The Good Life
The Stoic and the Epicurean Philosophy on the Good Life
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Section E. Modern Society and the Ancient Greek Idea of a Virtuous Good Life
Which moral tradition fosters subjectivism? How did it come that most of the students are subjectivists? What is the future of the ancient Greek moral tradition in modern societies? Could we base our morality on virtues and habits?
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?"
by Spiros Kulubis, University of Pennsylvania, Classical Studies/PhilosophyDuring the 7th and 6th centuries before Christ, a fantastic transformation of the human condition came to pass in the lands of Asia Minor. For the first time in the history of man, reason and not dogmatic beliefs were used to try to answer many of the questions that had baffled man since the birth of language. This shift away from dogma and towards reasoned thinking took the form of the first kind of Greek philosophy, or what we now call Pre-Socratic philosophy. As important as this transformation was historically, it can be argued that an even more significant advancement in Greek philosophy developed later, in the 5th century B.C., with the first pursuits into human moral philosophy. This new focus on the humanistic element of mankind rather than on the materialistic components of the universe was first advocated by Socrates of Athens, who stated that we as men should, "Know thyself" and that "the unexamined life is not worth living."
The book Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense (Fordham Univ. Press, 1996) by Mortimer Adler, especially chapter two, "How Can I Make A Good Life For Myself," examines some of the views of the first moral thinkers and attempts to make its own argument for how to attain what the ancient Greeks called "the good life." Adler begins his book by stating that the question of "How can I make a good life for myself" is one that can be examined only by those who have not already succeeded in attaining the good life. Confident that this is the case for most of humanity, or at least his reading audience, he more clearly defines that the examination of what constitutes a good life is something that can be contemplated by all those who have reached the age of reason and consent and onwards. For Adler, maturity is the main criteria for any individual to reflect on how to attain a good life. Furthermore, he states that the examination of how to attain the good life is only worthwhile to those who have the time, and more importantly, the desire to change their character and apply what they learn to their own lives.
Adler proposes 12 considerations that should be contemplated by anyone who seriously confronts and tries to solve the problem of how one should go about living a good life. The overall conclusions of these 12 considerations is that in order to have a good life, one must formulate some kind of life plan from when they are young and at the beginning stages of their life. Adler makes the age-old connection that the decisions of the present, especially during the early stages of life, directly impact the freedoms and limitations that one experiences during their later years in life. As it is, Adler dissects life into specific stages that are dependent on choices made by an individual during what Adler calls the youth stage, or the time when decisions matter and ultimately influence the future the most.
As far as Adler is concerned, making a good life for oneself, involves making choices that should involve a way of the immediate consequences versus the remote effects. The greatest human tragedy as Adler sees it is, "That in the early years of our lives that we are disinclined to make choices that favor the long as against the short run, probably because the eventualities of the long run then seem so remote. This lies at the root of the generation gap. On one side are those who find the long run unreal or too remote to think about; on the other are those for whom it has become a reality and a dominanat consideration. The great misfortune of the human race, in every generation, is that its younger members -- at the time of their lives when it is most important to understand this point -- find it extermely difficult to understand and often fail to understand it. But if the point is only difficult, no impossible, for the young to understand, then it is the greatest importance that sound moral instruction and training help them to understand it at the earliest possible moment in their lives. Their elders may finally have come to understand it only too well, and with some measure of remorse, that their understanding has too late for them to make the best use of their wisdom. This quote by Alder serves to sum up the sentiments of his book, namely the making of a good life as a whole entails long-term considerations and specific and careful planning. It further touches on the incapability of most youths to take advantage of their freedoms by taking their lives into their own hands, and in doing so, provide for a greater sense of stablility in the future of their lives. This stability and freedom that is present throughout the whole of a person's life is what Adler would call "making a good life for one's self." Adler focuses on the actual construction of a life plan for all men, regardless of the special circumstances of their individual lives. He is able to universally apply the prescriptions for 'making a good life for one's self' by appealing to the wisdom acquired by common sense.
However, Adler repeatedly stresses both the inadequacy and indispensibility of appealing to common sense for a solution to the problem. He believes it is of the utmost importance to understand that common sense cannot be overlooked in the process of making one's life decisions, but that also it cannot serve as a meticulous guide to all the problems encountered by day-to-day living. He stresses that common sense is a small core of widsom and that goes to the heart of all our practical problems, and as such needs to be incorporated into our personal moral philosophy, but at the same time cannot be expected to solve every problem with the utmost specificity.
What Adler wants to avoid the most is giving his reader the impression that he is offering a how-to book on making a good life. He stresses that the art of living cannot be perfected with a book of highly specific rules that can, through practice, be applied in order to attain some sort of mastery over the problem of making a good life. That a man can never be expected to attain the same level of planning mastery that an engineer, musician or artist can through the proper practice at their particular craft. This is why he specifically stresses that the principles of moral philosophy only acquire a certain kind of universality when applied as a general guide to one's own life and not as a specific set of rules that hope to "get you on the right path quickly" as would be expected from a how-to book.
Adler makes no promise for a 'navigation chart' through the hardships of life, because he wisely recognizes that even the best human life, precisely because it is the life a man and not of a god, may not escape the taint of tragedy. Every human life, even under the most fortunate circumstances, has its share of frustration and discontent, its burden of remorse for avoidable mistakes committed, its insoluble dilemmas. He advocates that the dismissal of the basic truths of moral philosophy from one's decision-making process, only due to the fact that it offers no concrete solutions to any of life's specific problems, would be completely foolish. He makes the parallel with basic justice in this matter, stating that men also dismiss a clear definition of justice as of no practical utility because it does not automatically enable them to decide, in a particularly difficult case, whether a certain act or policy is just or unjust, forgetting that they would not and could not even be troubled about justice in that particular case if they did not have some definite standard of justice to apply it.
This is a fine example he uses as to why the same principles of moral philosophy apply to the formulation of 'making a good life', and that to dismiss them because of their lack of specificity on how to deal with a particular problem would be lacking any sort of common sense. The underlying principle evoked by moral philosophy is that is does not automatically tell us what to do in specific dark moments of our lives, but that without its wisdom we could not even hope to navigate through those trying dark moments. This is precisely the kind of understanding of moral philosophy that Adler is advocating in his book. Specifically, that in order to make a good life for one's self, a person must have some kind of plan that incorporates common sense. Furthermore, this common sense that is inherent in understanding moral philosophy will not serve as a specific guide through the dark periods of one's life, but will consequently serve as some kind of moral reference point in order to even begin to have a chance at making it through those dark points of life. Only be incorporating this kind of moral philosophy, one that is based upon common sense, does Adler believe that mankind can hope to answer the question of "How Can I Make a Good Life for Myself?"
