The Good Life: Originally associated with Aristotle, “the good life” refers to an ideal. How do these texts represent that ideal? As living in sensual pleasures? As living for a contented mind through a simple life? As living for others? As a utopian ideal that is so far off as to be impracticable? How does the treatment of the good life change across these texts?
THESIS: The “Good Life” changes throughout these texts, but the idea of living the life that satisfies you and your needs and not what the world tries to make it seem remains constant between them all.
INTRO: This is portrayed in “Fair, Fair, Cry the Ospreys”, “Candide”, and “Persepolis” all in different ways but with the central theme of the truth of happiness and what is can
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In the first stanza, it reads “Lovely is this noble lady, Fit bride for our lord.” These two lines are the exposition of the plot structure in the poem, they set up for the rest of the poem so the readers know what the “good life” is during this time period. The people of this poem value the good life as a young prince getting married to a young noble lady. This is very true of the era in which this poem was written because they still had true monarchies. The next stanza at the end says, “Day and night he sought her.” This line shows us the pressure the people that lived during this era endured to obey social norms. It also shows us how much of a burden this was on men in power to find a “noble” woman to marry, which we can see illustrated in the end of the next stanza, “Long thoughts, oh, long unhappy thoughts, now on his back, now tossing onto his side.” Finally, at the end he finds his noble lady as it reads, “With great zither and little we hearten her.” The battle between the pressure to obey social norms and the life he wanted, the “good life” comes to an end as the prince finally finds a noble lady to marry. This poem illustrates the differences between the “good life” associated with Aristotle and what it mean to attain the “good life” in society at this time …show more content…
In El Dorado we see the “good life” as being able to live freely without any worries. Both are illustrated when the retired old man talks about his “very plain house” (Voltaire 72), and the readers feel a sense of contentment, because he doesn’t need an extravagant house to be happy. The passage later goes on later to talk about all of the gold and silver features in his house, but he was more worried about what he achieves or acquires from his life. This shows readers that even when you have all the riches one does not have to be greedy, but instead can live humbly and still live the simple life. At the end of the novel the last statement is, “but let us cultivate our garden.” (Voltaire?). What the author means by this is that one can live their life and put all they have into it and reap, sow, and cultivate whatever seeds you are given or in other words to make the most out of the life you were given. This is symbolic of our lives because no one’s life is perfect and we all have trials and tribulations representing the many different plants in the garden, but as we learn from them we grow just like a person. This connects back to the old man because, like him you can have all the riches in the world, but if it doesn’t help you as a person to learn or gain something from it then its true value is unknown. The true value of life is to live simple
Both awe-inspiring and indescribable is life, the defined “state of being” that historians and scholars alike have been trying to put into words ever since written language was first created. And in the words of one such intellectual, Joshua J. Marine, “Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”. Essentially, he is comparing life to a bowl of soup. Without challenges or hardships into which we can put forth effort and show our potential, it becomes a dull and flavorless broth. But for characters in novels like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
Aristotle accepts that there is an agreement that this chief good is happiness, but that there is a disagreement with the definition of happiness. Due to this argument, men divide the good into the three prominent types of life: pleasure, political and contemplative. Most men are transfixed by pleasure; a life suitable for “beasts”. The elitist life (politics) distinguishes happiness as honour, yet this is absurd given that honour is awarded from the outside, and one’s happiness comes from one’s self. The attractive life of money-making is quickly ruled out by Aristotle since wealth is not the good man seeks, since it is only useful for the happiness of something else.
Grant, S., (2007). A defence of Aristotle on the good life. Richmond Journal of Philosophy (16) p. 1-8.
Simply defined, happiness is the state of being happy. But, what exactly does it mean to “be happy?” Repeatedly, many philosophers and ideologists have proposed ideas about what happiness means and how one attains happiness. In this paper, I will argue that Aristotle’s conception of happiness is driven more in the eye of ethics than John Stuart Mill. First, looking at Mill’s unprincipled version of happiness, I will criticize the imperfections of his definition in relation to ethics. Next, I plan to identify Aristotle’s core values for happiness. According to Aristotle, happiness comes from virtue, whereas Mill believes happiness comes from pleasure and the absence of pain. Ethics are the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior which are driven by virtues - good traits of character. Thus, Aristotle focuses on three things, which I will outline in order to answer the question, “what does it mean to live a good life?” The first of which is the number one good in life is happiness. Secondly, there is a difference between moral virtues and intellectual virtues and lastly, leading a good life is a state of character. Personally and widely accepted, happiness is believed to be a true defining factor on leading a well intentioned, rational, and satisfactory life. However, it is important to note the ways in which one achieves their happiness, through the people and experiences to reach that state of being. In consequence, Aristotle’s focus on happiness presents a more arguable notion of “good character” and “rational.”
“The goal for philosophy in the ancient Greek world was not merely life, but to live a good life….[the good life] has important implications in what we do”(Swift 5).
