“The Good Life” vs. “A Good Life”

In “Philosophy for Dummies”, Tom Morris juxtaposes these two common phrases in order to get us thinking about what “good” really is. It’s a good place to start because it brings two separate ideas into sharp relief.

On the one hand, we have ‘the good life.’ What sorts of images are conjured up when we think of ‘the good life?’ Money. Pleasure. Fame. Fast Cars. Nice things. Comfort. The good life usually connotes material wealth. Contrast this, on the other hand, with what most people mean when they think of ‘a good life’. This phrase usually connotes a life lived in pursuit of something deeper. Family. Spirituality. Charity. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Wisdom. A lasting, meaningful legacy of some sort. It is mostly this latter sense of “goodness” that those old timey philosophers were concerned with.

Aristotle, being a paradigmatic old timey philosopher, was especially interested in making an account of what a “good life” was all about. His approach was very influential in the western world for a very long time - and rightly so. Agree with him or not, you have to respect the man’s methodological approach to almost every topic he tackled. And as we’ll see, his approach to living a good life was in many ways different than ours tends to be.

Let us begin, then, as Aristotle begins.

For starters, Aristotle asks us to consider what is it we truly want from life. Is pleasure the highest good we can seek? Or perhaps fame? Power? Things of this sort, Aristotle argues, are means to further ends. Happiness is our ultimate aim. We seek happiness for its own sake, while we seek things like pleasure, fame and power because they can give us a happy life. So the highest good we are seeking is ultimately going to be some sort of happiness.

But just what is happiness? In order to answer this question, we must first understand what it means to be human. You cannot know what the good for a thing is unless you have some idea about what that thing is and what its purpose is. A good watch, for example, is one that reliably tells time. A good oak tree is one that successfully grows deep roots, gathers nutrients, and reproduces. A good squirrel is one that avoids predators, successfully gathers food, and produces lots of little baby squirrels. These watches, trees and squirrels are good because they are accomplishing what they were intended to accomplish.

In attempting to understand what our purpose is, Aristotle begins by considering our place in the cosmic order. We are animals. We share what he calls the “nutritive” (ex: eating, digesting, growing) and “perceptive” (ex: seeing, smelling, etc.) powers with other animals. What makes us unique, however, is our rationality. Unlike the other brutes, human beings grasp abstract concepts and use reason. We deduce conclusions from premises. If it weren’t for your rationality, the symbols that are scattered across your screen right now would be meaningless. It is because we have a shared understanding of what these symbols mean that they convey my meanings to you, and you understand them. You can accept or reject a philosopher’s reasoning only by exercising your own power of reason.

The highest and most distinctive feature of man, according to Aristotle, is his rationality. It is our defining feature, setting us apart from other animals. The function of man is “…the good and noble performance of our rational actions and activities.” The good for man, then, is behaving in a rational way. We are to pursue wisdom and to act on the knowledge we gain. This is the foundation for virtue as well. Being just, brave, prudent, and temperate is morally right because that is how we better live out our purpose as human beings. Living in this way, we will find true happiness – what Aristotle calls “Eudaimonia.” This is not a mere fleeting feeling of happiness, but something deeper and more lasting.

Tom Morris summarizes Aristotle’s idea of Eudaimonia thus:

“Aristotelians think of happiness as more like an activity, or a process of participation in something that brings fulfillment. Genuine happiness is a byproduct of living in a way that is supportive of human flourishing. It is tied to excellence. Happiness comes from discovering who you are, developing your distinctive talents, and putting those talents to work for the benefit of others as well as yourself.”

Happiness is tied to excellence. From this point we can more clearly distinguish between how the ancient philosophers viewed morality and how many of us moderns tend to view it. Rules and consequences are what we usually think of when we think of “morals.” Those annoying rules that often stand between us and what it is we really want. Too often we set up some inferior good as our highest good – money, power, sex, whatever – and find the moral rules holding us back from taking what we want. We are torn between our obligation to be “good people” and our desire to “have it all.”

That is a grave mistake. True and lasting happiness can be found only in the pursuit of Eudaimonia. Here, morality and the good life are one and the same. There is a unity of purpose, a sort of simple beauty in the classical approach. Virtue leads to fulfillment, and this fulfillment in turn makes virtue easier. The truly good man, Aristotle says, finds virtuous acts pleasurable in and of themselves. His joy flows from living a good and just life. You can lose wealth, you can lose your good looks and your fame and all other goods, but no one can ever take away your freedom to choose a life of virtue.