CHAPTER V

The Good Life

Objectives
At the end of the topic, the students/readers are expected to:
1.) Identify intellectual virtues
2.) Define public good
3.) Compare and contrast the politico-ethical and politico-economic concept of public good

KEY CONCEPTS

Virtue – trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus, is valued as a foundation of principle.
Pleasure – positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking mental state.
Happiness – state of well-being that encompasses living a good life with a sense of meaning and deep
satisfaction.
Ethics – concept of human morality such as good and evil, right and wrong, justice and crime.
Good – an object or product that is useful.
Common good – refers to what is shared and beneficial for all or not members of a given community.

Intellectual Virtues
This concept are the excellent personal traits or character strengths which are deemed to be morally good
for thinking and learning and are often associated with knowledge and cognitive ability (King, 2014). Good
thinkers know a lot of things; they have high reasonable intelligent quotient. However, a person with wise and
knowledgeable can become lazy, irresponsible, arrogant, careless, dishonest or close-minded at the same time.
These characteristics prevent him/her to think and learn things easily. Good thinking and learning require being
intellectually careful, honest, with humility, and being attentive. These are considered intellectual virtues.

Intellectual virtues have the following:

1.) They are acquired.
No one is born with intellectual virtues. Intellectual courage, perseverance, or open-mindedness are
obtained through practice guided by instructions.

2.) They are excellent character traits.

A person has an excellent mathematical ability but this is not considered a virtue. Intellectual virtue is
possessed by a person with excellent disposition in life whether this could be about decision making or
accepting criticisms.

3.) They involve human emotions, intensions, motivations, and values.

A person with intellectual virtue does not rejoice with falsehood but loves the truth. Even if it will mean
hurting one’s friend, the truth is still prioritized to be free. If people are motivated by truthfulness and
honesty, their intentions will also be for the greater good and this reflects that people value in life.

4.) They are aimed at cognitive goods.

The goals of intellectual virtues are knowledge, truth and understanding which are the common goods
and which unify intellectual virtues and differentiate them from moral virtues.

5.) They are means between two extremes

This means that intellectual virtues serve as a means between the excess and deficiency. That is, courage
stands between rashness and cowardice, while humility bridges belittling oneself and being arrogant.
Pleasure
It is a positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking mental state that gives a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment.
A satisfying feeling like when one anticipates replacing his/her existing cellular phones with a new one despite
the good running condition of the former. A sensational feeling experienced by one when eating chocolates even
they knew that this is not god for the health. Satisfying wants gives people so much pleasure, however, this
pleasurable feeling also subsides. This feeling is subjective, such that individual person may experience different
pleasure intensities given the same situation. Biological needs and various life activities are associated with
pleasure but these feelings do not last a lifetime and when are gone, we do not feel pleasure anymore.
Biological Needs – sleeping, eating, and sex.
Various life activities – sports, music, shopping, and getting what you want.

Happiness
It is a state of well-being and contentment that encompasses living a good life with a sense of meaning
and deep satisfaction. A feeling that people experience when they believe that life is at its best and emanates
from one when he/she is satisfied with what life brings and offers. Aristotle describes happiness as a product of
two aspects: pleasure and a life well-lived. Happiness can be achieved by eliminating negative pain and
displeasures to allow an individual to pursue engagement and meaning. Experiences which seem to be
pleasurable can give temporary feeling of happiness, but this does not last long since it only depends on external
events like having more alcohol, more food, more sex, and having other things. Due to this seeming addiction on
external things, people crave for more to have a short-lived feeling of happiness.

In comparison with pleasure, happiness can be considered as a higher level of satisfaction. Simple
pleasure cannot make people happy in the long run. It is not the things that people have that ae them happy but
experience of having those. What gives them happiness are actions like kindness, generosity, and love. The more
people experience these actions, the happier they become.

Public Good
`It is an item or service that may be consumed without reducing the amount available for others, and
cannot be withheld from those who do not pay for it. The government pursues it with a service orientation while
private corporations pursue it with profit organization. A public good is non-excludable and non-rivalrous.
Example, radio and television broadcast does not exclude anyone from receiving from the broadcast over the air.
The cost of broadcast is not affected by the number of people receiving the signal. However, cable and satellite
transmission are not a public good since it excludes non-payers.