When I first started playing the episode, Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life, immediately grabbed my attention with the line, “Sometimes things are not what they seem. Big news, I know. Here’s an interesting example of it.” Ira, with a voice clear and engaging, went on to describe the account of Damien Cave, a reporter for The New York Times, on an airplane. Damien was looking through an in-flight magazine that was using ads for tourists to attract people to various lands that were centers of drug and gang-related violence. The prologue had started with an interview with Damien and captured vivid descriptions of his analysis of how ads are tools of those in power to coerce people into thinking and consuming. “Propaganda is
A good life is when you enjoy the things you have, and do not need to desire anything else.
3. Feldman, Fred. 2004. “The Quest for the Good Life” in Pleasure and the Good Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press
1.) Aristotle begins by claiming that the highest good is happiness (198, 1095a20). In order to achieve this happiness, one must live by acting well. The highest good also needs to be complete within itself, Aristotle claims that, “happiness more than anything else seems complete without qualification, since we always…choose it because of itself, never because of something else (204, 1097b1). Therefore, Aristotle is claiming that we choose things and other virtues for the end goal of happiness. Aristotle goes on to define happiness as a self-sufficient life that actively tries to pursue reason (205, 1098a5). For a human, happiness is the soul pursuing reason and trying to apply this reason in every single facet of life (206, 1098a10). So, a virtuous life must contain happiness, which Aristotle defines as the soul using reason. Next, Aristotle explains that there are certain types of goods and that “the goods of the soul are said to be goods to the fullest extent…” (207, 1098b15). A person who is truly virtuous will live a life that nourishes their soul. Aristotle is saying “that the happy person lives well and does well…the end
“The Good Life” in Socrates mind isn 't’ just simply defined in this primary source, however, it is implied. It is clear Socrates believes that “The Good Life” isn’t about where one ended up, or how much material gain they inhabited through the course of their lives, it is about if they clung on to mortality and lived their lives doing what they believed was good. Socrates says, “A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part
What establishes a noble, valuable, enjoyable life? Many philosophers tried their own beliefs to these ancient and most persistent of philosophical question. Most of Philosophers have agreed that the best possible life is a life where the ideas of “virtue” and “happiness” are fulfilled. Nevertheless expected differences in terms, many great minds theorized that the road to a joyful, flourishing, happy life is paved with virtues. For example, Aristotle believed that anyone keen to live a virtuous life will reach happiness (Aristotle 1992).
However, we can wonder if the pleasures that derive from necessary natural desires are what actually brings us happiness, since having a family, friends, a good job and doing fun things seem to bring the most joy in life. Plato’s ideas on life are even more radical, since he claims that we should completely take difference from our bodily needs. Therefore it seems that we should only do what is necessary for us to stay a life and solely focus on the mind. Although both ways of dealing with (bodily)pleasure are quite radical and almost impossible to achieve, it does questions if current perceptions of ‘living the good life’ actually leads to what we are trying to achieve, which is commonly described as
...good life is, Aristotle still defines a good life in a way that is too specific to be applied to all instances of human behavior. Personally, I see Aristotle’s idea of a good life to be close to my own idea of what a good life is. However, with access to thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge, I recognize that what is best for me is likely not best for everyone, and others must find their own path to happiness on their own journey.
We might not have the same opinions, paths, and ways of living; but we all, millions of people around the world, share the same purpose of life: Being able to say “I am having a good life!” What we mean by “good life” is living in pure happiness and having a wonderful peace of mind. The difference between us is that each one of us chooses a different way in his pursuit of happiness. Some find it in stability with a big house, a family, and a good paying job. Some find it in adventure and wildness, travel, and taking risks. While others don’t really have specific criteria or an organized plan, they just believe that happiness comes with living each day as if it was the last, with no worries about the rest. Personally, I find it in trying to be the best version of myself, in staying true to my principles, and in the same time in being able to make my own decisions; which reminds me of what George Loewenstein said “Just because we figure out that X makes people happy and they're choosing Y, we don't want to impose X on them.”
According to Aristotle, the good life is the happy life, as he believes happiness is an end in itself. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle develops a theory of the good life, also known as eudaimonia, for humans. Eudaimonia is perhaps best translated as flourishing or living well and doing well. Therefore, when Aristotle addresses the good life as the happy life, he does not mean that the good life is simply one of feeling happy or amused. Rather, the good life for a person is the active life of functioning well in those ways that are essential and unique to humans. Aristotle invites the fact that if we have happiness, we do not need any other things making it an intrinsic value. In contrast, things such as money or power are extrinsic valuables as they are all means to an end. Usually, opinions vary as to the nature and conditions of happiness. Aristotle argues that although ‘pleasurable amusements’ satisfy his formal criteria for the good, since they are chosen for their own sake and are complete in themselves, nonetheless, they do not make up the good life since, “it would be absurd if our end were amusement, and we laboured and suffered all our lives for the sake of amusing ourselves.”