The Good Life

Desired Learning Outcomes:

1. Examine shared concerns that make up the good life in order to come up with
innovative, creative solutions to contemporary issues guided by ethical standards

Introduction
This lesson is concerned with the concept of a good life according to Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics: what constitutes it, what characterizes it, and what is needed to be
done to achieve it. This lesson also tries to relate science and technology with the
achievement of a good life.

Activity 1: Portrait of a Good Life

1. Reflect on the following questions and try to list your answers in a piece of
paper.
a. What is a good life? What constitutes a good life?
b. How do you achieve a good life?
c. What role does science and technology play in the achievement of a good
life? Do you think science and technology is needed in having a good
life? Why or why not? Cite some examples to prove your point.
d. Do you think science and technology can hinder the achievement of a
good life? How so? Cite some examples to prove your point.
2. Do you have the same opinions to the answers to these questions? What
does this tell you about people’s perceptions on what a good life is and the
role science and technology play in its achievement?
3. To summarize your point as a group, create a visual representation of what a
good life is and how science and technology impacts this concept.

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

According to Aristotle, an important Greek philosopher:

“Every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every act
and purpose, seems to aim at some good: and so it has
 been well said that the good is that at which everything
aims.” (Nicomachean Etchics 1:1)

Everything, according to him is aimed at the good and thus the good may be
expressed in different ways. However, the good life is a different thing. He said that:

“Since—to resume—all knowledge and all purpose aims at

some good, what is this which we say is the aim of Politics;
or, in other words, what is the highest of all realizable
goods?

As to its name, I suppose nearly all men are agreed; for

the masses and the men of culture alike declare that it is
happiness, and hold that to “live well” or to “do well” is the
same as to be “happy.”” (Nicomachean Ethics 1:4)

This concept is called eudaimonia (eu meaning good and daimon meaning
spirit). When taken together, this means the good life, which is marked by happiness
and excellence. It is a flourishing life filled with meaningful emdeavors that empower the
human person to be the best version of himself/herself.

“Happiness seems more than anything else to answer to

this description: for we always choose it for itself, and
never for the sake of something else; while honour and
pleasure and reason, and all virtue or excellence, we
choose partly indeed for themselves (for, apart from any
result, we should choose each of them), but partly also for
the sake of happiness, supposing that they will help to
make us happy. But no one chooses happiness for the
sake of these things, or as a means to anything else at all.”
(Nicomachean Ethics 1:7)

According to Aristotle, man’s “form” comprises a soul, which has a plant-like part,
an animal part, and a rational part. And now he asks: How should we live? What does it
require to live a good life? His answer: Man can only achieve happiness by using all his
abilities and capabilities or living a life of virtue. Virtue is the excellence of character
that empowers one to do good and be good. Its opposite is called vice.

“We reply that it cannot be right thus to follow fortune. For

it is not in this that our weal or woe lies; but, as we said,
though good fortune is needed to complete man’s life, yet
it is the excellent employment of his powers that
 constitutes his happiness, as the reverse of this constitutes
his misery.” (Nicomachean Ethics1:10)

According to Aristotle, there are two types of virtue: intellectual and moral.

“Excellence, then, being of these two kinds, intellectual

and moral. Intellectual excellence owes its birth and
growth mainly to instruction, and so requires time and
experience, while moral excellence is the result of habit
or custom, and has accordingly in our language received a
name formed by a slight change from habit.”
(Nicomachean Ethics 2:1)

Aristotle held that there are three forms of happiness. The first form of happiness
is a life of pleasure and enjoyment. The second form of happiness is a life as a free and
responsible citizen. The third form of happiness is a life as thinker and philosopher.
Aristotle then emphasized that all three criteria must be present at the same time for
man to find happiness and fulfillment. He rejected all forms of imbalance. Had he lived
today he might have said that a person who only develops his body lives a life that is just
as unbalanced as someone who only uses his head. Both extremes are an expression of
a warped way of life.

Aristotle’s Virtues and Vices

Sphere of Action or Excess Mean Deficiency

Feeling
Fear and Confidence Rashness Courage Cowardice
Pleasure and Pain Self-indulgence Temperance Insensibility
Getting and spending Prodigality Liberality Meanness
(minor)
Getting and spending Vulgarity Magnificence Stinginess
(major)
Honor and dishonor Ambition Pride Unambitiousness
(minor)
Honor and dishonor Vanity Magnanimity Pusillanimity
(major)
Anger Irascibility Patience Lack of spirit
Self-expression Boastfulness Truthfulness Understatement
Conversation Buffoonery Wittiness Boorishness
Social conduct Obsequiousness Friendliness Cantankerous
Shame Shyness Modesty Shamelessness
Indignation Envy Righteous Spitefulness
indignation
 The same applies in human relationships, where Aristotle advocated the “Golden
Mean.” We must be neither cowardly nor rash, but courageous (too little courage is
cowardice, too much is rashness), neither miserly nor extravagant but liberal (not liberal
enough is miserly, too liberal is extravagant). The ethics of Aristotle contain echoes of
Greek medicine: only by exercising balance and temperance will I achieve a happy or
“harmonious” life.

Happiness in Select Philosophies

1. Materialists believe that matter is what makes us attain happiness.

2. Hedonists believe that acquiring pleasure is what makes us attain happiness.
3. Stoics believe that to attain happiness, we must learn to distance ourselves
and be apathetic.
4. Theists believe that to attain happiness, one should have communion with
God and the ultimate happiness will be attained when He returns.
5. Humanists believe that for one to be happy, one should find ways for other
people to be happy too. Responsibility is the key to happiness since it gives
you control with your own life.

Activity 2: Reflection
1. Compare and contrast your own viewpoint as to how Aristotle characterized
what a good life is. How different is your own philosophy from his?
2. If your opinion of the good life is different from Aristotle’s view, to which
philosophy is it most similar to? Identify this philosophy and briefly discuss its
view on what a good life is.

Activity 3: Movie Review and Analysis

Watch the documentary film That Sugar Film (2014) by Damon Garneau.
Relate the movie’s themes on the role of science and technology in the
achievement of a good life. Write a two-page movie review and analysis
regarding this matter.
References:
1. MacNamara, D., Valverde, V., and Beleno, R. (2018). Science, Technology, and
Society. pp. 70-75. Quezon City: C&E Publishing.
2. Serafica, J., et al. (2018) Science, technology and society. pp. 75-83. Quezon
City: Rex Bookstore.
3. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Bartlett, R. and Collins C. (Trans.). Chicago, IL:
The University of Chicago Press.
4. Feynman, R. (1999). What is and what should be the role of scientific culture in
modern society. In The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of
Richard Feynman. (pp. 97-115). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.
5. Gripaldo, R. (2007). The concept of the public good: A view from a Filipino
philosopher. Philosophia. 36. 141-154.
6. Maboloc, C. (2010). Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing. In Ethics and Human
Dignity. pp. 15-23. Manila: Rex Bookstore.
7. United Nations Environment Programme (2011). Towards a green economy:
pathways to sustainable development and poverty eradication. Retrieved from
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/126GER_synthesis_e
n.pdf