how do you define good life essay

How to Achieve a Good Life? Essay

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Introduction

A good life, moral virtues.

Life is a mode of existence and it reflects the experiences of living that characterize human beings whether they are good or bad. It is confounding to describe what a good life is, since it applies to both material life and moral life. For instance, having immense wealth and ability to enjoy every form of pleasure that ever existed on earth can mean that one is living a good life.

On the other hand, living in accordance with the social, religious, and personal morals and ethics means that one is also living a good life. The latter description of good life applies across the board since everybody has the ability to achieve it for everyone has the capacity to think and act morally. This essay explores what a good life is and describes plan of achieving it in terms of integrity, honesty, responsibility, and state obligation.

Living a good life morally means living in accordance with the ethics and morals of the society. A person living a good life expresses virtues such integrity, honesty, responsibility, and obligation to the rules of the state. Although human beings pursue material and intellectual gains as they struggle towards self-actualization, these gains cannot earn them the virtue of being good, but they will rather pass for hardworking individuals.

The rich people have wealth because of their hardworking character and they can access good things of life that bring happiness and pleasure, and live a good life materially; nevertheless, this does not make them good. A poor person can live a miserable life of poverty but with good moral life, while on the contrary, a rich person can live a good life of pleasure and happiness, but with bad moral life. Therefore, when “good” describes virtues, pleasure and happiness due to money cannot make life good.

Morals and ethics that individuals observe to express virtues in life cause them to lead a good life. Integrity and honesty are two virtues that enhance people’s lives and they are inseparable because one cannot have integrity without being honesty or vice versa. Educationally, integrity is a skill that demands learning and continued practice in order to internalize the virtue.

The development of integrity is a life-long process that needs patience and endurance since it is a skill. If likened to a building, honesty and truth are two central pillars that support integrity as a virtue throughout the life of an individual. To develop this virtue of integrity in life, one must always adhere to its two pillars, because integrity is not a discrete achievement but a continuous achievement that needs constant efforts to maintain it.

Responsibility is a powerful virtue which if exercised well by an individual, it does not only yield great benefits to the individual, but also to other people and the entire society. The golden rule demands that there must be reciprocal responsibility in the society to enable people live harmoniously.

Sense of responsibility in the society lessens the impacts of problems experienced because of collective response that lead to immediate solution. Becoming part of the solution in the society is being responsible and the excuse of blaming others would not arise. Since rights and responsibility relate to one another, it requires one to act within the limits of rights to become responsible. Therefore, the rights that govern social norms and regulations give one the degree of responsibility to struggle and attain good life for the benefit of all.

Citizens have a moral obligation to respect and advocate for the common interests of all people. For justice and peace to flourish in the society, citizens have great moral obligation to ensure they report criminal activities, help the poor, and conserve the environment. By doing this, they foster their states’ bid to build justice and a peace in society where virtues spring up, and thus a good life.

Like responsibility, adherence to the laws of the land will enable one to develop a sense of obligation to the state. It is a great obligation of the citizens to help the state fight vices in the society and the best way to do it is by becoming loyal to the laws and being active in enforcing them. The concerted efforts of the state and its citizens will improve the lives of the people resulting into a good life.

To achieve good life based on observance of moral principles demands strict observance and application of ethics in everything. Complete observance of ethics yields virtues that make life good in any community.

The goodness of a person cannot result from material wealth, but it emerges from the good moral qualities that one has achieved in life. Virtues like integrity, honesty, responsibility, and obligation to the state are attributes of an individual and have no material value attached to them. This means that, a good life does not mean wealthy living.

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What Is The Good Life & How To Attain It

Yet with more than 8 billion people on this planet, there are probably just as many opinions about what the good life entails.

Positive psychology began as an inquiry into the good life to establish a science of human flourishing and improve our understanding of what makes life worth living (Lopez & Snyder, 2011).

We will begin this article by exploring definitions of the good life, before presenting a brief history of philosophical theories of the good life. Then we’ll introduce a few psychological theories of the good life and methods for assessing the quality of life, before discussing how you can apply these theories to live a more fulfilling life.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Happiness & Subjective Wellbeing Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients identify sources of authentic happiness and strategies to boost wellbeing.

This Article Contains:

What is the good life, what is the good life in philosophy, theories about the good life, assessing your quality of life, how to live the good life, positivepsychology.com resources, a take-home message.

The word ‘good’ has a very different meaning for very many people; however, there are some aspects of ‘the good life’ that most people can probably agree on such as:

• Material comfort
• Engagement in meaningful activities/work,
• Loving relationships (with partners, family, and friends)
• Belonging to a community.

Together, a sense of fulfillment in these and other life domains will lead most people to flourish and feel that life is worth living (Vanderweele, 2017).

However, the question ‘what is the good life?’ has been asked in many fields throughout history, beginning with philosophy. Let’s look at where it all began.

According to Socrates

Interestingly enough, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates never wrote anything down. His student Plato reported his speeches in published dialogues that demonstrate the Socratic method. Key to Socrates’ definition of the good life was that “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Ap 38a cited in West, 1979, p. 25).

Socrates argued that a person who lives a routine, mundane life of going to work and enjoying their leisure without reflecting on their values or life purpose had a life that wasn’t worth living.

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According to Plato

Plato’s view of the good life was presented in The Republic (Plato, 380-375 BCE/2007) and supported the views of his teacher, Socrates. The Republic examines virtue and the role of philosophy, community, and the state in creating the conditions needed to live well.

In this dialogue, Socrates is asked why a person ought to be virtuous to live a good life, rather than merely appear to be virtuous by cultivating a good reputation. Socrates answers that the good life doesn’t refer to a person’s reputation but to the state of a person’s soul.

The role of philosophy is essential because philosophers are educated in using reason to subdue their animal passions. This creates noble individuals who contribute to a well-ordered and humane society. A person who is unable to regulate their behavior will be unstable and create suffering for themselves and others, leading to a disordered society.

Therefore, educated reason is crucial for cultivating virtuous conduct to minimize human suffering, both individually and socially. For Socrates and Plato, rational reflection on the consequences of our actions is key to establishing virtuous conduct and living the good life, both inwardly and outwardly.

For a fuller account check out the Wireless Philosophy video by Dr. Chris Surprenant below.

According to Aristotle

For Plato’s student Aristotle, the acquisition of both intellectual and character virtues created the highest good, which he identified with the Greek word eudaimonia , often translated as happiness (Aristotle, 350 BCE/2004).

Aristotle believed a person achieves eudaimonia when they possess all the virtues; however, acquiring them requires more than studying or training. External conditions are needed that are beyond the control of individuals, especially a form of state governance that permits people to live well.

It was Aristotle’s option that state legislators (part of Greek governance) should create laws that aim to improve individual character, which develops along a spectrum from vicious to virtuous. To cultivate virtue, reason is required to discern the difference between good and bad behavior.

For more on Aristotle’s version of the good life, click out the Wireless Philosophy video by Dr. Chris Surprenant below.

According to Kant

Immanuel Kant was a Prussian-born German philosopher active during the Enlightenment period of the late 18th century (Scruton, 2001). He is best known for his seminal contributions to ethics, moral philosophy, and metaphysics.

For Kant, a capacity for virtue is unique to human beings, because the ability to resist bodily desires requires the exercise of reason. Kant claims that human reason makes us worthy of happiness by helping us become virtuous (Kant, 1785/2012).

Kant’s argument describes the relationship between morality, reason, and freedom. One necessary condition of moral action is free choice.

An individual’s action is freely chosen if their reasoning determines the right course of action. Conduct is not freely chosen if it is driven by bodily desires like hunger, lust, or fear, or behavioral coercion that applies rewards and punishments to steer human actions.

For Kant, individuals should act only if they can justify their action as universally applicable, which he termed the categorical imperative (Kant, 1785/2012). He argued that all our behavioral choices can be tested against the categorical imperative to see if they are consistent with the demands of morality. If they fail, they should be discarded.

A virtuous person must exercise reason to identify which principles are consistent with the categorical imperative and act accordingly. However, Kant claimed that reason can only develop through education in a civilized society that has secured the external conditions required for an individual to become virtuous.

For example, an individual who lives in fear of punishment or death lacks the freedom required to live virtuously, therefore authoritarian societies can never produce virtuous individuals. Poverty also erodes an individual’s freedom as they will be preoccupied with securing the means of survival.

For a deeper examination of these ideas view the Wireless Philosophy video by Dr. Chris Surprenant below.

According to Dr. Seligman

Dr. Martin Seligman is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of positive psychology. For Seligman, the good life entails using our character strengths to engage in activities we find intrinsically fulfilling, during work and play and in our relationships.

For Seligman, ‘the good life’ has three strands,

• Positive emotions
• Eudaimonia and flow

Dr. Seligman’s work with Christopher Peterson (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) helped to develop the VIA system of signature strengths . When we invest our strengths in the activities of daily living, we can develop the virtues required to live ‘the good life’; a life characterized by positive emotional states, flow, and meaning.

Here is a video to learn more from Dr. Seligman about how cultivating your unique strengths is essential for living the good life.

Theories about what constitutes the good life and how to live it abound. This section will look at some of the most recent psychological theories about what contributes to the good life.

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Set-Point Theory

Set-point theory argues that while people have fluctuating responses to significant life events like getting married, buying a new home, losing a loved one, or developing a chronic illness, we generally return to our inner ‘set point’ of subjective wellbeing (SWB) after a few years (Diener et al., 1999). This is largely inherited and tied in with personality type.

In terms of the Big Five personality traits , those predisposed to neuroticism will tend more toward pessimism and negative perceptions of events, while those who are more extroverted and open to experience will tend more toward optimism.

According to set-point theory, the efforts we make to achieve our life goals will have little lasting effect on our overall SWB given we each have our own ‘happiness set point’ (Lyubomirsky, 2007).

Furthermore, set point theory suggests that there’s little we can do for people who have been through a difficult time like losing their spouse or losing their job because they will eventually adapt and return to their previous set point.

This implies that helping professionals who believe they can improve people’s SWB in the longer term may be misguided. Or does it?

Other research provides evidence that achieving life goals can have a direct effect on a person’s overall contentment (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2021). Specifically, pursuing non-competitive goals such as making a family, building friendships, helping others in our community, and engaging in social justice activities improve our sense of wellbeing.

On the other hand, pursuing competitive life goals like building a career and monetary wealth exclusively undermines SWB.

For set-point theory, the good life depends more on innate personality traits than education. For a surprising account of this, using a practical example, view the video below.

Life-Satisfaction Theory

Typically, life satisfaction refers to a global evaluation of what makes life worth living rather than focusing on success in one area of life like a career or intimate relationship, or the fleeting sense of pleasure we often call happiness (Suikkanen, 2011).

However, there tend to be two dominant theories of what causes life satisfaction: bottom-up theories and top-down theories.

Bottom-up theories propose that life satisfaction is a consequence of a rounded overall sense of success in highly valued life domains . Valued life domains differ from person to person. For a professional athlete, sporting achievement may be highly valued, while for a committed parent having a good partnership and stable family life will be super important (Suikkanen, 2011).

Of course, these are not mutually exclusive. For most people, multiple life domains matter equally. However, if we are satisfied with the areas that we value, a global sense of life satisfaction results (Suikkanen, 2011).

