The Best Things In Life: A Guide To What Really Matters By Thomas Hurka

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Inside of the book The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters, by Thomas Hurka, there are three major theories of the good life and well-being. These include Ethical Hedonism, Desire Satisfaction Theory, and Objectivism. Ethical Hedonisms stance is that something is intrinsically good for you if and only if it is a state of pleasure. Your well-being improves when and only when you experience pleasure. Desire Satisfaction Theory has a few more layers to it. There are four different versions. All of them have to deal with satisfying something that is intrinsically good for you, they just vary based on what kinds of desires are being satisfied, if you wanted it at the time the desire was achieved, who the desires pertains to, and …show more content…

One thing that stood out to me is that Hurka values pleasure based off of intensity and duration, and that going from a -10 to a -9 is more of a significant improvement than going from a 9+ to a 10+ in happiness (pg. 56-57). Another one of his claims wa that there are 3 necessary conditions for knowing, which in turn discredit the value of the life and pleasure inside of the experience machine. The 3 parts are knowledge of the world, knowledge of place in the world, and knowledge of self (pg. 77-90). How this discredits the experience machine, which was talked about in great detail in his book, is because we lack our knowledge of our place in the world while inside of the experience machine. Living a well rounded life, and what it means to do so, was one of the most important takeaways from this book in my opinion. Hurka believes that well roundedness is dangerous because it leaves you as a master of nothing. As stated on page 170, “there are two opposing factors to consider: the dilettante's disadvantage, which makes the option line bulge inward and seeking well-roundedness unwise, and the costs of concentration, which do the opposite”. He believes that moderate concentration on one good is the

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