THE GOOD LIFE

What is God Life?

  • People have different ideas of what constitutes the good life.

  • Wrong pursuits may lead to tragic consequences.

  • Correct pursuits may lead to flourishing.

In Aristotalian view,

  • The understandability of the good is based on the idea of what is good for the specific entity under consideration.

Nicomachean Ethics 2:2

  • All human activities aim at some good. Every art and human inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has been rightly declared as that at which all things aim.

Nicomachean Ethics and Modern Concepts

  • EUDAIMONIA GOOD = LIFE

  • HAPPINESS/WELFARE & VIRTUE

The 4 Pillars of the Good Life

  • Health

  • Wealth

  • Love

  • Happiness

Golden Rule

  • Confucius: What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

MATERIALISM

  • A form of philosophical monism (belief that there is only one supreme being) which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness are results of material interactions.

  • The first materialists were the atomists in Ancient Greece. 

  • Democritus and Leucippus led a school whose primary belief is that the world is made up of and is controlled by the tiny invisible units in the world called atomos or seeds.

  • Atomos simply comes together randomly to form the things in the world.

Classification of Materialism

  1.  Naive materialism is the unquestioned and unquestioning belief in the primacy of the physical universe.

  2.  Dialectical materialism is a way of understanding reality; whether thoughts, emotions, or the material world.

  3.  Metaphysical materialism a philosophical approach that argues that all philosophical, emotional, mental, and conscious states are a result from the material/physical world. Therefore, everything can be explained by looking at matter or ''the real world."

Hedonism

  • Is a school of thought that argues that the pursuit of pleasure and intrinsic goods are the primary or most important goals of human life.

  • A hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain) but when having finally gained that pleasure, happiness remains stationary.

Stoicism

  • Another school of thought led by Epicurus.

  • The stoics espoused the idea that to generate happiness, one must learn to distance oneself and be apathetic-(showing no concern, interest or enthusiasm).

  • The path to happiness for humans is found in accepting this moment as it presents itself, by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure, or our fear of pain.

THEISM

  • The belief in the existence of the Supreme Being or Deities

  • Describes the classical conception of God. The ultimate basis of happiness is the communication with God

  • Monotheism- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism

 

 

 

Humanism

  • A school of thought espouses the freedom of man to carve his own destiny and to legislate his own laws, free from the shackles of a God that monitors and controls.

  • Refers to nontheistic life stance centered on human agency and looking to science rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world.