Top-down theories propose that our happiness set-point has a greater influence on life satisfaction than goal achievement. In other words, personality traits like optimism have a positive impact on a person’s satisfaction with life regardless of external circumstances, whereas neuroticism undermines contentment.

The debate continues, and life satisfaction is likely influenced by a combination of nature and nurture as with other areas of psychology (Suikkanen, 2011). You can read an extended discussion of the evidence in our related article on life satisfaction .

So, while life satisfaction is associated with living a good life, it’s not necessarily related to education, the exercise of reason, or the cultivation of virtues as proposed by the philosophers mentioned above. For example, a successful financial criminal may be highly satisfied with life but would be deemed a corrupt human being by such lofty philosophical standards.

Hedonic treadmill

Meanwhile, the concept of the hedonic treadmill proposes that no matter what happens, good or bad, a person will eventually return to their baseline emotional state. For example, if someone gets married, moves to a new home, is promoted, loses a job, or is seriously injured in an accident, eventually, they will default to their innate set point (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2012).

This has also been termed hedonic adaptation theory (Diener et al., 2006). It means that no matter how hard we chase happiness or try to avoid suffering, ultimately, our innate tendencies toward pessimism or optimism return us to our baseline level, either dysphoria or contentment (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005).

If you tend to see the glass as half empty rather than half full, don’t be discouraged, because recent research by Sheldon and Lyubomirsky (2021) acknowledges that while we each have a happiness set point, we can also cultivate greater happiness. We’ve offered some tips in the ‘how to’ section below.

Nevertheless, assessing the quality of life has led to an abundance of international research using quality of life indicators (QoLs) in a variety of scales and questionnaires (Zheng et al., 2021).

Gill and Feinstein identified at least 150 QoL assessment instruments back in the mid-1990s (Gill & Feinstein, 1994). Since then, scales have been refined to measure the quality of life in relation to specific health conditions, life events, and demographic factors like age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (Zheng et al., 2021).

Our article Quality of Life Questionnaires and Assessments explains this in more detail and guides you on how to choose the best instrument for your clients.

Meanwhile, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD ) has developed the Better Life Index to measure how people from different demographics define a high quality of life. You can find out more in the brief video below.

How can each of us live the good life today given our array of differences? Below are five steps you can take to clarify what the good life means to you, and how you can apply your strengths to set goals that will lead to greater fulfillment.

1. Clarify your values

Clarifying what is important to you helps invest your life with meaning. Download our values clarification worksheet to get started.

2. Identify valued life domains

Investing in activities in valued life domains is intrinsically rewarding. Download our valued life domains worksheet to find out more.

3. Invest in your strengths

You can find out your character strengths by taking the free survey here . Playing to your strengths helps you overcome challenges and achieve your goals leading to greater life satisfaction. Read our article about how to apply strengths-based approaches to living well.

4. Set valued goals

Finally, we all benefit when we set goals and make practical plans to achieve them. Try our setting valued goals worksheet for guidance.

5. Ensure high-quality relationships

Healthy relationships with partners, family, friends, and colleagues are essential for living the good life and achieving your goals. To assess the quality of your relationships, take a look at our article on healthy relationships with free worksheets.

You can also look at our healthy boundaries article with more free resources. Healthy boundaries support you in living the good life in all life domains, while poor boundaries will leave you feeling unfulfilled.

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We have an excellent selection of resources you might find useful for living the good life.

First, take a look at our Meaning & Valued Living Masterclass for positive psychology practitioners. This online masterclass follows a practical process of identifying values, investing in strengths and then applying them to living a more fulfilled life.

In addition, we have two related articles for you to enjoy while exploring the role of meaning in the good life:

• Realizing Your Meaning: 5 Ways to Live a Meaningful Life
• 15 Ways to Find Your Purpose of Life & Realize Your Meaning

Next, we have an article explaining the role of human flourishing in living the good life.

• What Is Flourishing in Positive Psychology? (+8 Tips & PDF)

Finally, we have an article on how to apply values-driven goal-setting to living the good life.

• How to Set and Achieve Life Goals The Right Way

We also have worksheets you may find useful aids to living the good life:

Our How Joined Up is Your Life? worksheet can help your client identify their interests and passions, assess how authentically they are living their life, and identify any values that remain unfulfilled.

This Writing Your Own Mission Statement worksheet can help clients capture what they stand for, their aims, and objectives. Having a personal mission statement can be useful to return to periodically to assess our alignment with our values and goals.

Finally, this How to Get What You Deserve in Life worksheet can help clients identify what they want as well as justify why they deserve a good life.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others develop strategies to boost their wellbeing, this collection contains 17 validated happiness and wellbeing exercises . Use them to help others pursue authentic happiness and work toward a life filled with purpose and meaning.

We all want to live the good life, whatever that means to us individually. The concept has preoccupied human beings for millennia.

If you currently struggle, which we all do at different times, we hope you’ll consider trying some of the science-based strategies suggested above to steer your way through.

All the evidence we have shared above shows that you can improve your life satisfaction and subjective wellbeing by living in line with your values. But you have to be clear about what’s important to you.

Values-based living invests your life with more meaning and purpose and is key to living the good life.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Happiness Exercises for free .

• Aristotle. (2004). Nicomachean ethics (Tredennick, H & Thomson, J.A.K., Trans.). Penguin. Original work published 350 BCE.
• Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Scollon, C. N. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist , 61(4), 305–314.
• Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin , 125(2), 276–302.
• Gill, T. M., & Feinstein, A. R. (1994). A critical appraisal of the quality of quality-of-life measurements . Jama, 272(8), 619-626.
• Kant, I. (2012). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals . Cambridge University Press. Original work published 1785.
• Lopez, S. L. & Snyder, C. R. (2011). The Oxford handbook of positive psychology . Oxford University Press.
• Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology , 9, 111–131.
• Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). The how of happiness: A scientific approach to getting the life you want . Penguin.
• Plato. (2007). The Republic (D. Lee, Trans.; 2nd ed.). Penguin. Original work published 380-375 BCE.
• Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press.
• Scruton, R. (2001). Kant: A very short introduction . Oxford.
• Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2012). The challenge of staying happier: Testing the hedonic adaptation prevention model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 38(5), 670–680.
• Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2021). Revisiting the sustainable happiness model and pie chart: Can happiness be successfully pursued? The Journal of Positive Psychology , 16(2), 145–154.
• Suikkanen, J. (2011). An improved whole life satisfaction theory of happiness. International Journal of Wellbeing , 1(1), 149-166
• Vanderweele, T. J. (2017). On the promotion of human flourishing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 114(31), 8148–8156.
• West, T. G. (1979). Plato’s “Apology of Socrates”: an interpretation, with a new translation . Cornell University Press.
• Zheng, S., He, A., Yu, Y., Jiang, L., Liang, J. & Wang, P. (2021). Research trends and hotspots of health-related quality of life: a bibliometric analysis from 2000 to 2019. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 19 , 130.

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For me a happy life is having the necessary things to have a good life in the physical aspect, economic aspect ,social aspect, achievement and also family, love and health . The luxuries are also good but they are extra things in life. The most important thing in life is love and peace.

This article made my day. Thank you for putting it together.

I lost approximately 14,000 dollars because of a bank fraud. This money is a product of my hardwork as a nurse and I have been saving it so I have a money when I travel back to be with partner. And the bank refused to refund my money. This incidence has made me feel devastated about life. It affected me emotionally and mentally. But I tried to contain this emotion for a few months and avoided to work and avoided my friends. But I am lucky that my parents, my sisters and especially my partner have been very supportive and understanding to me. They showed me the love and care I needed especially those tough times. Only a few days ago that I realised I should start to help myself and this is why I started to listen to a different talks and read articles that will help me to stay positive in life. Having this article read, it reminded me that I should be grateful that I am surrounded with great people. So thank you for sharing this article and making it accessible to everyone.

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What Is a Good Life and How To Live It

Introduction.

Living the good life can have different connotations to different people though in basic form, living a good life involves exploration that gives a person joy and satisfaction. A good life may mean finding purpose as well as meaning in life and obtaining happiness from what one does. Almost everyone aspires to live a good life though people have different meanings for what good life means to them. As some seek wealth, power, or social status to live a good life, others think living a good life entails having an honest, joyful, and happy life. This particular paper seeks to understand good life and how to live it by exploring what good life for everyone, how every person should live, the requirement for living good life, and the challenges and rewards of a good life.

What is a good life for everyone?

Living the good life for any person entails living a life that sets someone free, a life that fulfills a person, gives joy, happiness, and a sense of purpose in one’s life. A good life for everyone needs to be a worthwhile life, and one must also contribute to society instead of just living a self-centered life. Besides, a person living a good life must avoid mundane engagements. Life makes more sense and turns out to be good for everyone when everyone lives a life that adds value and plays a significant role in making the world a better place to live (Fischer 12). Giving such contributes significantly benefit one, especially in terms of personal growth. Achievement of a high standard of living alone may not be fulfilling as such, and for everyone to have a good life, there is a need for everyone to attain what they seek in life, which makes everyone free and live a good life.

Although people have a different purpose on what they want in life, a good life would be attained when everyone lives a purposeful life. A purposeful life deals with moving towards a specific goal that helps one align with personal values, passions, and things that make one happy. However, it is significantly important to admit that having a purposeful life is than it may sound since many people struggle with living a purposeful life. Apart from having a purposeful life for everyone, life needs to be a life of pleasure to be considered good. Live is worth living when every member of the society can experience pleasure since pleasure is fun and pleasant.

How should everyone live?

After understanding what good life for everyone entails, there is a need to consider how everyone needs to live that good life. Some experts claim that living a good life is not a sprint but rather an exerting marathon of perseverance, purpose, patience, and passion. Everyone living a good life means something they are doing that gives them joy, helps one develop love towards others, and attain the intended success. Living a good life involves observing some golden rules that members of the community need to ensure they observe while living a good life.

Achieving good life for everyone in the community demands people to live in harmony and promote peace. By doing so, society can maintain social order and hence have the freedom to do some of the things that make one feel satisfied, fulfilled, and do your own things to fulfill the purpose (Manuel et al. 35). Secondly, for every community member to attain a good life, critical virtues and values need to be observed, particularly respect. Respect greatly help in bringing a conducive environment whereby everyone lives without overstepping boundaries or doing things that would affect other peoples’ joy and happiness.

Furthermore, for every member of the community to attain a good life, it demands all people to be selfless and avoid things like greed, which promotes self-interests to appoint of doing anything irrespective of moral concept to attain what one wishes. Through selfless life, one can attain what they have worked for and give others an opportunity to also attain what they wish through working hard and exploiting the available resources. Some members of society have engaged in corruption deals because of being selfish and want them to be the only persons who have everything and achieve social status.

Society significantly needs to develop laws that everyone must abide by and be aware of to avoid engaging in some behaviors that can definitely interfere with life of others. Laws should for maintain tranquility and order. Through laws, it becomes possible to discourage vices that may interfere with the good life of others, including robbery or stealing.

What is required to live such a life?

