The Good Life

• "Good"


  Commonly used interchangeably with the term "Right"
• Right Action


  Correctly applying a norm, premise, presupposition, rule, standard, or law
• Right Action


  Compels fulfilling duties and upholding rights
• Right Action

  Duty + rights
• Being good


  Having the character and personal qualities that were justified by reason as having moral worth
• Morals


  An individual's own principles regarding right and wrong
• Aristotle: '"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)'
• Aristotle's view of the good


  The good is what is good for purposeful, goal-directed entities. He defines the good proper to human being as the activities in which the life functions specific to human beings are most fully realized.
• Being good (Aristotle)


  Character + relationships
• Materialists (atomists)

  • Democritus
  • Leucippus
• Theism


  The belief in the existence of the Supreme Being or Deities. The ultimate basis of happiness is the communication with God.
• Types of theism

  • Monotheism (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Humanism)
• Humanism


  Emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, to carve their own destiny and to legislate their own laws, free from the shackles of a God that monitors and controls.
• Heidegger's view


  Living an authentic life means living with deep acceptance of the facticity of "death" and resulting in a "life lived according to what it has clearly decided as its meaning and purpose."
• Materialism

  • monism which holds that matter is the  fundamental substance in nature, and  that all things, including mental  aspects and consciousness are  results of material interactions.
  • All things, including the minds, emerge from physical matter. 
• • Naïve materialism - the idea that the senses provide  us with direct awareness of objects as they really are.
• Dialectical materialism - asserts the primacy of the material world: in short, matter precedes thought
• • Metaphysical materialism - argues that all  philosophical, emotional, mental, and conscious states  are a result from the material.
• Hedonism - pursuit of pleasure and intrinsic goods are the primary
• • A hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain) but when having finally gained that pleasure, happiness remains stationary. 
• Stoicism 

  • school of thought led by Epicurus.
  • To generate happiness, one must learn to distance  oneself and be apathetic.
  • 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.
• classification of materialism

  1. naïve materialism
  2. dialectical materialism
  3. metaphysical materialism