THE GOOD

LIFE
KITZ ADAM F. MALIGALIG
 WHAT IS GOOD LIFE?
 One way of viewing good life is through the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs fulfillment called
actualization. Here the idea of good life changes. Those whose security needs are not meet,
they may visualize the “good life” as to be a secure environment with meaningful social
bonds.
 From Socrates (as imagined by Plato) tells that “the unexamined life is not worth living”; this
does not endorse a life of private reflection but he means that an individual becomes a
master of himself using his reason to reign in his passion helping to promote stability in
himself and his community. Plato and Socrates define good life in terms of reasonable
restraint and civic duty.
 In Nietzsche ‘s declaration of “ god is dead”, allows the possibility of meaningful lives. He
describes himself of “amoralist “ ,uses the proposed death of god—a metaphor for the loss of
religious and metaphysical authority governing human behavior----to stage what he calls
“reevaluation of values”. Instead of self-denying values of restraint and slave morality in life, he
pursues life-affirming values like taking care and well-being of self.
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 WHAT IS GOOD LIFE?
 Aristotle, in his work Nicomachean Ethics ,he stated that all human activities aim at some good.
Every is moving towards the good. Completing one’s studies, training for sport or taking a rets
is good and this is expressed in various ways for different persons and circumstances. The good
life is characterized by happiness that springs from living and doing well. The ancient Greeks
called this “eudaimonia” greek words “eu” meaning good and “daimonia” meaning spirit taking
together as good life as marked by happiness and excellence.
 .According to Aristotle, happiness is the ultimate end of human action and it is what man
pursue for its own sake. Financial stability for one’s family, the power achieved in winning
election or the harmony and peace as a reward or taking care of the environment —all are
pursued for the sake of happiness. Happiness defines good life. This happiness is not the kind
that comes from sensate pleasure. It is which comes from living a life of virtue, a life of
excellence manifested from personal to the global scale. For example making sure that one
avoids sugary foods and processed foods to keep healthy is an activity expressed with virtue.

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 WHAT IS GOOD LIFE?
 Another example, taking care of the environment through proper waste management which results
in a clean environment and adds to people’s well- being and happiness. These virtuous actions
require discipline and practice. Action contrary to this does not result to happiness. The good life
does not happen in a bubble, flourishing must be with others too.
 e, flourishing must be with others too. Virtue plays a significant role in the living and attainment of
good life. It is a constant practice of the good no matter how difficult the circumstances maybe.
Virtue is the excellence of character that empowers one to be good. Everyone has the capacity within
himself to be good but he has to be disciplined to make a habit of exercising the good. Virtue, being
of two kinds, intellectual and moral, on which intellectual virtue owes its birth and growth to
teaching—it requires experience and time while moral virtue comes from a result of a habit.
 Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is considered to be one of the most important treatise on ethics ever
written, where he examines the nature of goodness itself in man he asserts that virtue is essential to
happiness and man must live in accordance with the “ doctrine of mean “. It is the balance between
excess and deficiency to achieve happiness. It is right to choose the mean and avoid excess and
deficiency, where the mean is prescribed by the right principle.

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 WHAT IS GOOD LIFE?
 In case of moral qualities or disposition, the man who knows the principle involved fixes his
gaze, increases or relaxes the tension accordingly because there is certain standard
determining those modes of observing the mean.
 According to him, in studying virtue, virtue of the soul or mind can be divided in two groups,
the virtue of character and intellectual virtue. The soul or mind has two parts one rational
and the other , the irrational and the rational part has two faculties, the SCIENTIFIC faculty
whereby we contemplate those things whose first principles are invariable and the
CALCULATIVE faculty one where by we contemplate those things which admit variation.

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 There are three elements of the soul which control action and
attainment of the truth namely sensation, intellect and desire.

1. Sensation never originates action.

2. 2. Pursuit and avoidance in the sphere of desire corresponds to the affirmation and denial
in the sphere of intellect.
3. 3. Moral virtue is a disposition of the mind with regard to a choice, choice is a deliberate
desire; it follows if the choice is good both the principle must be true and the desire is right.
4. 4. The attainment of truth is the function of every part of the intellect. The practical
intelligence is the attainment of truth corresponding to right desire.
5. 5. The cause of action (the efficient, not the final cause) is choice and the cause of choice is
desire and reasoning directed to some end. Choice necessarily involves both intellect or
thought and a certain and certain disposition of character for doing well.
6. 6. The act of making is not an end itself, it is only means and belongs to something else.
7. 7. Man as an originator of action is a union of desire and intellect.