Achieving a good life, especially for every community member, is not a walk in the park and demands observation of some golden tips. One of them includes experiencing true pleasure, which means one needs to keep their life simple. Since every person is after pleasure, there is a need to avoid shallow and transient pleasure, which sometimes only lasts within a short period. To attain the purpose, one has and live a good life, there demand extra working hard and working towards achieving the goal one has. Without working hard or towards the goal, it turns out to be extremely difficult to access some of the things that facilitate living a good life (Sutton 20). Money is one of the things that help people to get anything they wish, and without working hard to get money, it becomes extremely difficult to attain basic needs like food and other basic needs.People should also avoid excess and live in harmony. Too much ambitions make a member of society interfere with the life of others by disturbing them, especially when one engages in things that demand consideration of morality questions. Living a happy life demands members of the be responsible human beings and avoid emerging in things that could adversely affect lower other peoples’ life way of living a good life. Take care of those around you as well as consider preserving the surroundings since it is the source of everything we enjoy including food. Time management is also another consideration that greatly influences good life. When time is effectively used, one manages to fulfill their dreams within the stipulated time.

What are the challenges and rewards of such a life?

Although attaining a good life is possible, some factors significantly hinder people from attaining a good life. one of them is the presence of disasters and accidents that sometimes entirely change one’s life. Attaining a good life can also render one into some behaviors that affect their lives. A good life like achieving goals and living a luxurious life can make a person engage in things like just sleeping, eating, and doing nothing can affect one’s health by gaining too much weight and exposing one to lifestyle like heart problems (Sutton 41). Being health is part of living a good health and this means that all people need to be concerned with their health, and avoid things that can affect their health. In such a scenario, instead of a person enjoying life and living a good life, they end up living a life full of frustrations due to pain and interference.

When only a portion of the community members attain a good life, others are left in distress and discouraged. Such frustrations have significantly contributed to mental health complications, which explains why the rate of suicidal cases is very apparent today. Good life for everyone is very rewarding in many ways, including living in harmony since everyone is enjoying life and has everything they need. Therefore, no need to engage in activities that could interfere with other peoples’ lives.

Conclusion 

Living a good life has a different meaning to different people though some of the basic things that help to identify a good life mean living a free life, having happiness, and other things like purposeful life. The paper has managed to define what good life entails, the means of living a good life, and some of the considerations that favor good life before looking at some of the challenges and benefits that arise from having a good life. society members need to understand what good life entails and how attaining it is as simple as knowing what one wants life and working towards it.

Fischer, Edward F.  The good life . Stanford University Press, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780804792615/html

Manuel, Tiffany. “How Does One Live the Good Life?: Assessing the State of Intersectionality in Public Policy.”  The Palgrave handbook of intersectionality in public policy . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019. 31-58. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-98473-5_2

Sutton, Anna. “Living the good life: A meta-analysis of authenticity, well-being and engagement.”  Personality and Individual Differences  153 (2020): 109645.

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What Is a Good Life According to Plato? A Philosophical Perspective

What is a good life according to Plato? As an expert in philosophy, I find it fascinating to explore the ancient Greek philosopher’s perspective on human life and the pursuit of a good life, just …

What is a good life according to Plato? As an expert in philosophy, I find it fascinating to explore the ancient Greek philosopher’s perspective on human life and the pursuit of a good life, just life. Plato believed that a good life was closely tied to the concept of justice and virtue. According to him, human beings have an inherent nature that can be cultivated through self-knowledge, moral philosophy, and the pursuit of well-being.

Plato’s Definition of a Good Life

Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers in Western philosophy, had a unique perspective on what constitutes a good life. According to Plato, a good life is not merely about external achievements or material possessions; it is about the fulfillment of our true nature as human beings.

Plato’s teachings suggest that a good life involves living in accordance with one’s true nature and recognizing the intrinsic value of virtues such as wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. He argued that individuals should strive for self-discipline and develop their character traits to become virtuous persons.

In Plato’s conception, happy life is not solely dependent on external factors or social status but rather on cultivating inner qualities and achieving harmony within oneself. He believed that true happiness depends on aligning one’s actions with moral thought and upholding ethical principles despite the challenges posed by external affairs.

Plato’s work often emphasized the importance of self-examination and reflection. Through his famous allegory of the cave, he encouraged individuals to seek knowledge beyond the physical world and delve into the intelligible realm where eternal truths exist.

While Plato’s ideas may differ from other philosophers like Aristotle who claimed that happiness also depends on other factors such as external goods or long life, his focus on cultivating human character remains central to his notion of what constitutes a good life according to Plato.

According to Plato’s philosophy, a good life involves striving for self-knowledge, developing virtuous character traits, seeking philosophical wisdom beyond superficial appearances, and aligning one’s actions with moral principles. By doing so, individuals can achieve true happiness and fulfillment in their lives.

In Plato’s view, human life is inherently connected to the pursuit of knowledge and self-knowledge. He believed that we are born with an innate desire to understand ourselves and the world around us. This quest for knowledge enables us to lead a just and virtuous life.

Plato argued that the key to living a good life lies in cultivating moral virtues and striving for excellence in all aspects of our being. He believed that true happiness depends on internal factors rather than external circumstances or social status. Plato emphasized that self-discipline, self-awareness, and self-improvement are essential for attaining genuine well-being.

According to Plato’s teachings, a virtuous person is someone who possesses four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. These character traits shape our actions and enable us to live harmoniously with others while pursuing our own individual goals.

Plato also introduced the concept of philosopher kings – individuals who possess both intellectual prowess and moral integrity – as ideal rulers who can guide society toward justice and righteousness. In his famous work “ The Republic ,” he outlined his vision for an ideal society governed by these philosopher kings.

One of Plato’s notable contributions is his allegory called “The Allegory of the Cave.” In this allegory, he describes how people are trapped in a world of appearances until they gain insight into the true nature of reality through philosophical contemplation.

Plato’s ethics revolve around the notion that there is intrinsic value in leading an examined life – one where we constantly question our beliefs, values, and actions. By doing so, we can align ourselves with the true nature of things and achieve a deeper understanding of the human condition.

What Is a Good Life According to Plato – Summary

In summary, according to Plato, a good life is characterized by self-knowledge, moral virtue, and the pursuit of truth. It involves striving for excellence in all aspects of our being and seeking harmony between our individual goals and the well-being of society. By cultivating wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice within ourselves, we can attain genuine happiness and lead a fulfilling existence.

What Is a Middle Desire Plato?

Why would plato write laches.

What Does It Mean to Live the Good Life?

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What is “the good life”? This is one of the oldest philosophical questions . It has been posed in different ways—How should one live? What does it mean to “live well”?—but these are really just the same question. After all, everyone wants to live well, and no one wants “the bad life.”

But the question isn’t as simple as it sounds. Philosophers specialize in unpacking hidden complexities, and the concept of the good life is one of those that needs quite a bit of unpacking.

The Moral Life

One basic way we use the word “good” is to express moral approval. So when we say someone is living well or that they have lived a good life, we may simply mean that they are a good person, someone who is courageous, honest, trustworthy, kind, selfless, generous, helpful, loyal, principled, and so on.

They possess and practice many of the most important virtues. And they don’t spend all their time merely pursuing their own pleasure; they devote a certain amount of time to activities that benefit others, perhaps through their engagement with family and friends, or through their work, or through various voluntary activities.

This moral conception of the good life has had plenty of champions. Socrates and Plato both gave absolute priority to being a virtuous person over all other supposedly good things such as pleasure, wealth, or power.

In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias , Socrates takes this position to an extreme. He argues that it is much better to suffer wrong than to do it; that a good man who has his eyes gouged out and is tortured to death is more fortunate than a corrupt person who has used wealth and power dishonorably.

In his masterpiece, the Republic , Plato develops this argument in greater detail. The morally good person, he claims, enjoys a sort of inner harmony, whereas the wicked person, no matter how rich and powerful he may be or how many pleasure he enjoys, is disharmonious, fundamentally at odds with himself and the world.

It is worth noting, though, that in both the Gorgias and the Republic , Plato bolsters his argument with a speculative account of an afterlife in which virtuous people are rewarded and wicked people are punished.

Many religions also conceive of the good life in moral terms as a life lived according to God’s laws. A person who lives this way—obeying the commandments and performing the proper rituals—is pious . And in most religions, such piety will be rewarded. Obviously, many people do not receive their reward in this life.

But devout believers are confident that their piety will not be in vain. Christian martyrs went singing to their deaths confident that they would soon be in heaven. Hindus expect that the law of karma will ensure that their good deeds and intentions will be rewarded, while evil actions and desires will be punished, either in this life or in future lives.

The Life of Pleasure

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was one of the first to declare, bluntly, that what makes life worth living is that we can experience pleasure. Pleasure is enjoyable, it’s fun, it’s...well...pleasant! The view that pleasure is the good, or, to put I another way, that pleasure is what makes life worth living, is known as hedonism .

The word “hedonist,” when applied to a person, has slightly negative connotations. It suggests that they are devoted to what some have called the “lower” pleasures such as sex, food, drink, and sensual indulgence in general.

Epicurus was thought by some of his contemporaries to be advocating and practicing this sort of lifestyle, and even today an “epicure” is someone who is especially appreciative of food and drink. But this is a misrepresentation of Epicureanism. Epicurus certainly praised all kinds of pleasures. But he didn’t advocate that we lose ourselves in sensual debauchery for various reasons:

• Doing so will probably reduce our pleasures in the long run since over-indulgence tends to cause health problems and limit the range of pleasure we enjoy.
• The so-called “higher” pleasures such as friendship and study are at least as important as “pleasures of the flesh."
• The good life has to be virtuous. Although Epicurus disagreed with Plato about the value of pleasure, he fully agreed with him on this point.

Today, this hedonistic conception of the good life is arguably dominant in Western culture. Even in everyday speech, if we say someone is “living the good life,” we probably mean that they enjoying lots of recreational pleasures: good food, good wine, skiing, scuba diving, lounging by the pool in the sun with a cocktail and a beautiful partner.

What is key to this hedonistic conception of the good life is that it emphasizes subjective experiences . On this view, to describe a person as “happy” means that they “feel good,” and a happy life is one that contains many “feel good” experiences.

The Fulfilled Life

If Socrates emphasizes virtue and Epicurus emphasizes pleasure, another great Greek thinker, Aristotle , views the good life in a more comprehensive way. According to Aristotle, we all want to be happy.

We value many things because they are a means to other things. For instance, we value money because it enables us to buy things we want; we value leisure because it gives us time to pursue our interests. But happiness is something we value not as a means to some other end but for its own sake. It has intrinsic value rather than instrumental value.

So for Aristotle , the good life is a happy life. But what does that mean? Today, many people automatically think of happiness in subjectivist terms: To them, a person is happy if they are enjoying a positive state of mind, and their life is happy if this is true for them most of the time.

There is a problem with this way of thinking about happiness in this way, though. Imagine a powerful sadist who spends much of his time gratifying cruel desires. Or imagine a pot-smoking, beer-guzzling couch potato who does nothing but sit around all day watching old TV shows and playing video games. These people may have plenty of pleasurable subjective experiences. But should we really describe them as “living well”?

Aristotle would certainly say no. He agrees with Socrates that to live the good life one must be a morally good person. And he agrees with Epicurus that a happy life will involve many and varied pleasurable experiences. We can’t really say someone is living the good life if they are often miserable or constantly suffering.

But Aristotle’s idea of what it means to live well is objectivist rather than subjectivist. It isn’t just a matter of how a person feels inside, although that does matter. It’s also important that certain objective conditions be satisfied.

