Colegio de San Gabriel Arcangel

PACUCOA Accredited – Level 1 Status

COLLEGE DEPARTMENT City of San Jose del
Monte, Bulacan

LEARNING ACTIVITY 8
Name: ______________________________ Grade / Score : _______________
Colleges: ____________________________ Program/Course : _______________
Course Title: ________________________ Date : _________________________
Type of Activity (Check or choose from below)
Concept Notes Laboratory Report Formal Theme Others:
Skills: Exercise / Drill Illustration Informal Theme ____________

Activity Title : The Good Life

Learning Target : I can 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.
References : https://reasonandmeaning.com/2013/12/19/aristotle-on-the-
good-and-meaningful-life/
(Author, Title, Pages) :

Discussion:

A good life is when you are able to take out time for yourself and enjoy the small pleasures
of life. A good life is when everyday teaches you something new, something that cheers up
your soul. A good life is when you readily accept criticism and work towards improving
yourself. Ideally, this is what good life is supposed to mean. However, according to Aristotle,
the true meaning of good life is far more complicated than this.

Aristotle argues that what separates human beings from the other animals is the human
reason. So, the good life is one in which a person cultivates and exercises their rational
faculties by, for instance, engaging in scientific inquiry, philosophical discussion, artistic
creation, or legislation.

A good life is far from a happy life. As defined by many, a happy life is not about being
cool in your friends but it lies in being a good child to your parents. A happy life is one
which is in accordance with its own nature. When you wake up every morning remind
yourself that my life may not be perfect but I am thankful for what I have. As it implies, a
happy life as a sense of contentment in it, but the essential characteristics for it to
become a good life is still lacking.

For Aristotle, the final end of human life is to flourish, to live well, to have a good life. All
actions should aim at this end. Of course, in order to live at all, we need food, clothing,
and shelter, but living is itself the means to the end of living well. And what is living well
a means to? Aristotle says that living well is the final end for humans; it is not a means
to anything else. Aristotle thinks this is obvious because few people want to live poorly.
But now a question arises: don’t different people have different ideas about what a good
life is? For some it may consist of accumulating wealth; for others, it is having power or
being famous or experiencing pleasure. And if people construe the good life differently,
if they have different desires, how can there be one right plan for living well? How can
there be one final end that we all ought to seek?

To answer these questions Aristotle argued that not all desires are of the same sort.
There are acquired desires, which differ between individuals, and natural desires, which
are the same for all individuals. Acquired desires—say for caviar—correspond to our
wants, whereas natural desires—say for food—correspond to our needs. Acquired
desires or wants correspond to apparent goods; things that appear good because you
want them. Natural desires or needs correspond to real goods; things that are good for
you whether you want them or not.

With these considerations in mind, Aristotle states that the good life consists in the
possession, over the course of a lifetime, of all those things that are really good for us.
Moreover, what is really good for any one of us corresponds to the natural needs that
are the same for all of us. Thus, what is good for one person is good for another; in
other words, there is a right plan for living well. So, what are these real goods that we
should all seek to obtain in order to live well? According to Aristotle, they are:

1) bodily goods – health, vitality, vigor, and pleasure;

2) external goods – food, drink, shelter, clothing, and sleep; and
3) goods of the soul – knowledge, skill, love, friendship, aesthetic enjoyment,
self-esteem, and honor.

The first two types of good are limited goods—we can have more of them than we need.
Goods of the soul are unlimited goods—we cannot have more of them than we need.
But surely the knowledge of the good life isn’t sufficient to actually living a good life? For
example, that drinking alcohol is bad for we but do it anyway. So how do we learn to
desire these real goods?
Aristotle argued that the way to bridge the gap between knowledge of the good life and
actually living it was through the development of a good moral character. And this entails
developing good habits. A good habit allows us to perform certain actions without effort. We
can have a good habit of playing the piano, studying hard, hitting golf balls, or thinking well.
We can also habitually make good choices to avoid overeating or drinking too much.

Aristotle calls good habits virtues or excellences. Virtues of the mind are intellectual
virtues; while virtues exemplified by a regular disposition to choose correctly are moral
virtues. For Aristotle, moral virtue plays a special role in living well. The reason moral
virtue—the habit of making the right choices—is so important is that our choices
determine whether we live well. If we make too many bad choices we will live poorly.

So, we need to develop the good habits or virtues which help us obtain what is really good
for us, as opposed to bad habits or vices which lead us toward things that merely appear
good. Good habits or moral virtues are the principle means to having good lives because
they allow us to habitually make the choices that both constitute and lead to good lives.

The most important moral virtues or habits are moderation, courage, and justice.
Moderation keeps us from overindulging in pleasure or seeking too much of the limited
goods. Courage is having the disposition to do what it takes to live a good life, and
justice is the virtue that allows us to have friends and enjoy the benefits of cooperation.

However, both knowledge of the good life and good habits may not be enough because
living well is not completely within our control. Why? First, some real goods, like wealth
or health, are not completely within our power to possess. And second, we didn’t create
the initial conditions of our birth or the environment into which we were born. Thus,
moral virtue, while necessary, doesn’t guarantee a good life. We also need to be
fortunate or lucky. However, if we are knowledgeable, virtuous, and fortunate we will
have good, meaningful lives.

Activity:

1) Pondering on your current life, how can you say that you and your family are
living well?
a. If yes, what are the other things that you find lacking in your life to achieve
a good life?
Happiness

b. If not, what must be done for your family to live well?

2) It said by Aristotle that a good life, the following requisites should be obtained:
Knowledge, Virtue, and Luck. How are you going to argue that knowledge, among
the three, is actually the major requisite that could overshadow the other two?
I think that knowledge affects Virtue, and Luck because we are always doing what
we know.