Chapter 5

• One basic way we use the word “good” is to express moral approva
• The view that pleasure is the good, or, to put I another way, that pleasure is what makes life worth living, is known as hedonism
• 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
• 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
• 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 Ten Golden Rules on Living a Good Life is extracted from a Forbes article written by Dr. Mourdoukoutas
• 1. Examine life, engage life with a vengeance; always search for new pleasures and new destinies to reach with your mind.
• 2. 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
• 4. 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.
• 5. 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
• 3. 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
• 6. 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.
• 8. 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.
• 7. 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.
• 9. 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.
• 10. 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.
• Aristotle states that each human being should use his abilities to their fullest potential and should obtain happiness and enjoyment through the exercise of their realized capacities. He contends that human achievements are animated by purpose and autonomy and that people should take pride in being excellent at what they do
• The meaning of existence is derived from philosophical and religious contemplation and scientific inquiries about, social ties, consciousness and happiness.
• Aristotle teaches that each man's life has a purpose and that the function of one's life is to attain that purpose. He explains that the purpose of life is earthly happiness or flourishing that can be achieved via reason and the acquisition of virtue
• 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
• The public good is public in the sense that the beneficiaries are the general public
• A pure public good is a good or service that can be consumed simultaneously by everyone and from which no one can be excluded
• 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, which believes or assumes with the utilitarian perspective that a particular project or service is desired by the populace as necessary for their common welfare.
• Private Good - It refers to a product or service that is both excludable and rivalrous
• Excludability means that individuals can br prevented from using the good if they do not pay for it, while rivalry implies that one person’s consumption of the good reduces the amount available for others.
• A good is excludable if a person can be prevented from benefitting from a good who has not paid for it