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 There are five qualities through which the mind achieves truth in affirmation or
denial namely art or technical skills, scientific knowledge, prudence, wisdom and
intelligence.

1. That a thing we know scientifically cannot vary. An object of scientific knowledge exists out of
necessity. It is held that all scientific knowledge can be communicated by teaching and that
what is scientifically known must be learned by way of induction or deduction.
2. 2. All art deal with bringing something into existence. Art does not deal with things that exist or
come into existence of necessity or according to nature. It is concerned with the making not
with the doing hence art is a rational quality.
3. 3. Prudence concerns with matters of conduct that admit variation. It is a truth-attaining
rational quality concerned with action in relation to the things that are good for human beings.
4. 4. Wisdom is the combination of intuition and knowledge involving a deep understanding of the
natural world. Wisdom is the highest of all intellectual virtues because it involves a profound
understanding of the eternal truth of the universe. Contemplative reasoning deals with eternal
truth unrelated to human action as revealed in natural sciences and mathematics. It make use
of scientific knowledge intuition and wisdom. Calculative reasoning deals with the practical
matters of human life.

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 There are five qualities through which the mind achieves truth in affirmation or
denial namely art or technical skills, scientific knowledge, prudence, wisdom and
intelligence.

5. .Resourcefulness or good deliberation is a process that helps achieve the ends envisaged by
prudence.
6. .Understanding is a form of judgment regarding practical matters which helps us determine
what is equitable.

Pleasure is not desirable without qualification. Not all pleasures are desirable and that pleasure
is not the supreme good. Only those pleasures enjoyed by a good person and for the right
reasons are good.

The highest form of happiness is contemplation for it is the activity of our highest rational
faculties.

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 What is human existence?

Why we are here? What is life all about? The meaning of life as we perceive it derived from its
philosophical and religious contemplation and scientific inquiries about existence, social ties
consciousness and happiness. Plato believed in the existence of universals. His Theory of Forms
proposes that universals do not exist as objects. For him the meaning of life is the attainment of
highest form of knowledge which is the Idea of Good from which all good and just things derive
utility and value. In Aristotle point of view, he defended reason, invented logic, focused on
reality and the importance of the life in the earth which enables science and technology to
develop and flourish. The knowledge of the world commences by looking at and examining
what exists and can be augmented by reason. (concept of scientific method)

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 What is public good?
 A public good is a product that one individual can consume with reducing its availability to another
individual and from which no one is excluded. Public goods are nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. A
dam is an example of a public good. It is by which all people benefit from its use without reducing
the availability of its function. In some case, a public good can be excludable and private good can
be nonexcludable. A public good is excludable when it has a nominal cost that creates a low barrier
to consume the good. Example, the post office needs stamp expenses, Private goods like basic AM
radio show is considered nonexcludable since anyone can hear and listen.
 Quasi-public goods are goods and services that have characteristics of being nonrivalrous and
nonexcludable but are not pure public goods. Example the roads they benefitted from the
infrastructure but more of the public uses the infrastracture it causes traffic and congestion
lowering the value of the good. Public good carries largely the politico-ethical sense subsumes the
politicoeconomic sense.The government pursues it with a service orientation while private
corporation pursues it with profit orientation. They have also mixed public goods. A public good
must benefit the people, the solidarity for the individual and social benefits. It is also necessary for
their common welfare.

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 What is public good?
 The ethical theory is connected to the type of life that is most desirable or most worth living
for each and human being. The distinction of a good person is to take pleasure in moral
action. Virtue are the means to the values which enables us to achieve and attain happiness.
Making the proper response for the unique situation is the concern of moral living. Although
virtues and values are not automatically rewarded, this does not alter the fact that they are
rewarded (human flourishing) the goal of which is happiness.
 Self-direction involves the use of one’s reason necessary for attaining human flourishing.
Freedom in decision –making and behavior is necessary operating condition for the pursuit
of flourishing ,together with the respect for individual autonomy. These natural rights are
metanormative principles concerned with protecting the self-directedness of individual.
Nature rights impose a negative obligation—obligation not to interfere with one’s
liberty ,hence it requires a legal system that provides the necessary conditions for the
possibility that individuals might actualize. All the diverse forms of personal flourishing may
coexist in an ethically compossible manner. This right can be accorded to every person with
no one’s authority over himself requiring that any other person experience a loss of
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authority over himself.