> The Good Life

Happiness and the Virtuous Life

More of this Feature Section A Introduction - The Good Life. An Ancient Greek Perspective Solonian Justice : the good and the just life Section B The Platonic Philosophy on the Good Life Critical Essays Dealing With Plato's Philosophy on "The Good Life" Section C The Final Good For Man in Aristotle's Ethical Theory Living Successfully The Final Good For Man in Aristotle's Ethical Theory Section D The Stoic and the Epicurean Philosophy on the Good Life "How Can I be Happy?" An Epicurean and Stoic perspective. Section E Modern Society and the Ancient Greek Idea of a Virtuous Good Life Modern society lacks any coherent and workable idea of a virtuous good life. Alasdair MacIntyre on subjectivism The future of the ancient Greek moral tradition in modern societies. An Adlerian perspective. Mortimer Adler on "How do I go about living a good life?" The Pragmatist 'Habitual' Good Life. Could we base our morality on virtues and habits?

Related Resources • A Concise Critical History Of Presocratic Philosophy, by Michael Bakaoukas • The Ancient Greek Concept of Non-Being, by Michael Bakaoukas • Greek Language • Aristotle

A Guest Submission by Michael Bakaoukas, M.Sc., Ph.D. The Univ. of Piraeus, Greece

Section E. Modern Society and the Ancient Greek Idea of a Virtuous Good Life

As we saw in Section B, most of the students do not agree with the ancient Greek objectivist philosophy on the good virtuous life. According to their subjectivist philosophy:

[Adam Fletcher, Miami University, Ancient Greek]
Finding happiness is a matter of personal choice. That is, one must weigh his options and choose which he ultimately thinks will suit him best, while still operating within the context of our subjective society and its conventions. So while for one person having sex 27 times a day is a means to happiness, for another not having sex at all might be a means to happiness. But does it matter how such happiness is achieved, providing it is within the guidelines of society? Absolutely not. One can find his justice or happiness in different ways, and one need not balance his 'soul' the same as everyone else to find happiness, for if that were the case, everyone would achieve happiness in the same way.

Modern societies have inherited no single ethical tradition from the past, but fragments of conflicting traditions: we are Platonic perfectionists in saluting gold medallists; utilitarians in applying the principle of triage to the wounded in war; Lockeans in affirming rights over property; Christians in idealizing charity; Muslims in preferring polygamy; Kantians in affirming personal autonomy. No wonder that moral traditions conflict and people are confused (Greg Pence, "Virtue Theory", A Companion to Ethics, Blackwell, 2000, 251)