The Public Good from the Politico-Ethical Sense

National People and the Public Good

A public good benefit the communal or national public as it is used by a greater number of the local
population and it exemplifies the philosophy of utilitarianism, an ethical theory implies a morally good action is
the one that helps the greatest number of people (Gripaldo, 2009).
Example:
Necessary public good and services/goods
- National defense,
- Education
- Public health
- Public ports and highways
- Social services

Communal People and the Public Good

National good is considered synonymous to communal good. However, in some cases, a community or
group of communities may believe that their communal public good does not jibe – or may conflict with – the
national public good (Cowen, 2002).
Example:
A massive dam that would irrigate vast tracts of land and provide thousands of megawatts of electricity would
become a national public good but the communal people of the place where the dam would be constructed may
oppose it as it would mean loss of their ancestral lands and abandonment of their traditional means of livelihood.

This would lead to the delays or cancelation of the construction of the dam due to the cost of communal
rebellion or resistance that could make it economically nonviable or politically inexpedient.

The Public Good from the Politico-Economical Sense (Gripaldo, 2009)

Microeconomy
The economic concept of the public good pertains to the benefits that may accrue an individual or a firm
in pursuing a project that will offset possible losses or adverse effects and that will likewise benefit the general
public. A lamppost is costly but if the light it will provide will make one’s store visible to customers, it will
contribute in the increase of profits and decrease the cost of electricity, then the lamp post will be built. The
noncustomers would also be benefited by the light the lamp post gives then this makes the lamp post a public
good.

Macroeconomy
There is distinction between service and profit orientations. Industrial and business firms are profit-
oriented while governmental agencies are service-oriented. Government-owned corporations are basically
service-oriented but they are encouraged to be self-liquidating and when the subsidiaries increase, the losing
corporation is privatized. Given the case, the annual subsidiaries used to be given to that corporation can now be
channeled to more productive projects while the same service can be provided by the newly privatized
corporation.

Types of Public Good

“Public” Public Goods

These are goods that were non-rival and non-excludable in the that participation of one does not
diminish or exclude other from participating in it and does not only in the interest of the individual but rather
the entire nation (Musgrave, 1969). The government consider it as essential and necessary such as the national
security, education, health services, trade and industry, and the like and certain departments are created to
address and manage these public goods.

“Private” Public Goods

These are goods set up by the private sector either solely or in participation with the government since
the private sector sees these as profitable, and the public benefits from them, either customers or free riders. The
participation of one private company in a line of business necessarily diminishes the chances of profitability of
other in that same line. This has rivalry and excludability, and for an instance, if you sell different products which
are not consumable for all, then only those who have money can avail them (Cowen, 2002).

“Mixed” Public Goods

These are undertaken by private organizations/societies for the common good of the communal or
national public and basically service-oriented. It is mixed in the sense that the undertakers are private groups
and yet they seek no profits. Once these groups make primarily considered making profits, then they become
private corporations or cooperatives (Gripaldo, 2009).

Public “Bads”
These are negative goods which the general public scorns, being avoided, not tolerated by both private
and public sectors. These includes corruption, pollution, crimes, and be like. In the early stages of economic
development, these public “bads” existed and were generally tolerated or taken for granted by the national
public, the private sector, and the local/national government. When the national public began to feel a threat to
 its personal security or health, then it starts to clamor for laws and regulations curbing or eradicating these
public “bads” (Hoppe, 1989).

Eudaimonia and the Common Good

Humans are inclined to seek a deeper sense of happiness than mere notions of pleasure and the absence
of pain (Annet, 2016). This is eudaimonistic notion of happiness, centers on human flourishing, prioritizing living
well and actualizing one’s potentials through personal development. Eudaimonia focuses on living in accord with
what is intrinsically worthwhile to human beings – purpose, meaning relationships, good health, and
contribution to the community (Deci & Ryan, 2008).

A key aspect of the Aristotelian view of happiness is that good life is a life of relationships. Human beings
seek good life not only for themselves, but a good life with others (Maboloc, 2010). This sense of mutual
flourishing is embedded in the notion of the common good.

Test Your Knowledge

1.) What does it mean by “one can be wise having both knowledge and intellect, and yet devoid of practical
judgement”?

2.) Define intellectual values and give examples.

3.) Choose two feature of intellectual virtues and try to describe each in your own words.

4.) Provide example to differentiate “public” public goods and “private” public goods.
5.) Differentiate microeconomy from macroeconomy in terms of public good. Provide example for each.