Chap 5 - Good Life

• Good life as viewed by philosophers and thinker

  • plato and socrates
  • epicurus
  • aristotle
• plato and socrates - emphasizes on virtue and being a virtous person
• epicurus - eempahsizes on plesure, enjoyable, fun, and pleasant
• aristotle - views the good life as happiness
• one basic way we use the word good is to express moral approval
• Moral conception of good life mans that they don't spend all their time merely pursuing their own pleasure
• what is a good life - is the oldest philosophical question
• Socrates and Plato - both gave absolute priority to being a virtuous person over all other supposedly good things such as pleasure, wealth, or power.
• hedonism - view that pleasure is what makes life worth living
• epicure - someone who is especially appreciative of food and drink, refined gurment TASTE
• hedonist - devoted to what some have called the "lower" pleasures such as sex, and sensual indulgence in general, pleasure seeker.
• hedonist conception of good life - subjective experiences
• aristotle - Good life is a happy life
• examine life, engage life with a vengeance - always search for new pleasures and new destinies to reach with your mind.
• Worry only about the things that are in your control - the things that can be influenced and changed by your actions, not about the things that are beyond your capacity to direct or alter.
• Treasure Friendship, the reciprocal attachment that fills the need for affiliation - Friendship cannot be acquired in the market place, but must be nurtured and treasured in relations imbued with trust and amity.
• Experience True Pleasure - Avoid shallow and transient pleasures. Keep your life simple. Seek calming pleasures that contribute to peace of mind. True pleasure is disciplined and restrained.
• Master Yourself - Resist any external force that might delimit thought and action; stop deceiving yourself, believing only what is personally useful and convenient; complete liberty necessitates a struggle within, a battle to subdue negative psychological and spiritual forces that preclude a healthy existence; self-mastery requires ruthless candor
• Avoid Excess - Live life in harmony and balance. Avoid excesses. Even good things, pursued or attained without moderation, can become a source of misery and suffering.
• Be a Responsible Human Being -Approach yourself with honesty and thoroughness; maintain a kind of spiritual hygiene; stop the blame-shifting for your errors and shortcomings.
• Don’t Be a Prosperous Fool - Prosperity by itself is not a cure-all against an illled life and may be a source of dangerous foolishness. Money is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the good life, for happiness and wisdom.
• Don’t Do Evil to Others - Evildoing is a dangerous habit, a kind of reflex too quickly resorted to and too easily justified that has a lasting and damaging effect upon the quest for the good life. Harming others claims two victims—the receiver of the harm, and the victimizer, the one who does harm.
• Kindness towards others tends to be rewarded - Kindness to others is a good habit that supports and reinforces the quest for the good life. Helping others bestows a sense of satisfaction that has two beneficiaries—the beneficiary, the receiver of the help, and the benefactor, the one who provides the help.
• Good life is a happy life

  Aristotle
• Michael Soupios and Panos Mourdoukoutas wrote a book entitled The Ten Golden Rules on Living a Good Life where they extracted “ancient wisdom from the Greek philosophers on living the good life” and mapped it into modern times.
• The meaning of existence is derived from philosophical and religious contemplation and scientific inquiries about, social ties, consciousness and happiness.
• Aristotle - explains that the purpose of life is earthly happiness or flourishing that can be achieved via reason and the acquisition of virtue
• In Platonism, the meaning of life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the Idea of the Good, from which all good and just things derive utility and value
• Rolando Gripaldo - A Filipino philosopher, argues that the concept of the public good carries largely the politico-ethical sense, which subsumes the politico ethical senses
• A public good is that which benefits by its use, the communal or national public. This can be perceived in two levels

  • the first level comes from the people themselves
  • the second level comes from the local national government
• the first level comes from the people themselves - They perceive the public good to be beneficial to most if not to all of them.
• the second level comes from the local or national government - Believes or assumes with the utilitarian perspective that a particular project or service is desired by the populace as necessary for their common welfare.
• Socrates in Plato's Gorgias - 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 used wealth and power dishonorably
• Plato Republic - 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 pleasures he enjoys, is disharmonious, fundamentally at odds with himself and the world.
• Socrates in Plato's Gorgias - He argues that it is much better to suffer wrong than to do it
• Michael Soupios and Panos Mourdoukoutas wrote a book entitled The Ten Golden Rules on Living a Good Life
• Where are The Ten Golden Rules on Living a Good Life extracted from?

  ancient wisdom from the Greek philosophers on living the good life
• Plato’s reputation comes from his idealism of believing in the existence of universalis
• What Theory of Plato proposes that universals do not physically exist, like objects, but as heavenly forms?

  Theory of Forms