“ To understand the world, you must

need to understand the self and the

meaning of a good life.

-Plato
 ARISTOTLE
TAUGHT:
➤ Truth is the aim of theoretical
sciences
➤ The good is the end goal of
the practical sciences
HOW TO
FIND
GOODN
ESS?
Aristotle
HOW TO FIND
GOODNESS:
➤ One must know the truth
about what good is before
locating that which is "good."
➤ Any attempt to know is
connected in some way to find
"good."
"When we aspire for goodness, it sometimes works against us
and others."
THE GOOD
LIFE
Lesson 3
 OBJECTIVES
➤ Examine what is meant by a good life
➤ Identify how humans attempt to attain what is deemed to be a
good life
➤ Recognize the responsibilities available to human beings to
attain the good life
 HOW
WE ALL
ASPIRE
FOR A
GOOD
LIFE
Aristotle
 HOW WE ALL
ASPIRE FOR A
GOOD LIFE
➤ Aristotle studied the world from
scientific "lenses"
➤ The goal of life is happiness
Aristotle and How We All
Aspire for a Good Life
 Aristotle
• Aristotle embarked on a different approach in figuring
out reality. In contrast to Plato who thought that things
in this world are not real and are only copies of the real
in the world of forms, Aristotle puts everything back
to the ground in claiming that this world is all there is
to it and that this world is the only reality we can access.
 Plato
• According to Plato, change is so perplexing
that it can only make sense if there are two
realities: the world of forms and the world
of matter.
• Plato recognized change as a process and as a phenomenon
that happens in the world, that in fact, it is constant.
• However, Plato also claims that despite the reality of
change, things remain and they retain their ultimate “
whatness ”; that you remain to be you despite the pimple
that now sits atop your nose.
For Plato, this can only be explained by postulating two aspects of reality,
two worlds if you wish: the world of forms and the world of matter

World of Forms World of Matter

➢The entities are only ➢ Things are
copies of the ideal changing and
and the models, and impermanent.
the forms are the only
real entities.
• Aristotle, for his part, disagreed with his teacher’s
position and forwarded the idea that there is no
reality over and above that the senses can perceive.
Change is a process that is inherent things. We,
along with other all entities in the world, start as
potentialities and move toward actualities.
• Consider a seed that eventually germinates
and grows into a plant. The seed that turned
to become a plant underwent change from
the potential plant that is the seed to its fully
actuality, the plant.
• Aristotle extends this analysis from the external world
into the province of the human person and declares
that even human beings are potentialities who aspire for
their actuality. Every human beings moves according to
some end. Every action that emanates from a person is
a function of the purpose (telos) that the person has.
Example:
• When a boy ask for a burger from a burger
joint, the action that he takes is motivated
primarily by the purpose that he has, inferably
to get full or to taste the burger that he only
sees on TV.
• Every human person, according to Aristotle,
aspires for an end. This end, we have learned
from the previous chapters, is happiness or
human flourishing.
• No individual – young or old, fat or skinny male or female – resists
happiness. We all want to be happy. Aristotle claims that happiness
is the be all and end all of everything that we do. We may not realize
it but the end goal of everything that we do is happiness. If you ask
one person why he is doing what he is doing, he may not readily say
that it is happiness that motivates him. Hard – presses to explain
why he is motivated by what motivates him will reveal that
happiness is the grand, motivating force in everything that he does.
• When Aristotle claims that we want to be happy, he does not
mean the everyday happiness that we obtain when we win a
competition or we eat our favorite dish in a restaurant. What
Aristotle actually mean is human flourishing, a kind of
contentment in knowing that one is getting the best out of
life. A kind of feeling that one has maxed out his potentials
in the world, that he has attained the crux of his humanity.
25
HAPPINESS AS THE
GOAL OF A GOOD
LIFE
MARIELLE REGNER
 In the eighteenth century, he
declared the Greatest Happiness
John Stuart Principle by saying that and action
is right as far as it maximizes the
Mill attainment of happiness for the
greatest number of people.

At a time when people were

skeptical about claims on the
metaphysical, people could not
make sense of the human
flourishing that Aristotle talked
about in the days of old.

27
 Mill said that individual happiness of each
individual should be prioritized and collectively
dictates the kind of action that should be endorsed.

The ethical is, of course, meant to lead us to the

good and happy. History has given birth to
different schools of thought, all of which aim for
the good and happy life.

28
 The first materials were the
MATERIALISM atomists in Ancient Greece.

Democritus and Leucippus

Led a school whose primary
belief is that the world is made
up of and is controlled by the
tiny indivisible units in the
world called atomos seeds.

29
 For Democritus and his disciples, the world,
including human beings, is made up of matter.

Atomos simply comes together randomly to

form the things in the worlds. As such, only
material entites matter.

In terms of human flourishing, matter is what

makes us attain happiness.

30
 The hedonists, for their
part, see the end goal of
HEDONISM life in acquiring pleasure.

Pleasure has always been

the priority of Hedonists.

For them, life is about

obtaining and indulging in
pleasure because life is
limited.

31
 The mantra of this school of thought is the famous,
“Eat, drink, and be, merry for tomorrow we die.”

Led by Epicurus, this school of thought also does

not buy any notion of afterlife just like the
materialists.

32
STOICISM
Epicurus

•The stoics espoused the

idea that to generate
happiness, one must
learn to distance oneself
and be apathetic.
•Apatheia – indifferent.

•Happiness can only be

attained by a careful
practice of apathy.
“Sometimes you
just need to
distance yourself
from people. If
they care, they’ll
notice. If they
don’t, you know
where you
THEISM
•Find the meaning of life using God
as a fulcrum of their existence.

•The ultimate basis of happiness is

communion with God.
•The world where we are
in is only just a temporary
reality where we have to
maneuver around while
waiting for the ultimate
return to the hands of God.
HUMANISM
•Espouses the freedom of man to carve his
own destiny and to legislate his own laws,
free from the shackles of a God that monitors
and controls.

•“Man is the captain of his own ship” –

Humanists

•They see themselves not merely a stewards

of the creation but as individuals who are in
control of themselves and the world outside
them.