For instance:

• Virtue: They must be morally virtuous.
• Health: They should enjoy good health and reasonably long life.
• Prosperity: They should be comfortably off (for Aristotle this meant affluent enough so that they don’t need to work for a living doing something that they would not freely choose to do.)
• Friendship: They must have good friends. According to Aristotle human beings are innately social; so the good life can’t be that of a hermit , a recluse, or a misanthrope.
• Respect: They should enjoy the respect of others. Aristotle doesn’t think that fame or glory is necessary; in fact, a craving for fame can lead people astray, just as the desire for excessive wealth can. But ideally, a person’s qualities and achievements will be recognized by others.
• Luck: They need good luck. This is an example of Aristotle’s common sense. Any life can be rendered unhappy by tragic loss or misfortune.
• Engagement: They must exercise their uniquely human abilities and capacities. This is why the couch potato is not living well, even if they report that they are content. 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. Were he alive today he might well include some forms of technological innovation.

If at the end of your life you can check all these boxes then you could reasonably claim to have lived well, to have achieved the good life. Of course, the great majority of people today do not belong to the leisure class as Aristotle did. They have to work for a living.

But it’s still true that we think the ideal circumstance is to be doing for a living what you would choose to do anyway. So people who are able to pursue their calling are generally regarded as extremely fortunate.

The Meaningful Life

Recent research shows that people who have children are not necessarily happier than people who don’t have children. Indeed, during the child-raising years, and especially when children have turned into teenagers, parents typically have lower levels of happiness and higher levels of stress. But even though having children may not make people happier, it does seem to give them the sense that their lives are more meaningful.

For many people, the well-being of their family, especially their children and grandchildren, is the main source of meaning in life. This outlook goes back a very long way. In ancient times, the definition of good fortune was to have lots of children who do well for themselves.

But obviously, there can be other sources of meaning in a person’s life. They may, for instance, pursue a particular kind of work with great dedication: e.g. scientific research, artistic creation, or scholarship. They may devote themselves to a cause: e.g. fighting against racism or protecting the environment. Or they may be thoroughly immersed in and engaged with some particular community: e.g. a church, a soccer team, or a school.

The Finished Life

The Greeks had a saying: Call no man happy until he’s dead. There is wisdom in this. In fact, one might want to amend it to: Call no man happy until he’s long dead. For sometimes a person can appear to live a fine life, and be able to check all the boxes—virtue, prosperity, friendship, respect, meaning, etc.—yet eventually be revealed as something other than what we thought they were.

A good example of this Jimmy Saville, the British TV personality who was much admired in his lifetime but who, after he died, was exposed as a serial sexual predator.

Cases like this bring out the great advantage of an objectivist rather than a subjectivist notion of what it means to live well. Jimmy Saville may have enjoyed his life. But surely, we would not want to say that he lived the good life. A truly good life is one that is both enviable and admirable in all or most of the ways outlined above.

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What is the Good Life? Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, & Kant’s Ideas in 4 Animated Videos

in Animation , Philosophy | December 28th, 2015 14 Comments

We all have some vision of what the good life should look like. Days filled with read­ing and strolls through muse­ums, retire­ment to a trop­i­cal island, unlim­it­ed amounts of time for video games…. What­ev­er they may be, our con­cepts tend toward fan­ta­sy of the grass is green­er vari­ety. But what would it mean to live the good life in the here and now, in the life we’re giv­en, with all its warts, rou­tines, and dai­ly oblig­a­tions? Though the work of philoso­phers for the past hun­dred years or so may seem divorced from mun­dane con­cerns and desires, this was not always so. Thinkers like Pla­to , Aris­to­tle , Immanuel Kant , and Friedrich Niet­zsche once made the ques­tion of the good life cen­tral to their phi­los­o­phy. In the videos here, Uni­ver­si­ty of New Orleans phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor Chris Sur­prenant sur­veys these four philoso­phers’ views on that most con­se­quen­tial sub­ject.

The view we’re like­ly most famil­iar with comes from Socrates (as imag­ined by Pla­to), who, while on tri­al for cor­rupt­ing the youth, tells his inquisi­tors, “the unex­am­ined life is not worth liv­ing.” Pithy enough for a Twit­ter bio, the state­ment itself may too often go unex­am­ined. Socrates does not endorse a life of pri­vate self-reflec­tion; he means that “an indi­vid­ual become a mas­ter of him­self,” says Surprenant,”using his rea­son to reign in his pas­sions, as well as doing what he can to help pro­mote the sta­bil­i­ty of his com­mu­ni­ty.” In typ­i­cal ancient Greek fash­ion, Pla­to and his men­tor Socrates define the good life in terms of rea­son­able restraint and civic duty.

The Pla­ton­ic ver­sion of the good life comes in for a thor­ough drub­bing at the hands of Friedrich Niet­zsche, as do Aris­totelian, Kant­ian, and Judeo-Chris­t­ian ideals. Nietzsche’s dec­la­ra­tion that “God is dead,” and in par­tic­u­lar the Chris­t­ian god, “allows us the pos­si­bil­i­ty of liv­ing more mean­ing­ful and ful­fill­ing lives,” Sur­prenant says. Niet­zsche, who describes him­self as an “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 a “reval­u­a­tion of val­ues.” His cri­tique of con­ven­tion­al moral­i­ty pits what he calls life-deny­ing val­ues of self-restraint, democ­ra­cy, and com­pas­sion (“slave moral­i­ty”) against life-affirm­ing val­ues.

For Niet­zsche, life is best affirmed by a striv­ing for indi­vid­ual excel­lence that he iden­ti­fied with an ide­al­ized aris­toc­ra­cy. But before we begin think­ing that his def­i­n­i­tion of the good life might accord well with, say, Ayn Rand’s, we should attend to the thread of skep­ti­cism that runs through­out all his work. Despite his con­tempt for tra­di­tion­al moral­i­ty, Niet­zsche did not seek to replace it with uni­ver­sal pre­scrip­tions, but rather to under­mine our con­fi­dence in all such notions of uni­ver­sal­i­ty. As Sur­prenant points out, “Niet­zsche is not look­ing for fol­low­ers,” but rather attempt­ing to “dis­rupt old con­cep­tu­al schemes,” in order to encour­age us to think for our­selves and, as much as it’s pos­si­ble, embrace the hand we’re dealt in life.

For con­trast and com­par­i­son, see Surprenant’s sum­maries of Aris­to­tle and Kant’s views above and below. This series of ani­mat­ed videos comes to us from Wire­less Phi­los­o­phy (Wi-Phi for short), a project joint­ly cre­at­ed by Yale and MIT in 2013. We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured video series on meta­phys­i­cal prob­lems like free will and the exis­tence of god and log­i­cal prob­lems like com­mon cog­ni­tive bias­es . The series here on the good life should give you plen­ty to reflect on, and to study should you decide to take up the chal­lenge and read some of the philo­soph­i­cal argu­ments about the good life for your­self, if only to refute them and come up with your own. But as the short videos here should make clear, think­ing rig­or­ous­ly about the ques­tion will like­ly force us to seri­ous­ly re-exam­ine our com­fort­able illu­sions.

For many more open access phi­los­o­phy videos, check out the Wi Phi Youtube chan­nel . You can also find com­plete cours­es by Prof. Sur­prenant in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es .

Relat­ed Con­tent:

105 Ani­mat­ed Phi­los­o­phy Videos from  Wire­less Phi­los­o­phy : A Project Spon­sored by Yale, MIT, Duke & More

135 Free Phi­los­o­phy eBooks

How to Live a Good Life? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions Nar­rat­ed by Stephen Fry on Aris­to­tle, Ayn Rand, Max Weber & More

Learn Right From Wrong with Oxford’s Free Course  A Romp Through Ethics for Com­plete Begin­ners

Josh Jones  is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at  @jdmagness

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Comments (14) |

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Comments (14), 14 comments so far.

I’ve always iden­ti­fied with Aris­totle’s views much more than with Socrates. It seems to me that Aris­to­tle is say­ing that indi­vid­ual virtues are the one path to the good life and that path come from with­in, while Pla­to posits the path to the good life needs exte­ri­or influ­ences for the per­son to achieve suc­cess.

All these philoso­phers assume that the human con­di­tion starts with a clean slate. We know that this assump­tion is incor­rect. Hered­i­ty and Envi­ron­ment play sig­nif­i­cant roles in char­ac­ter and tem­pera­ment. Hered­i­ty influ­ences go back to the begin­ning of our species. A cat which learns a new trick trans­fers this knowl­edge to suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions. Envi­ron­ment is con­di­tioned by parentage,race,religion,education,social sta­tus and a host of oth­er fac­tors. A human is there­fore heav­i­ly con­di­tioned by fac­tors which are not in his con­trol. Some of these have been enun­ci­at­ed by some of these philoso­phers and it was Socrates famous dic­tum “Know Thy­self” that was cen­tral to his phi­los­o­phy. Hap­pi­ness is when one has decon­di­tioned one­self and knows who he real­ly is.

Very inter­est­ing

Self knowl­edge is the begin­ing of all wisdom.It is when we allow our rea­son to con­trol our emo­tions that wis­dom comes.

good life for me is time spend smil­ing as often as I could , not for a just a joke or yarn but for time that occu­py ..read­ing , observ­ing , trav­el­ing, meet­ing new peo­ple and cul­tures have opened my mind …and then I also agree envi­ron­ment in which we live in play mam­moth role in shap­ing our Ives , when we do under­stand all these vari­ables … our road to good life ..begins final­ly :) Hap­py new year !!

I am grate­ful for this post. Since I have been cur­rent­ly deal­ing with a loss in my fam­i­ly, I found myself to be try­ing to answer this com­pli­cat­ed ques­tion. How to live a good life is very sim­ple to ask and very dif­fi­cult to answer. From my point of view, it is a com­bi­na­tion of all the stuff that was pre­sent­ed in each one of these videos. I agree with the on the Kant­ian imper­a­tive with him, but can’t agree with him about his claims about God, where I feel more unit­ed with Niet­zsche, and so on. What I know is that the suf­fer­ing and pain are both real and my goal should be to help oth­ers to avoid them as much as pos­si­ble — which makes it clear where I stand in this cur­rent refugee cri­sis. We have to be able to accept our own mor­tal­i­ty and behave in a way that is in accor­dance with the nature, soci­ety, and oth­er indi­vid­u­als. I tru­ly hope that one day, we will all under­stand that the war and vio­lence are futile, and that fight­ing against any injus­tice would be our main source of hap­pi­ness.

In many ways, the oppo­site is true. Aris­to­tle claimed that the good life can­not be lived with­out a vari­ety of exter­nal goods. With­out the luck of being born to a good fam­i­ly and with a good tem­pera­ment, the good life is hard to achieve. Mate­r­i­al com­fort, luck, good breed­ing, a youth filled with prop­er edu­ca­tion, and friends are all require­ments of the good life for Aris­to­tle, and the aver­age per­son has lit­tle con­trol over such fac­tors.

Hi Chris, thank you very much for these digestible videos and tak­ing the time write and post. I love that truth is uni­ver­sal, that it is col­lab­o­rat­ed regard­less of time, dis­tance, eth­nic­i­ty and social stand­ing. Lis­ten­ing to Socates anal­o­gy of the char­i­ot for mas­tery of the self remind­ed me of this piece from the Upan­ishads, one of the Hin­du holy books writ­ten some 3,000–5,000 years ago.

“Know the Atman (Self) as the lord of the char­i­ot, and the body as the char­i­ot. Know also the intel­lect to be the dri­ver and mind the reins.

