is another school of thought that affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility
to give meaning and shape their own lives. "It is not theistic and does not accept supernatural views of
reality" - IHEU; International Humanist and Ethical Union. Further, humanists see themselves not only as
the stewards of creation but as individuals who have control for themselve as well as the world outside
them. Most scientists dwell on this thought that the world is a place for discovery in seeking ways on
how to improve the lives of its inhabitants. As a result, scientists eventually turn to technology to ease
the difficulty of life, that is, to live comfortably.

CHRISTY MAG-ISA

What is the ultimate goal of a good life?

"Aristotle was the originator of the concept of eudaimonia (from daimon true nature). He deemed
happiness to be a vulgar idea, stressing that not all desires are worth pursuing as, even though some of
them may yield pleasure, they would not produce wellness. Aristotle thought that true happiness is
found by leading a virtuous life and doing what is worth doing. He argued that realizing human potential
is the ultimate human goal" (Boniwell 2008).

Boniwell (2008) emphasized that feeling good is not good enough for a good life. Each person must
realize his/her potentialities which would lead him/her to the greatest fulfillment - daimon. (See also
human flourishing in the previous lesson)

JOHANA & EDRE HATI

What is the role of technology in achieving good life?

According to Vergragt (2006), in his essay about how technology could contribute to a sustainable world,
technology will support and enhance a "good life" for all citizens without compromising the earth's
ecosystem or the prospects of later generations. As Stutz (2006) stated, a good life requires essentially
basic human needs are met and aspirations for freedom, belonging, and self-realization are fulfilled as
much as possible. Vergragt also noted that technological innovation in the context of the good life and
how it can be supported or threatened, depending on the way technological innovations are influenced
and steered by human decisions and institutions.

Technology, however, allowed us to tamper time and space. Social media as an example has been very
effective in doing this. Communication has been a lot easier for people from different parts of the world.
They can talk and see each other in real time and send messages instantly without waiting for a letter
mail to arrive. Technology also allowed us to fiddle with our sexuality by injecting hormones in order to
alter the biochemical in our body. Whether, we use such technological advancements or not, these are
all in the pursuit of attaining a good life. It is the question of how we decide on what kinds of technology
to use or not to use as well as the balance between the good life, ethics, and technology has to be
achieved.

Below is an excerpt from an interview of a graduate at University of Montana Philosophy Program,

Professor Albert Borgmann, the author of Technology and Good Life.

JASCHA, SALVE & CARYL HATI-HATI

Technology and the good life

An interview with UM Regent’s Professor Albert Borgmann

Last spring, Albert Borgmann, UM Regent's Professor of Philosophy, joined over 130 audience members
in a conversatiom about his philosophy and his recent book, Real American Ethics. Professor Borgmann
and his guest panelists discussed the responsibility we all share in creating our values. Professor
Borgmann agreed to join us again for a follow-up interview with Ali Tabibnejad, a recent graduate of
UM's philosophy program.

Ali Tabibnejad: Is there a rule of thumb that one can use in deciding what kind of technology to use or
not use?

Professor Borgmann: Well, I think technological devices that provide a definite benefit in health, safety
and survival are unproblematic. And beyond that, we often don't have a choice whether we want to use
technological devices or not-they're just inflicted on us. In this town, you almost have to have a car; you
certainly have to have a bicycle; and these days you've got to have a computer otherwise you're just not
accessible to lots of things; you also must be reachable by telephone. So the question is not using them
or not using them but how to use them... The answer is "the ones that enhance focal practices and
communal celebrations, and do not diminish or replace them." That would be the rule of thumb.

T: One's resolve to pursue excellence and lead a good life can always be confused or countered by
cultural forces. [What] can we resort to in dealing with these situations?

B: Most of us have experienced the good life and we are not ignorant about it- and if we haven't
experienced it, we certainly have dreamed of it and hoped for it and aspired to it. So it's not a secret.
The problem is, once you have this focalexperience of the good life, how to give it a secure position, a
secure and central position in your life. To do that, you have to know what you are up against: the
temptations and the seductions of the life of consumption. Typically the liabilities of the technological
culture oscillate between sullenness and hyperactivity. Sullenness is bad-you are just a passive
consumer and have given up on excellence. A driven kind of hyperactivity is also bad, although not as
bad. And so there is a kind of schooling we have to give one another, the benefit of our experiences. And
philosophers, of course, have an important task in thinking through and articulating in helpful language
what for most people is a confusing mess with flashes of insight and quite often a frustration in not
being able to put it all together and make it cohere.

T: In another interview you mentioned that if you had a choice, you would instill generosity, and then a
sense of humor, and finally intelligence in your students. Why is that? And, since you can't demand
generosity from others, how can we hope to instill it in others?

B: We can do it in two ways, one is through teaching and, again, by providing the kind of confidence and
consciousness of generosity that even generous people sometimes lack-make it clear to them that the
great traditions, social science research and our intuitions all converge in showing that generosity is a
good thing; it makes you feel well and puts you in proper relationship with people and things. The other
[way], of course, is by example. Virtues are mildly transitive and they reverberate, at least to some
extent, beyond our individual person to those whom we know and then from there to those who these
people know in turn. That's a good thing about the virtues and setting an example.

T: What are your ambitions with philosophy now, and what do you hope your legacy to be in
philosophy?
B: Let me start with my legacy. My legacy is my students. The most wonderful experience is when you
meet them again after five years and they tell you that you helped them to clarify their lives and make
them better. The second legacy is my contribution to my readers and that legacy is wide and diverse but
thin and more than I could hope for when I started-much more. It's of course not enough but then no
one person can turn a culture around. At best they can make a small contribution to something-you
know, it's like a little creek and it flows into other creeks and then it can become a stream. As far as my
ambition is concerned, I would like to write a book about moral cosmology. . I think what perhaps can be
done is to show how contemporary culture, the daily culture we live in, provides unique obstacles but
also unique opportunities for recovering something like a moral cosmology, that is to say, an
encompassing worldview that has some effect on the way in which we think of ourselves and of what
we do day to day.

Professor Borgmann had more to say; to hear the entire interview, visit the Center for Ethics webpage at
www.umt.edu/ethics.

JOHANA (PERO TAPOS NA TALAGA 🤣)

EVALUATION

Answer the following questions as brief as possible.

1. Define, in your own words, the meaning of a good life:

2. How can one achieve a good life according to the article, "What is the Good Life?" by Emrys
Westacott?

4. Can technology lead us to a good life? Explain your answer.

5. What did Prof. Albert Borgmann mean when he said, "the ones that enhance focal practices and
communal celebrations, and do not diminish or replace them." That would be the rule of thumb.

ENRICHMENT

A. Watch the documentary film entitled "That Sugar Film" (2015).

B. Read The Concepts of the Public Good: A View from the Filipino Philosopher by Rolando Gripaldo

TASK: Write a reflection paper on how the two topics relate to the lesson about "The Good Life."
Support your stand.