The Good Life - Lecture Notes

Objectives:

  • Examine what is meant by good life.
  • Identify how humans attempt to attain what is deemed to be a good life.
  • Recognize possibilities available to human beings to attain the good life.

Ancient Greece:

  • Long before the word 'science' was coined, understanding the world and reality was intertwined with understanding the self and the good life.

Theoretical Sciences vs. Practical Sciences:

  • Theoretical Sciences: Logic, Biology, Physics, Metaphysics, among others - focus on TRUTH.
  • Practical Sciences: Ethics, Politics - focus on GOOD.
  • Every attempt to know is connected to finding the good and human flourishing.
  • One must find the truth about what the good is before trying to locate what is good.

Aristotle and the Good Life:

  • Aristotle approached reality through a scientific lens.
  • He was the first thinker to address the end goal of life: happiness.
  • Reality is based on what the senses can perceive; understanding reality comes from observing the external world.
  • Two Realities According to Plato:
    • World of matter: Things are not real, but mere copies of the real.
    • World of forms: Things are ideal and models; forms (whatness) are the only real entities.

Human Flourishing (Aristotle):

  • Contentment in knowing one is getting the best out of life.
  • A feeling of maximizing one's potentials and attaining the crux of humanity.

Happiness: The Goal of a Good Life:

  • An action is right if it maximizes happiness for the greatest number of people (J. S. Mill).
  • Actions benefiting the greatest number are deemed ethical.
  • Ethics should lead us to a good and happy life.

Different Schools of Thought:

  • Materialism (Democritus & Leucippus):
    • The world is made of tiny, indivisible units called atomos or seeds.
    • No need for immaterial entities to explain purpose.
    • Matter is what makes us attain happiness.
  • Hedonism (Epicurus):
    • The end goal of life is acquiring pleasure.
    • Life is about obtaining and indulging in pleasure because life is limited.
    • There is no sense of afterlife.
  • Stoicism (Zeno of Citium):
    • Founded in the ancient Agora of Athens ca. 300 BCE.
    • To generate happiness, one must distance oneself and be apathetic.
    • Realize that some things are not within our control.
    • The sooner we realize this, the happier we can become.
  • Theism (Ralph Cudworth):
    • A perfectly conscious, understanding being or mind, existing eternally, caused all other things.
    • The ultimate basis of happiness is communion with God.
    • The world we are in is only a temporary reality.

Humanism:

  • Petrarch is called the “Father of Humanism.”
  • Man is the captain of his own ship.
  • The world is a place to unearth and improve lives.
  • Scientists, inspired by humanism, turned to technology to ease life's difficulties.

The Quest for Happiness:

  • Man is constantly in pursuit of a good life.
  • Every person has their own perspective on what constitutes a good life.
  • The soul has to attain a certain balance in order to have a good life, a life of flourishing.
  • Science and technology have been at the forefront of man’s attempts in finding happiness.
  • The question is whether science is taking the right path toward attaining what it really means to have a good life.