The sens­es are called the hors­es; the sense objects are the roads; when the Atman is unit­ed with body, sens­es and mind, then the wise call Him the enjoy­er.”

I find the con­cepts of liv­ing good life, though quite good, assume that lives are steady. But good life for a child, for a young per­son or for an old per­son are not the same phi­los­o­phy. Not only the views are dif­fer­ent but also the stakes and wor­ries. I believe that good life con­cepts of Pla­to and Aris­to­tle com­bined with Bud­dhist teach­ings can show us the path of per­fect good life. The neces­si­ty of being born with cer­tain priv­i­leges may also ruled out with such con­cept. Enlight­en­ing request­ed.

Good life for me is a just life. I try to be just and fair to every­one , to my fam­i­ly and friends and neigh­bors and to my stu­dents , so as to have a clear con­science at the end of the day. Noth­ing like a clear con­science as I go to bed. I try hard to adhere to self restraint in most chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions though it’s eas­i­er said than done. I try to be ret­i­cent amid the hoopla in the mass media and some noisy col­leagues because at the end I am answer­able only to God and to myself.

I wish I could meet these peak ver­sions of Human Soci­ety.

This is just plain wrong. Niet­zsche in par­tic­u­lar focused on the role of the human con­di­tion and how evo­lu­tion and genet­ics shaped indi­vid­u­als and groups of peo­ple.

The com­ment I left above was in response to one of the respons­es above though it does­n’t seem to be show­ing up that way. The per­son who said that all these philoso­phers assume a clean slate is wrong.

Among the four men­tioned philoso­phers, who among them have oppos­ing diff­i­ni­tion of good life?

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Reason and Meaning

Philosophical reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life, aristotle on the good life.

Aristotle’s views on living well begin with a consideration of ends and means. Suppose I want a car—the car is my end or goal . I can earn, borrow, or steal the money to get the car—these are my means . The means I choose depends on which is easier, quicker, likelier to succeed, etc. Thinking about the goal we are aiming at, and the means we will 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.

Now suppose I get my car? That is itself a means to another end, say of getting to school or work. And of course, getting to school or work is the means to another end, getting a degree or a job. And these are the means of making money, which is itself a means of buying food, clothing, and shelter, which are the means of staying alive. Such considerations led Aristotle to wonder whether there is any ultimate or final 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 argued that as we mature, we act less aimlessly and more purposefully. We try to develop a plan for living that unites all our various purposes. Without a plan for living, we don’t know what we are trying to do or why we’re trying to do it. Moreover, not just any plan will do—we need the right plan, which is one that aims at the final or ultimate end. But what is the final end of human life, the end that all of us ought to aim at?

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 another question arises: don’t people differ about what constitutes a good life? For some it may consist of accumulating wealth; for others, it is having power or being famous or experiencing pleasure. But 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 the same. There are acquired desires , which differ between individuals, and natural desires , which are the same for everyone. Acquired desires—say for caviar—are things we want , whereas natural desires—say for food—are things we need . Acquired desires or wants correspond to apparent goods ; things that appear good because we want them. Natural desires or needs correspond to real goods ; things that are good for us whether we 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 each 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. 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 goods 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 for 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 excellences or virtues . Virtues of the mind are intellectual virtues ; while virtues exemplified by a regular disposition to choose correctly are moral virtues. For Aristotle, wisdom is the most important intellectual virtue but 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. In other words, 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 principal 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 to ensure that we have good lives 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. But if we are wise, morally virtuous, and fortunate we will likely have good, meaningful lives. 1

Postscript – Aristotle’s Politics

Finally, while possessing both virtue and luck gives us a good chance of having good lives, of being happy, it doesn’t completely guarantee it . Why? Because the quality of our lives also depends in large part on the quality of our society and government . It is exceedingly hard to have good lives in societies with bad governments despite our best efforts, and no amount of virtue and good fortune completely compensates for a tyrannical or despotic government. Put simply, we have a much better chance of living good, happy, and meaningful lives in societies with good governments than we do in societies with bad ones. 

So what is the end, goal, or purpose of the state? Aristotle says the purpose of the state is to provide the conditions under which all its citizens can flourish. This implies that some governments are better than others—good governments fulfill their purpose whereas bad ones either fail to help or actively hinder their citizen’s chances of living well. Just as a bad family doesn’t care for its children’s well-being, a bad government ignores the well-being of many of its citizens. We have a right to expect more.

In fact, we have a right to expect that the state uses its power to provide the conditions under which all its citizens can flourish. However, a just government cannot guarantee that we will attain moral virtue or have good lives, that is up to us . Nevertheless, a good or just government can and should provide the conditions under which living well, a good life, or human flourishing is possible, thereby alleviating much of the injustice caused by misfortune or bad luck. 2

______________________________________________________________________

1 This essay owes much to my reading, almost forty years ago, of Mortimer Adler’s Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy , and to trying to make Aristotle accessible for generations of college students. 2 Obviously there are other threats to living a good life that Aristotle wasn’t aware of such as climate change, nuclear war,  asteroids, and more. 

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46 thoughts on “ aristotle on the good life ”.

Appreciate your comments.

Aristotle? John Messerly?

Due to external environment,we acquire external desires,which becomes our own desires…. Everybody starts chasing their desires, leaving moral values Only a TRUE saint can lead a desire less life…with natural needs…

Terrific summary – most eloquent I have read in years.

thanks for the comment, and I do believe that Aristotle offered good advice on this. – JGM

I echo James and Anom…this is an excellent essay that makes me want to learn more about Aristotle. I was particularly intrigued by the emphasis on developing good habits as the key to living a good life. Yes, that is clearly “common sense” and easily dismissed as “old advice”. But in our current society, we are awash with an overabundance of habit-forming products and devices – some good and some bad. We almost need lessons in how to develop good habits and avoid developing bad habits amid this sometimes overwhelming overabundance. First and foremost, parents and grandparents need to reflect on Aristotle’s philosophy and examine all the habits they have developed as they simultaneously work to instill good habits in their children and grandchildren.

Of all the many things I’ve taught in philosophy classes through the years I have always thought this was some of the simplest yet most profound.

good presentation

That is a good article

Very helpful article for a law student, encountering Aristotle for the first time!

Appreciate your comment. JGM

I was reading “The burn out Society” by Byung-Chul Han, Korean-born German philosophy teacher, in Berlin. He refers to Aristotle and “the good life” several times, and I felt that I needed a refresher course on the topic, “googled” it, and this article popped up at the top of the list : Magic of the Internet! I found it excellent, concise, limpid; the best I read for a long time. I shall start the day happily equipped with renewed clarity. Another step into my ‘good life’.

I shall make sure to recommend this article to friends and students. Many thanks.

ps: However I don’t get the last sentence of § 12:”If we make too many bad choices we will not live poorly”. Surely, too many bad choices lead to an impoverished life, no?

thanks for catching the mistake. fixed it. JGM

1st year Classics student, I found this a very helpful and well written summary! Thank you

thanks for thanking me.

Terrific explanation John – can I suggest: 1. that “opportunity”, both socio-economic and personal, describes “fortunate” very well 2. “purposeful actions” – might translate appropriately today as worthwhile projects by a right plan that builds sustainable societies and good lives

So much thought went into these writings that its value just increases with every layer peeled back…

Thanks much for the comments, very insightful. JGM

this is so helpful! thank you so much, this is exactly what I have been looking for!!

Thanks. JGM

Who is the author of this article? He explained it very well.

I’m the author of all 800+ articles on the site.

John Messerly

THANKS FOR THE COMPLIMENT CONCERNING GOOD LIFE CF ARISTOTLE

Of these universal goods should we seek to acquire the limited goods first, (in moderation so as to live morally & virtuously). Then once we are satisfied with our possession of these first 2 categories of goods, ought we try and obtain the goods of the soul in order to maximise well being? What’s your take on what needs prioritising? Also is pleasure a good in itself? My view is that it isn’t because it comes as a reward to us as we are reaching fulfilment and when we fulfil our desires (climax) via our activities in which the goal is to obtain other goods. Thank you for an interesting article.

Aristotle does believe that the unlimited goods are superior but I assume he also believed that you need to acquire the limited goods as a prerequisite to having the chance to acquire those unlimited goods (as in Maslow’s hierarchy.) I don’t remember his specific views on pleasure, sorry. JGM

Thanks for your sharing. I read the World Happiness Report 2018 and got interested in Aristotle’s good life theory. Your sharing gave me more ideas about the relationship between good life and happiness. Thanks!

thank you. JGM

I enjoyed reading your article how would you say a well known person of history (Martin Luther King) lived a good life going by Aristotle’s definition?

reader’s have any thoughts

• Pingback: Martin Seligman and the ‘official’ birth of positive psychology – Think Psychology

Is this page reliable and trustworthy for a timeline on Aristotle

So glad to see this,I find this so helpful in my coming exams in Social and poilitical philosophy

Thank you for the brief information yet very helpful! 💗

Aristotle was truly brilliant–I am slowly and laboriously going through his Nicomachean Ethics–have been for the last 10 years….. I disagree with his saying that all actions have an end of producing happiness–I think they have an end of terminating suffering and transforming suffering into Joy…….

Thanks for your great article–I have read Aristotle ‘s Nicomachean Ethics—I don’t agree with everything he says–I feel Epictetus is more accurate–“Some things are up to us, and some are not” Happiness or Virtue cannot necessarily be exactly portrayed, it varies by person, circumstances, and skill

please sir according to the Nicomacheam Ethics, is the good relative to Aristotle?

Good material. You stated what Aristotle said but you didn’t give references to the primary sources. That would be helpful for those of us who want go back to Aristotle’s work. But good info.

Brilliant article! how would you reference it ?

Messerly, John (19 December 2013). “Aristotle on the Good Life”. Reason and Meaning.

is there any way you can offer sharing via email?

not sure, have to ask my wife who is the webmaster.

Very interesting as a historical piece but this goes to show how dated Aristotle’s ethics is in this day and age. He was a product of his time and his ethics wasn’t timeless.

Compare Aristotle’s outdated humaistic notion of the person to the latest posthuman moral rationalism which is relevant now and will become more relevant into the future:

https://www.academia.edu/60656070/Purism_Logic_as_the_basis_of_morality

Hello there, I was just leaving a comment about how much this article has changed my life. After reading this beautiful peice of writing I understand why im here in this world. I have written a school essay about this and i got an A plus all because of you.

Your kindess regards, G@ng$t@63.

I would like to thank the author of this for writing such helpful information for my school project. I can now write about life with this.

King regards, Thesigmaontop

Thanks for this piece of work really helped me get a new car a new wife and kids this is how much this article has helped me thanks

Your kindess regards: G@ng$t@62

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

The Four Keys to a Meaningful Life

Could pursuing meaning be the path to true happiness?

We at Greater Good have written often about the differences between a happy life and a meaningful life and found that the two are closely related. When we aim for a life of meaningful pursuits, we are likely to feel more sustained happiness and life satisfaction—even if there is some discomfort, sadness, or stress along the way—than if we aim for a life of pleasure alone. In fact, seeking happiness directly may actually backfire , while pursuing meaning may increase our health and well-being .

Now a new book takes a stab at figuring out just what pursuing a meaningful life entails. In The Power of Meaning , journalist Emily Esfahani Smith draws from the texts of great writers and philosophers—Emerson, Aristotle, Buddha, and Victor Frankl, for example—as well as interviews with everyday people seeking to increase meaning in their lives, to try to distill what’s central in this pursuit. The book, though only loosely tied to research, is mostly an engaging read about how people find meaning in life through “four pillars” of meaning.

