GOOD LIFE

Stimulating innovation through collaboration

 What is good life?
One way of viewing good life is through the Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs fulfillment called
actualization. Here the idea of good life changes. Those
whose security needs are not meet, they
may visualize the “good life” as to be a secure environment
with meaningful social bonds.
Socrates
(as imagined by Plato) tells that “the unexamined life is not worth living”;
this does not endorse a life of private reflection but he means that an
individual becomes a master of himself using his reason to reign in his
passion helping to promote stability in
himself and his community. Plato and Socrates define a good life in terms of
reasonable restraint and civic duty. Nietzsche‘s declaration of “ god is
dead”, allows the possibility of
meaningful lives. He describes himself as an “amoralist “ , and uses the
proposed death of god—a metaphor for the loss of religious and
metaphysical authority governing human behavior----to stage what he calls
“reevaluation of values”. Instead of self-denying values of restraint and
slave morality in life, he pursues life-affirming values like taking care and
well-being of self.
Aristotle
in his work Nicomachean Ethics, he stated that all human activities aim at some
good. Everyone is moving towards the good. Completing one’s studies, training
for sport, or taking a rest is good and this is expressed in various ways for
different persons and circumstances. The good life is characterized by happiness
that springs from living and doing well. The ancient Greeks called this
“eudaimonia” Greek words “eu” meaning good and “daimonia” meaning spirit
taking together a good life as marked by happiness and excellence. A flourishing
life is filled with meaningful endeavors that empower the human person to be the
best version of himself. If one is a student he acts as a best version of himself by
studying well and fulfilling the demands of the school. If one is an athlete then he
strives to be the best version by training hard as well as joining and winning in
sport competition.
Aristotle
According to Aristotle, happiness is the ultimate end of human
action and it is what man pursues for its own sake. Financial stability for one’s family, the power
achieved in winning an election harmony and peace as a reward, or taking care of the environment—all are pursued
for the sake of happiness. Happiness defines a good life. This happiness is not the kind that comes from sensate
pleasure. It is which comes from living a life of virtue, a life of
excellence manifested from a personal to a global scale. For example, making sure that one avoids
sugary foods and processed foods to keep healthy is an activity expressed with virtue. The resulting
health adds to well-being and happiness. Another example, taking care of the environment through
proper waste management which results in a clean environment and adds to people’s well-being and happiness.
These virtuous actions require discipline and practice. Action contrary to this does not result in happiness. The good
life does not happen in a bubble, flourishing must be with others too.
Aristotle
Virtue plays a significant role in the living and attainment of good life. It is a constant practice of the good no matter
how difficult the circumstances may be. Virtue is the excellence of character that empowers one to be good.
Everyone has the capacity within himself to be good but he has to be disciplined to make a habit of exercising the
good. Virtue is of two kinds, intellectual and moral, on which intellectual virtue owes its birth and growth to
teaching—it requires experience and time while moral virtue comes from a result of a habit. Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics is considered to be one of the most important treatises on ethics ever written, where he
examines the nature of goodness itself in man he asserts that virtue is essential to happiness and man must live by
the “ doctrine of mean “. It is the balance between excess and deficiency to achieve happiness. It is right to choose
the mean and avoid excess and deficiency, where the mean is prescribed by the right principle. In the case of moral
qualities or disposition, the man who knows the principle involved fixes his gaze and increases or relaxes the tension
accordingly because there is a certain standard determining those modes of observing the mean.
Aristotle
According to him, in studying virtue, virtue of the soul or mind can be divided into two
groups, the virtue of character and intellectual virtue. The soul or mind has two parts one
rational and the other, the irrational and the rational part have two faculties, the
SCIENTIFIC faculty whereby we contemplate those things whose first principles are
invariable, and the CALCULATIVE faculty where by we contemplate those things which
admit variation
Aristotle
There are three elements of the soul that control action and attainment of the truth namely sensation, intellect, and
desire.
• sensation never originates action.
• Pursuit and avoidance in the sphere of desire correspond to the affirmation and denial in the sphere of intellect.
• Moral virtue is a disposition of the mind with regard to a choice, choice is a deliberate desire; it follows if the
choice is good both the principle must be true and the desire is right.
• The attainment of truth is the function of every part of the intellect. Practical intelligence is the attainment of
truth corresponding to the right desire.
• The cause of action (the efficient, not the final cause) is choice and the cause of choice is desire and reasoning
directed to some end. Choice necessarily involves both intellect or thought and a certain and certain disposition
of character for doing well.
• The act of making is not an end itself, it is only means and belongs to something else.
• Man as an originator of action is a union of desire and intellect.
There are five qualities through which the mind achieves truth in affirmation or denial namely art or technical skills, scientific
knowledge, prudence, wisdom, and intelligence.
• hat a thing we know scientifically cannot vary. An object of scientific knowledge exists out of necessity. It is held that all
scientific knowledge can be communicated by teaching and that what is scientifically known must be learned by way of
induction or deduction.
• All art deals with bringing something into existence. Art does not deal with things that exist or come into existence of
necessity or according to nature. It is concerned with the making not with the doing hence art is a rational quality.
• Prudence is concerned with matters of conduct that admit variation. It is a truth-attaining rational quality concerned with
action in relation to the things that are good for human beings.
• Wisdom is the combination of intuition and knowledge involving a deep understanding of the natural world. Wisdom is the
highest of all intellectual virtues because it involves a profound understanding of the eternal truth of the universe.
Contemplative reasoning deals with eternal truth unrelated to human action as revealed in natural sciences and mathematics. It
makes use of scientific knowledge intuition and wisdom. Calculative reasoning deals with the practical matters of human life.
• Resourcefulness or good deliberation is a process that helps achieve the ends envisaged by prudence.
• Understanding is a form of judgment regarding practical matters which helps us determine what is equitable.
• Pleasure is not desirable without qualification. Not all pleasures are desirable and that pleasure is not the supreme good. Only
those pleasures enjoyed by a good person and for the right reasons are good.
• The highest form of happiness is contemplation for it is the activity of our highest rationalfaculties.
 What is human existence?
hy we are here? What is life all about?

