THE

GOOD
LIFE
•Every human being aspires to live a good
life. The problem is, we all define the
phrase “good life” differently. Some are
looking to live an honest life, full of integrity,
joy and happiness. Others seek wealth,
social status and fame, as they hope these
aspects will help them to live the good life.
In fact, they directly associate the good life
with money and material belongings.
• The good life is a term that refers to a (desirable) state
that is primarily characterized by a high standard of
living or the adherence to ethical and moral laws. In its
two different expressions, living the good life can be
either expressed through an abundant/luxurious
lifestyle full of material belongings or the attempt to
live life in accordance with the ethical, moral, legal and
religious laws of one’s country or culture. As such, the
term can both be understood as the quest for wealth,
material possessions or luxuries and the quest to
create a worthwhile, honest and meaningful existence.
• Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek
philosopher, a student of Plato, and teacher of 
Alexander the Great. His wrote on: physics,
metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic,
rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics,
biology, and zoology. His thought in multiple
fields was considered definitive for millennia,
and his work in ethics and politics is still widely
influential today. He is one of the greatest
philosophers in the history of western
philosophy
•According the Aristotle, happiness and
having a good life is about virtue. He
considers the end of humans to be the
good life. According to him, having a good
life is having happiness or prosperity
which can be accomplished by living a life
according to virtue which is achieved by
continually living in a virtuous manner or
living with high moral standards.
•This MUST still stand in the
contemporary world because most
people are being obsessed with material
things. For most people, having a good
life is being rich with material
possessions. They miss to remember
that happiness and having a good life is
living a life that is consistent with having
high moral standards.
• Aristotle’s views on living well begin with a
consideration of ends and means. The means
depends on which is easier, quicker, likelier to
succeed, etc. Thinking about the goal we are
aiming at, and the means we must employ to
reach that goal is practical thinking. But such
thinking bears no fruit until it results in purposeful
action, which is acting with some end, goal, or
purpose in mind. Purposeful action contrasts with
aimless or thoughtless action, which is action with
no end in view.
•Such considerations led Aristotle to
wonder whether there is any final or
ultimate end, an end for which
everything else is a means, an end that
is not a means to anything else. In short,
he wanted to know if there is an
ultimate end, goal, or purpose for
human life.
•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? I may know, for example, that
drinking alcohol is bad for me 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.
•The end, goal, purpose (or meaning) of
human life is to live well. We do this by
accumulating, over the course of our
lives, all the real goods that correspond
to our natural needs; and we increase
our chances of having good lives by
cultivating good habits