1. Belonging. When we are understood, recognized, and affirmed by friends, family members, partners, colleagues, and even strangers, we feel we belong to a community. Results from some studies —as well as end-of-life conversations —indicate that many people count their relationships as the most meaningful part of their lives, even when those relationships are difficult or strained.

2. Purpose. When we have long-term goals in life that reflect our values and serve the greater good, we tend to imbue our activities with more meaning. Researcher Adam Grant has found that professions focused on helping others—teachers, surgeons, clergy, and therapists—all tend to rate their jobs as more meaningful, and that people who imbue their work with purpose are more dedicated to their jobs . Having purpose has also been tied to many positive outcomes, including increased learning for students in school and better health .

3. Storytelling. When it comes to finding meaning, it helps to try to pull particularly relevant experiences in our lives into a coherent narrative that defines our identity. People who describe their lives as meaningful tend to have redemptive stories where they overcame something negative, and to emphasize growth, communion with others, and personal agency. Laura Kray and colleagues found that asking people to consider paths not taken in life and the consequences of those choices imbued experiences with more meaning .

4. Transcendence. Experiences that fill us with awe or wonder—ones in which “we feel we have risen above the everyday world to experience a higher reality,” according to Smith— can decrease our self-focus and lead us to engage in more generous, helpful behavior . It may seem counterintuitive in some ways; but the diminishment of our own self-importance can induce a sense of meaning, she says.

Smith’s book aims to be somewhat prescriptive, offering practices that could encourage meaning in your own life. For example, at work you may want to practice acknowledging coworkers, engaging in personal interactions, and offering support to others when they need it, using these “high-quality connections” to increase your sense of belonging. You may also want to redefine the tasks of your job to fit your motives, strengths, and passions— a strategy recommended by organizational scholar Jane Dutton and colleagues .

Or, if you feel stuck, you may want to spend time creating a life narrative —an understanding of what experiences shaped you into the person you are now—with a redemptive storyline, perhaps through expressive writing practice or through working with a therapist. Or, you may want to find ways to experience more awe in your life, spending time in nature, staring at the stars, experiencing profound works of art, or pondering heroic figures.

Though her book is more focused on stories and philosophy than research, Smith does at least offer new ideas in an area that was once primarily the purview of spiritual traditions. She argues that pursuing meaning can be healing, not only for those of us with mild existential malaise, but for those who’ve suffered trauma or are facing their own mortality.

Her book is a call to recognize our place in the world—perhaps most importantly by nurturing our relationships and serving others—so that we bring more meaning to our lives.

“Each of us has a circle of people—in our families, in our communities, and at work—whose lives we can improve,” she writes. “That’s a legacy everyone can leave behind.”

About the Author

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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The Science and Practice of a Good Life

A good life equals happiness plus meaning plus psychological richness..

Posted March 11, 2022 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods

• Scientists increasingly focus on three visions of a good life: happiness, meaning, and psychological richness.
• The vision of a good life that gets prioritized may impact many facets of society.
• As we enter a new phase of the pandemic, we may do well to reflect on what aspect of a good life we've been most neglecting.

Two years ago today, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. Now, after two years of living with various restrictions, many of us are entering a new phase, with some long-neglected life options returning. We may be asking ourselves: “ how do I want to live now? ” As we wrestle with this question – aided by the greater perspective and wisdom that comes from adversity – we may benefit from considering what constitutes, for us, a good life.

Psychological scientists increasingly focus on three different visions of a good life.

First, a life of happiness tends to be characterized by pleasure, stability, and comfort. (On the flip side, a life of happiness seeks to minimize pain, instability, and discomfort.) Of course, we all find happiness in different ways, but research often shows how the experience of close relationships plays a vital role in this vision of a good life. For example, in a recent study, research participants rated having a party to be the daily activity most likely to make them happy. I’m also reminded of Elizabeth Gilbert’s quest for a good life in her bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love, and how her pursuit of pleasure translated for her to eating really good food in Italy. If we want to focus our lives on happiness, we might do well to habitually ask ourselves, “What would I most enjoy?”

A second vision for a good life involves the pursuit of meaning , characterized by purpose, coherence, and significance. (On the other hand, a life of meaning seeks to avoid aimlessness, fragmentation, and insignificance.) People living this kind of good life often feel like they are making the world somehow better. Religious and spiritual activities often play an important role. For instance, in Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert sought a life of devotion through yoga and meditation in India. We can concentrate on this vision of a good life by consistently asking ourselves, “What would be most meaningful?”

Increasingly, psychologists of the good life discuss a third vision: a psychologically rich life . This kind of life comes with a variety of interesting experiences that produce changes in perspective. (The opposite of a psychologically rich life may be found in a lifestyle characterized by repetition, boredom , and stagnation.) Research shows how study abroad experiences in college, for example, tend to increase feelings of psychological richness. Live music, in-person art, and many other kinds of stimulating, mind-opening experiences may play a special role in nurturing a psychologically rich life as well. For those of us wanting to pursue this vision of a good life, we might do well to frequently ask ourselves, “What would be most interesting?”

What vision of a good life gets prioritized may impact many facets of society. For instance, a community college offering a mostly online schedule of courses may be seen to prioritize happiness, as the focus is on helping students finish their degrees to find good-paying employment in as convenient and flexible a manner as possible. In contrast, a small liberal arts college promoting questioning, curiosity, and experiential learning of many kinds — including a requirement to live on campus, regular field trips, and an encouragement to study away — can be seen to emphasize psychological richness.

When forced, research shows most people say they prefer a life of happiness. But if you’re like me, you likely find all three of these visions of a good life to hold some appeal. In that sense, a good life equals happiness plus meaning plus psychological richness. If this equation rings true, the question for us might then become, “What have I been most neglecting during the pandemic: happiness, meaning, or psychological richness?” And, “What do I want to prioritize next?”

Oishi, S., & Westgate, E. C. (2021). A psychologically rich life: Beyond happiness and meaning. Psychological Review . Advance online publication.

Oishi, S., Choi, H., Liu, A., & Kurtz, J. (2021). Experiences associated with psychological richness. European Journal of Personality , 35 , 754-770.

Andy Tix, Ph.D., is a professor, writer, and consultant with expertise in the psychology of well-being, religion, and spirituality.

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Definitions of a Good Life

At all times, philosophers and thinkers have been pondering what the Good Life is. This concept is subjective and can differ for every person because everyone views the world through the lens of their own values, beliefs, and experiences. As for me, the Good Life is the one where you are happy and satisfied with yourself and what you bring into the world. It is a life where you have the inner balance and feel like you are doing the right thing at every given moment. This paper aims to discuss the concepts related to the idea of the Good Life and reflect on what our society should aspire to achieve.

The concept of the Good Life refers to a meaningful and fulfilled life and is interwoven with the concept of a good society, with developed structure, values, and culture. Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle viewed morality, ethics, and flourishment as an integral part of the Good Life for each individual (Hobbs, 2018). Besides, Aristotle believed that people are hardwired to live in a polis or city; hence, he linked politics and social structure with ethics and moral choices (Hobbs, 2018). I agree with this idea and think that as a society, we should focus on growing together and making the world a better place. It can be achieved by managing resources wisely, maintaining sustainability, and providing equity and opportunities for everyone. The community where every individual is guided by morale and ethics is a key to the Good Life, and this is the state our society should aspire to achieve.

I believe our focus should be on sufficiency, equity, development, and improvement to ensure a good society and a good life. This perspective is consistent with the ideas discussed by O’Neill et al. (2018), who suggested strategies to enhance the quality of life and resource use within planetary boundaries. As per the World Health Organization, quality of life is “an individual’s perception of their position in life … in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns” (as cited in Carlquist et al., 2017, p. 481). Therefore, it seems utopian to attempt to provide the Good Life for everyone as the concept is subjective. For instance, for me, it includes being healthy, feeling comfortable and satisfied with myself, working toward my goals, and continuously growing as a person. At the same time, another person might see the Good Life as one where their basic needs are covered. The view of the universal Good Life suggested by O’Neill et al. (2018) is idealistic. However, with sufficient quality of life, everyone can be closer to their concept of happiness and satisfaction.

Another important concept associated with the Good Life is progress and its impact on society. Progress refers to a movement toward a better state or a higher stage. In this regard, the desire for the Good Life prompts society to evolve and develop. Progress is often defined as economic growth; however, some researchers criticize this perspective. For example, according to Coccia & Bellitto (2018), “the concept is stratified in manifold factors and includes both positive and negative dimensions in society” (p. 1). In other words, several complex factors of social and psychological nature can influence human behavior and, in turn, human progress. I can’t entirely agree with such criticism as I believe that economic growth contributes significantly to the quality of life and should be viewed as one of the primary contributions to the Good Life. For example, providing nations with quality health care, education, and job opportunities is progress as it allows for the improvement of life for individuals and society as a whole. On the contrary, maintaining the same level of living standards cannot be viewed as progress since it does not mean upgrading to a higher stage.

The idea of the Good Life is based on human values, such as equality, equity, and opportunity. Eliminating opportunity gaps in education and jobs is critical to provide more people with a foundation for the Good Life (Jonas & Yacek, 2018). I support this idea even though the ultimate equality seems unachievable in the real world. Nevertheless, we should value freedom and independence, assisting others in order to create a healthier society. Similarly, racial, ethnic, and gender equality needs to be provided, and people need to be protected from violence. I believe that the promotion of social and environmental justice is crucial for ensuring equal treatment for people and the good society.

In this regard, understanding the importance of concepts like progress, equity, and development contributed to my intention to enroll in my degree in Social Science Psychology. I believe that the program will help me develop a better understanding of the diversity and complexity of our society and the world where we live. Thus, I will be able to apply my knowledge to contribute to welfare promotion.

To sum up, different perspectives on the Good Life and ideas related to it are discussed in this paper. Every individual needs to determine their values and aspirations since they largely define a person’s view of the Good Life. A mindful and tolerant approach to organizing our society can help us consider different perspectives of happiness and provide people with equity and opportunities for growth.

Carlquist, E., Ulleberg, P., Delle Fave, A., Nafstad, H. E., & Blakar, R. M. (2017). Everyday understandings of happiness, good life, and satisfaction: Three different facets of well-being. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 12 (2), 481-505.

Coccia, M., & Bellitto, M. (2018). Human progress and its socioeconomic effects in society. Journal of Economic and Social Thought , 5 (2), 160-178. Web.

Hobbs, A. (2018) Philosophy and the good life. Journal of Philosophy in Schools, 5 (1), 20-37.

Jonas, M. E., & Yacek, D. W. (2018). Nietzsche’s philosophy of education: Rethinking ethics, equality and the good life in a democratic age . Routledge.

O’Neill, D. W., Fanning, A. L., Lamb, W. F., & Steinberger, J. K. (2018). A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nature Sustainability , 1 (2), 88-95.

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All the Essential Elements of the Good Life Philosophy Essay

By: Henrique Bertulino

Writing essays is a large component of studying philosophy. Much like the subject itself, philosophy essays are a blueprint for thought.

Preparing to Write Good Life Philosophy Essay

Start with an introduction, give a thesis statement, critically evaluate theories, concepts, and arguments, give a thorough conclusion, final thoughts.