The meaning of life as we perceive it derived In Aristotle point of view, he defended reason, invented logic,
from its philosophical and religious contemplation and scientific focused on reality and the
inquiries about existence, social ties importance of the life in the earth which enables science and
consciousness and happiness. Plato believed in the existence of technology to develop and flourish. The
universals. His Theory of Forms knowledge of the world commences by looking at and
proposes that universals do not exist as objects. For him the meaning
examining what exists and can be augmented
of life is the attainment of
by reason. (concept of scientific method).
highest form of knowledge which is the Idea of Good from which all
good and just things derive utility
and value.
What is public good?
public good is a product that one individual can consume without reducing its availability to another individual and from
which no one is excluded. Public goods are nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. A dam is an example of a public good. It is by
which all people benefit from its use without reducing the availability of its function. In some cases, a public good can be
excludable, and a private good can be nonexcludable. A public good is excludable when it has a nominal cost that creates a
low barrier to the consumption of the good. For example, the post office needs stamp expenses, and Private goods like
basic AM radio show is considered non-excludable since anyone can hear and listen.

The ethical theory is connected to the type of life that is most desirable or most worth living
for each human being. The distinction of a good person is to take pleasure in moral action. Virtue
is the means to the values that enable us to achieve and attain happiness. Making the proper
response to the unique situation is the concern of moral living. Although virtues and values are not
automatically rewarded, this does not alter the fact that they are rewarded (human flourishing) the
goal of which is happiness.
What is public good?
Self-direction involves the use of one’s reason necessary for attaining human flourishing.
Freedom indecision–making and behavior is a necessary operating condition for the pursuit of
flourishing, together with respect for individual autonomy. These natural rights are meta-normative
principles concerned with protecting the self-directedness of individuals. Nature rights impose a
negative obligation —an obligation not to interfere with one’s liberty, hence it requires a legal system that provides the
necessary conditions for the possibility that individuals might actualize. All the diverse forms of personal flourishing
may coexist in an ethically compossible manner. This right can be
accorded to every person with no one’s authority over himself requiring that any other person
experience a loss of authority over himself.
Thank you