A common topic of discussion in philosophy and moral philosophy is the concept of the good life. This article will discuss the basic mechanics of how a philosophy essay should be written and then apply these mechanics to a typical good life essay as an example.

Before you begin to write a philosophy essay, you must first do all the necessary reading on the topic beforehand. In most cases, you need to present at least three main arguments for the topic at hand. You will need to be able to

• state these arguments accurately
• include direct quotes, if possible, from relevant philosophers
• cite the correct philosopher
• have a thorough understanding of what these arguments are conveying
• formulate criticisms and comparisons of these arguments

For a good life essay, we suggest that you read up on the essential Greek philosophers who have weighed in on the good life concept, such as:

• Socrates and his disciple Plato and their high prioritizing of virtuosity. Their school of thought is centered around living a Moral Life . Though they also emphasized the quest for knowledge and understanding of one's self as part of human nature - "the unexamined life is a life not worth living".
• Epicurus was the initial ancient Greek philosopher to define living a good life as living a Life of Pleasure or having a hedonistic lifestyle.
• Aristotle and his defined checklist for a Fulfilled Life to be deemed a person's life well-lived. This checklist can be found in his work The Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE in Athens. Here he also highlights the idea that pursuits should not just be about practicality but for our own sake. In other words, the endeavors we undertake in life should be what we want to do and not just what we have to do.
• Another extremely influential philosopher you could research is Nietzsche, who has also pondered over the good life. He believed a person's well-being relies on a meaningful life which he defines unsurprisingly using his famous God is Dead perspective. His views juxtapose the emphasis on morality and put forward the case that morality is a counter-productive way of life. Priority for Nietzsche is human life in pursuit of individual excellence and acknowledged because our values can only be subjectively evaluated, the meaning of life was also subjective.

Remember to always use reputable sources such as textbooks from the library or published ebooks and research papers and articles from Google scholar .

Create a Logical Structure

A philosophy essay is generally an argumentative essay. The idea is to present an overall stance that answers the philosophical question and demonstrating a clear defense of your stance via a well-informed discussion and analysis of existing theories and arguments on the subject matter.

By looking at the point-form outline, you will know exactly when and where each argument will be introduced in the essay and spot any structural issues or flaws in your argument more easily.

The introduction should give a basic definition of the topic proposed in the question and give a structural overview of the essay.

For a good life essay, you will typically aim to answer the question "what is the good life?" as a starting point. Some examples are:

• The definition of the good life in philosophy has been argued by many since ancient times. The two primary yet somewhat opposing schools of thought center around one unifying concept – happiness. To define a good life is to define the subjective ideas of what it means to be happy. For some, it may mean possessing material wealth and luxuries, whereas, for others, it could mean immeasurable wealth, such as having a life filled with love, meaning, or purpose. But is it reductionist to simply state that a conception of the good life is equivalent to a happy life?
• The good life is a term that conceptualizes the ideal conditions which One may consider to be "good". There are many arguments proposed for what it means to truly live a good life. One of these arguments is by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. In his argument, he states that a life of pleasure is a good life and that we should seek experiences that are indulgent and bring enjoyment, albeit in moderation.

This is a statement that directly answers the question and gives the stance or position you will take throughout the essay. It is the statement to be debated, and you will use the main body of the essay to prove your case for it.

For a Good Life essay, examples are:

• In this essay, I will justify that a life of morality is a better choice than a life of pleasure for life philosophy by examining the arguments posed by Socrates and Plato and explaining why I am in agreement with them.
• I believe that the good kind of life is a life of pleasure. In this essay, I will elaborate on my position by delving into various supporting arguments and deconstructing the criticisms against these arguments.
• This essay aims to refute Nietzsche's argument for a good life by proving that asceticism is necessary.

Always give a brief summary of how you will proceed to justify your thesis/position.

For expository essays, the thesis statement is just the objective of the article. So for a good life expository essay, an example would be:

• In this essay, I will be discussing various arguments on the good life concept and consider their strengths and weaknesses.

It is important to define technical or ambiguous terminology used in your thesis before stating the thesis statement to ensure the reader has full understanding. Sometimes, defining these terms is half of the exercise, and therefore a lot of your grade will depend on how well you define these terms. A clear and accurate definition without omission will be evidence of understanding. An example is as follows:

• A major component of Nietzsche's argument is his opposition to asceticism. Asceticism is the act of self-discipline from indulgent behaviors. His belief that self-denial will cause us to sacrifice individual development, excellence, and nobility is flawed. This essay aims to refute Nietzsche's argument by proving that asceticism is necessary for individual lives.

This is done in the main body of the text. For every theory, concept or argument you introduce, you must be prepared to evaluate them by discussing not only the strengths but also the weaknesses.

From your research notes or your own opinions, you need to present:

• the strength of the theory or arguments and the supporting reasoning provided by the philosopher
• the logical justification that was provided by other philosophers or yourself
• criticisms by other philosophers or yourself and why they make sense or why they are not valid
• how the philosopher responded to these criticisms

Remember to always provide a full exposition and definitions of every new theory, concept, or argument first before launching into the evaluation.

For a good life essay, an example could be:

Although it is intuitive to agree that having moral virtue is synonymous with being good, there are various ways in which it could also be considered a hindrance to living a good life. Therefore, being a good man or woman does not guarantee you to live a good life. Much of morality is focused on sacrificing the self for "the greater good" or for other human beings. By such self-sacrifice, you may experience negative impacts that impede on the individual's happiness. One could argue that if you have taken action to reduce your happiness in your own life for the sake of being virtuous, are you then still living a good life? Self-professed amoralist Nietzsche would be inclined to answer no, as evidenced by his opposition against asceticism.

Discuss the impacts and limits of how you defended your decision, but the focus should be on how you established your points. You may wish to make a closing statement that declares your position to be correct if you felt you have confidently proved it or leave things more open-ended with a final pondering.

In conclusion, the major philosophers mentioned in this essay have all agreed upon the intrinsic necessity for virtuosity and eudaimonia, which is the Ancient Greek word for happiness. Only by fully realizing these two core needs, can one deem to have lived a good life. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle have highlighted that material wealth should be of a lesser priority than that of moral and intellectual virtues. They have also pointed out that happiness is acquired through the freedom to pursue activities by choice and not a necessity. We must also have the freedom to make our own decisions and have the ability to reason.

Hopefully, this article has given you plenty of ideas to jump-start your philosophy essay on the good life concept. This framework for philosophy essay writing can be applied to any other topic with relevant adjustments.

Check out our other web pages for more essay help and essay editing . Alternatively, you may wish to use our proofreading services for polishing and perfecting your essay to give you that extra grade boost!

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Plato — The Views Of Plato And Aristotle On What Is A ‘Good Life’

The Views of Plato and Aristotle on What is a 'Good Life'

• Categories: Aristotle Plato

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Published: Feb 8, 2022

Words: 1418 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, works cited.

• Aristotle. “Nicomachean Ethics.” Core Texts Reader, edited by John Mayfield et al., vol. 1, XanEdu, 2013, p. 75.
• Macintosh, David. “Plato: A Theory of Forms.” Philosophy Now: a Magazine of Ideas, 2012, philosophynow.org/issues/90/Plato_A_Theory_of_Forms.
• Plato. “Apology.” Core Texts Reader, edited by Rosemary Fisk et al., vol. 1, XanEdu, 2013, p. 21.

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What Does Happiness Really Mean?

It's not the same for everyone

Verywell/ Jiaqi Zhou

How to Cultivate Happiness

How to be a happier person.

Happiness is something that people seek to find, yet what defines happiness can vary from one person to the next. Typically, happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction. 

When most people talk about the true meaning of happiness, they might be talking about how they feel in the present moment or referring to a more general sense of how they feel about life overall.

Because happiness tends to be such a broadly defined term, psychologists and other social scientists typically use the term ' subjective well-being ' when they talk about this emotional state. Just as it sounds, subjective well-being tends to focus on an individual's overall personal feelings about their life in the present.  

Two key components of happiness (or subjective well-being) are:

• The balance of emotions: Everyone experiences both positive and negative emotions, feelings, and moods. Happiness is generally linked to experiencing more positive feelings than negative ones.
• Life satisfaction: This relates to how satisfied you feel with different areas of your life including your relationships, work, achievements, and other things that you consider important.

Another definition of happiness comes from the ancient philosopher Aristotle, who suggested that happiness is the one human desire, and all other human desires exist as a way to obtain happiness. He believed that there were four levels of happiness: happiness from immediate gratification, from comparison and achievement, from making positive contributions, and from achieving fulfillment. 

Happiness, Aristotle suggested, could be achieved through the golden mean, which involves finding a balance between deficiency and excess.

Signs of Happiness

While perceptions of happiness may be different from one person to the next, there are some key signs that psychologists look for when measuring and assessing happiness.

Some key signs of happiness include:

• Feeling like you are living the life you wanted
• Going with the flow and a willingness to take life as it comes
• Feeling that the conditions of your life are good
• Enjoying positive, healthy relationships with other people
• Feeling that you have accomplished (or will accomplish) what you want in life
• Feeling satisfied with your life
• Feeling positive more than negative
• Being open to new ideas and experiences
• Practicing self-care and treating yourself with kindness and compassion
• Experiencing gratitude
• Feeling that you are living life with a sense of meaning and purpose
• Wanting to share your happiness and joy with others

One important thing to remember is that happiness isn't a state of constant euphoria . Instead, happiness is an overall sense of experiencing more positive emotions than negative ones.

Happy people still feel the whole range of human emotions—anger, frustrastion, boredom, loneliness, and even sadness—from time to time. But even when faced with discomfort, they have an underlying sense of optimism that things will get better, that they can deal with what is happening, and that they will be able to feel happy again.

"Even people who have experienced terrible trauma can still also experience happiness," says Hannah Owens, LMSW , "though it is important to recognize that it might be more difficult for them to obtain the balance generally associated with overall happiness, and that their happiness might look very different from others' who have not had to deal with such challenges."

Types of Happiness

There are many different ways of thinking about happiness. For example, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle made a distinction between two different kinds of happiness: hedonia and eudaimonia.

• Hedonia: Hedonic happiness is derived from pleasure. It is most often associated with doing what feels good, self-care, fulfilling desires, experiencing enjoyment, and feeling a sense of satisfaction.
• Eudaimonia: This type of happiness is derived from seeking virtue and meaning. Important components of eudaimonic well-being including feeling that your life has meaning, value, and purpose. It is associated more with fulfilling responsibilities, investing in long-term goals, concern for the welfare of other people, and living up to personal ideals.

Hedonia and eudemonia are more commonly known today in psychology as pleasure and meaning, respectively. More recently, psychologists have suggested the addition of the third component that relates to engagement . These are feelings of commitment and participation in different areas of life.

Research suggests that happy people tend to rank pretty high on eudaimonic life satisfaction and better than average on their hedonic life satisfaction.  

All of these can play an important role in the overall experience of happiness, although the relative value of each can be highly subjective. Some activities may be both pleasurable and meaningful, while others might skew more one way or the other.

For example, volunteering for a cause you believe in might be more meaningful than pleasurable. Watching your favorite tv show, on the other hand, might rank lower in meaning and higher on pleasure.

Some types of happiness that may fall under these three main categories include:

• Joy: A often relatively brief feeling that is felt in the present moment
• Excitement: A happy feeling that involves looking forward to something with positive anticipation
• Gratitude: A positive emotion that involves being thankful and appreciative
• Pride: A feeling of satisfaction in something that you have accomplished
• Optimism: This is a way of looking at life with a positive, upbeat outlook
• Contentment: This type of happiness involves a sense of satisfaction

While some people just tend to be naturally happier, there are things that you can do to cultivate your sense of happiness. 

Pursue Intrinsic Goals 

Achieving goals that you are intrinsically motivated to pursue, particularly ones that are focused on personal growth and community, can help boost happiness. Research suggests that pursuing these types of intrinsically-motivated goals can increase happiness more than pursuing extrinsic goals like gaining money or status.  

Enjoy the Moment

Studies have found that people tend to over earn—they become so focused on accumulating things that they lose track of actually enjoying what they are doing.  

So, rather than falling into the trap of mindlessly accumulating to the detriment of your own happiness, focus on practicing gratitude for the things you have and enjoying the process as you go. 

Reframe Negative Thoughts

When you find yourself stuck in a pessimistic outlook or experiencing negativity, look for ways that you can reframe your thoughts in a more positive way. 

People have a natural negativity bias , or a tendency to pay more attention to bad things than to good things. This can have an impact on everything from how you make decisions to how you form impressions of other people. Discounting the positive—a cognitive distortion where people focus on the negative and ignore the positive—can also contribute to negative thoughts.

Reframing these negative perceptions isn't about ignoring the bad. Instead, it means trying to take a more balanced, realistic look at events. It allows you to notice patterns in your thinking and then challenge negative thoughts.

Avoid Social Comparison

Another way to cultivate happiness and to make sure that you are able to maintain your happiness, Owens says, is to stop comparing yourself to others.

"No two lives are alike, and focusing on what others have is a sure-fire way to feel envy and regret. Focus on the good things in your own life, and you'll be more likely to find contentment in them," she says.

Impact of Happiness

Why is happiness so important? Happiness has been shown to predict positive outcomes in many different areas of life including mental well-being, physical health, and overall longevity.

• Positive emotions increase satisfaction with life.
• Happiness helps people build stronger coping skills and emotional resources.
• Positive emotions are linked to better health and longevity. One study found that people who experienced more positive emotions than negative ones were more likely to have survived over a 13 year period.
• Positive feelings increase resilience. Resilience helps people better manage stress and bounce back better when faced with setbacks. For example, one study found that happier people tend to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and that these benefits tend to persist over time.
• People who report having a positive state of well-being are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors such as eating fruits and vegetables and engaging in regular physical exercise.
• Being happy may make help you get sick less often. Happier mental states are linked to increased immunity.

Some people seem to have a naturally higher baseline for happiness—one large-scale study of more than 2,000 twins suggested that around 50% of overall life satisfaction was due to genetics, 10% to external events, and 40% to individual activities.

So while you might not be able to control what your “base level” of happiness is, there are things that you can do to make your life happier and more fulfilling. Even the happiest of individuals can feel down from time to time and happiness is something that all people need to consciously pursue.

Cultivate Strong Relationships

Social support is an essential part of well-being. Research has found that good social relationships are the strongest predictor of happiness. Having positive and supportive connections with people you care about can provide a buffer against stress, improve your health, and help you become a happier person.

In the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a longitudinal study that looked at participants over 80 years, researchers found that relationships and how happy people are in those relationships strongly impacted overall health.

So if you are trying to improve your happiness, cultivating solid social connections is a great place to start. Consider deepening your existing relationships and explore ways to make new friends. 

Get Regular Exercise

Exercise is good for both your body and mind. Physical activity is linked to a range of physical and psychological benefits including improved mood. Numerous studies have shown that regular exercise may play a role in warding off symptoms of depression, but evidence also suggests that it may also help make people happier, too.

In one analysis of past research on the connection between physical activity and happiness, researchers found a consistent positive link.  

Even a little bit of exercise produces a happiness boost—people who were physically active for as little as 10 minutes a day or who worked out only once a week had higher levels of happiness than people who never exercised.

Show Gratitude

In one study, participants were asked to engage in a writing exercise for 10 to 20 minutes each night before bed.   Some were instructed to write about daily hassles, some about neutral events, and some about things they were grateful for. The results found that people who had written about gratitude had increase positive emotions, increased subjective happiness, and improve life satisfaction.

As the authors of the study suggest, keeping a gratitude list is a relatively easy, affordable, simple, and pleasant way to boost your mood. Try setting aside a few minutes each night to write down or think about things in your life that you are grateful for.

Find a Sense of Purpose

Research has found that people who feel like they have a purpose have better well-being and feel more fulfilled.   A sense of purpose involves seeing your life as having goals, direction, and meaning. It may help improve happiness by promoting healthier behaviors. 

Some things you can do to help find a sense of purpose include:

• Explore your interests and passions
• Engage in prosocial and altruistic causes
• Work to address injustices
• Look for new things you might want to learn more about

This sense of purpose is influenced by a variety of factors, but it is also something that you can cultivate. It involves finding a goal that you care deeply about that will lead you to engage in productive, positive actions in order to work toward that goal.

Challenges of Finding Happiness

While seeking happiness is important, there are times when the pursuit of life satisfaction falls short. Some challenges to watch for include:

Valuing the Wrong Things

Money may not be able to buy happiness, but there is research that spending money on things like experiences can make you happier than spending it on material possessions. 

One study, for example, found that spending money on things that buy time—such as spending money on time-saving services—can increase happiness and life satisfaction.  

Rather than overvaluing things such as money, status, or material possessions, pursuing goals that result in more free time or enjoyable experiences may have a higher happiness reward.

Not Seeking Social Support

Social support means having friends and loved ones that you can turn to for support. Research has found that perceived social support plays an important role in subjective well-being. For example, one study found that perceptions of social support were responsible for 43% of a person's level of happiness.  

It is important to remember that when it comes to social support, quality is more important than quantity. Having just a few very close and trusted friends will have a greater impact on your overall happiness than having many casual acquaintances.

Thinking of Happiness as an Endpoint

Happiness isn’t a goal that you can simply reach and be done with. It is a constant pursuit that requires continual nurturing and sustenance.

One study found that people who tend to value happiness most also tended to feel the least satisfied with their lives.   Essentially, happiness becomes such a lofty goal that it becomes virtually unattainable. 

“Valuing happiness could be self-defeating because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed,” suggest the authors of the study.

Perhaps the lesson is to not make something as broadly defined as “happiness” your goal. Instead, focus on building and cultivating the sort of life and relationships that bring fulfillment and satisfaction to your life. 

It is also important to consider how you personally define happiness. Happiness is a broad term that means different things to different people. Rather than looking at happiness as an endpoint, it can be more helpful to think about what happiness really means to you and then work on small things that will help you become happier. This can make achieving these goals more manageable and less overwhelming.

History of Happiness

Happiness has long been recognized as a critical part of health and well-being. The "pursuit of happiness" is even given as an inalienable right in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Our understanding of what will bring happiness, however, has shifted over time.

Psychologists have also proposed a number of different theories to explain how people experience and pursue happiness. These theories include:

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The hierarchy of needs suggests that people are motivated to pursue increasingly complex needs. Once more basic needs are fulfilled, people are then motivated by more psychological and emotional needs.

At the peak of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualization, or the need to achieve one's full potential. The theory also stresses the importance of peak experiences or transcendent moments in which a person feels deep understanding, happiness, and joy. 

Positive Psychology

The pursuit of happiness is central to the field of positive psychology . Psychologists who study positive psychology are interested in learning ways to increase positivity and helping people live happier, more satisfying lives. 

Rather than focusing on mental pathologies, the field instead strives to find ways to help people, communities, and societies improve positive emotions and achieve greater happiness.

Finley K, Axner M, Vrooman K, Tse D. Ideal levels of prosocial involvement in relation to momentary affect and eudaimonia: Exploring the golden mean . Innov Aging . 2020;4(Suppl 1):614. doi:10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2083

Kringelbach ML, Berridge KC. The neuroscience of happiness and pleasure .  Soc Res (New York) . 2010;77(2):659-678.

Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework; Committee on National Statistics; Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research Council; Stone AA, Mackie C, editors. Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience [Internet]. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US).

Lee MA, Kawachi I. The keys to happiness: Associations between personal values regarding core life domains and happiness in South Korea . PLoS One . 2019;14(1):e0209821. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209821

Hsee CK, Zhang J, Cai CF, Zhang S. Overearning . Psychol Sci . 2013;24(6):852-9

Carstensen LL, Turan B, Scheibe S, et al. Emotional experience improves with age: evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling . Psychol Aging . 2011;26(1):21‐33. doi:10.1037/a0021285

Steptoe A, Wardle J. Positive affect and biological function in everyday life . Neurobiol Aging . 2005;26 Suppl 1:108‐112. doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2005.08.016

Sapranaviciute-Zabazlajeva L, Luksiene D, Virviciute D, Bobak M, Tamosiunas A. L ink between healthy lifestyle and psychological well-being in Lithuanian adults aged 45-72: a cross-sectional study . BMJ Open . 2017;7(4):e014240. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014240

Costanzo ES, Lutgendorf SK, Kohut ML, et al. Mood and cytokine response to influenza virus in older adults . J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci . 2004;59(12):1328‐1333. doi:10.1093/gerona/59.12.1328

Lyubomirsky S, Sheldon KM, Schkade D. Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change . Review of General Psychology. 2005;9 (2):111–131. doi:0.1037/1089-2680.9.2.111

The Harvard Gazette. Good genes are nice, but joy is better .

Zhang Z, Chen W. A systematic review of the relationship between physical activity and happiness . J Happiness Stud 20, 1305–1322 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9976-0

Cunha LF, Pellanda LC, Reppold CT. Positive psychology and gratitude interventions: a randomized clinical trial . Front Psychol . 2019;10:584. Published 2019 Mar 21. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00584

Ryff CD. Psychological well-being revisited: advances in the science and practice of eudaimonia . Psychother Psychosom . 2014;83(1):10‐28. doi:10.1159/000353263

Whillans AV, Dunn EW, Smeets P, Bekkers R, Norton MI. Buying time promotes happiness .  Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A . 2017;114(32):8523‐8527. doi:10.1073/pnas.1706541114

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Just How Demure Are You?

A TikTok trend has breathed new life into a fusty word.

By The Styles Desk

If you opened TikTok this week and felt that suddenly everyone was using the word “demure” out of nowhere, you’re not alone.

Your morning coffee with just a little half-and-half? Demure. The way you sit down gracefully on the subway? Very demure. The way you floss your teeth after lunch in the office bathroom before returning to your cubicle? Absolutely, totally demure.

Seemingly overnight, an adjective usually reserved for a reserved woman has become the semi-ironic word du jour on social media.

On Aug. 2, a TikTok creator who goes by the name Jools Lebron posted a video with tips about managing makeup and mustache sweat and being demure.

Later that day, she posted another video , which has been viewed four million times, offering tips on how to be demure at work. “Very demure, very mindful," she says, explaining her perfume, clothing and hairstyle choices for the workplace. Ms. Lebron has since posted dozens more such videos discussing how to be demure in all sorts of situations, like nail salons, hotels and drag shows.

Ms. Lebron, who did not respond to requests for comment, is one of several trans creators on TikTok whose playful use of “demure” in recent videos has helped the word catch on with other users.

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