“O Athenians! either yield to Anytus, or do not, either dismiss me or not, since I shall not act otherwise, even though I must die many… to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for men,” – Socrates/399 BC.
Introduction:
It is truly interesting to acknowledge that by adopting a specific vision of things through the lens that we voluntarily carry, we have chosen the window through which we look at the world, and through which the type of life we live is shaped. What is even more exciting is that sometimes all we need is to change the lens of our telescope to a Zoom-out lens that brings us a more comprehensive and general vision, through which we are able to test the correctness of our previous formation in order to reach the highest levels of our living. This is because every life situation gives another dimension that philosophers imagine as another world, and there is no doubt that the human being’s sum of his concepts of the things that were formed during that vision plays an extremely important role in drawing a specific form for the type of life he lives, and through it results the type of impact that is reflected on that life too.
It is said that reviewing these concepts through questioning and examining them constitutes a necessary urgency to achieve what is called the good life, which in turn constitutes a basic requirement and a conditional goal for every human being. To achieve this goal, we must first give a specific meaning to what the good life is.
What is the Good Life?
Arabic dictionaries have contributed to providing different meanings for the word “tayyib/tayyibah (طيّب/طيّبة),” which in its definitions is identified with one meaning: everything that is good and that the senses and soul enjoy. From that, we can say that the good life in its basic form is related to discovering what gives us joy and satisfaction and extracting happiness from what we do, as in, a life that is worth living. However, this life differs in its definition for most people, according to their different goals. Some of them imagine that the happiness resulting from acquiring wealth, social status, and the pleasure that accompanies that is an ideal form of the good life. Others link the good life to the days they spend in nature and contemplate life, while others want to simply spend their time in a worthwhile and productive way, like trying to make this world a better place.
Humanity has persistently affirmed, in all its situations and circumstances, its relentless desire to attain a better life – one that eases the burdens of existence and makes living more comfortable. Driven by this urgent need, humans have constantly strived to overcome the mental, psychological, and social obstacles that stand in the way of achieving a more fulfilling way of life.
Based on this, and in line with the debate about the true meaning of the good life, philosophy came to prove its ability to achieve that goal, because of the intellectual energies it carries with it which has contributed to the progress of many aspects of man, establishing for him principles through which he can ascend in his reality to feel the worthiness of his life.
Some great philosophers came with the most important intellectual and critical questions directly related to daily life, using dialectical argumentation, deductive thinking, and anticipatory contemplation, not only to find out how things are, but also to address the failure to understand them.
Their intense insistence on knowing the true meaning of the good life throughout history has had a clear ability to provide the best intellectual advice and interpretations appropriate to our circumstances, and also to help us make better decisions by saving us from false models of what we might think is the way to a good life.
Considering that the goal of this article is to reveal the importance of philosophy for achieving the good life, we presented some of these reflections from different philosophical schools that were famous for their direct debates about the meaning of the good life, and added clear confirmation of the ability of philosophy to assume such a role.
Greek Philosophy:
Greek philosophy, along with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, presented what assumed that the good life lies in examining the nature of life itself, mastering oneself, contributing to society, and paying attention to virtue and good morals. Courage, honesty, justice, benevolence, self-control, harmony of desires, and other virtues emanating from our being are the path that leads to that life.
Socrates:
Of all the philosophers, Socrates was the one most focused on moral and practical matters. During his research, he challenged the notion that happiness is merely a product of satisfying our desires. Instead, he argued that we must carefully discern which desires are most worthy of fulfillment in order to achieve true happiness. Socrates’ research ultimately led him to establish two principles:
- Happiness is what all people want.
- Happiness does not depend on external things.
According to Socrates, a good life is not materialistic, but rather related to the individual’s mind. An individual who has a sound mind has a good life more than an individual who enjoys material wealth.
Given that Socrates argued the role of happiness in achieving the good life on the basis that happiness cannot be obtained from wealth or material consumption, but it can be acquired from an active and rich mind. He believed in moving away from the love of fleeting things, such as money and power, and approaching the pure love of beauty itself, which is the ecstasy and satisfaction of the soul.
According to his arguments in this regard, it is also possible for a country to be rich but unhealthy, because such a situation lacks the happiness that leads to a good life. His argument was that these resource-rich states often find themselves embroiled in perpetual conflict, as citizens engage in a relentless struggle to secure the available resources to pursue their own ends. This dynamic inevitably breeds injustice and inequality within the state. Socrates used the example of Athens to illustrate his point. He believed that in his own time, Athens, despite the extent of its imperial dominion, lacked the essential happiness required for the achievement of the good life. This was because its expansionist empire was fraught with troubles that were resented by many of its own people.
Plato:
The Socratic legacy led Plato to engage in a comprehensive examination of the nature of knowledge and all that might constitute the meaning of the good life, an examination that gradually took him beyond the scope of Socrates’ historical discussions, with politics playing a major role in his philosophy and writings. There is no doubt that when we recall the city of Athens and its tyrannical regime that Socrates referred to, we will be able to understand the thinking that prompted Plato to place the dialogue The Republic by virtue of his living in that context. Through the dialogues that he mentioned in The Republic, Plato attempts to present a systematic and comprehensive vision of what a just society and good life looks like and how citizens develop the moral character necessary to transform this vision into reality. One of the main ideas he addressed was that both justice and personal interest exist together in the life of the individual, and that justice for a particular individual is a pillar of a just society.
He addressed the argument that a just government requires that citizens respect all social backgrounds that pave the way for consensus between the two parties. This is due to his position on the idea that “justice” is what is decided by the stronger party, so he says that a life that makes justice its primary goal is more inclined towards happiness and self-realization.
Among his solutions to reform unjust cities that rob their communities of standards of good and just living, Plato pointed out that “There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers”.
He also pointed out that education should be reformed targeting future citizens, especially its future leaders (philosophers), to enable them to achieve justice, as the philosopher is the one who possesses the true, sublime knowledge, therefore, he is able to rule the city and bestow his knowledge on it. This is because the philosopher is the only one who received the data of human civilization and then thought about saving what could be saved, while his special field is the mind, logical thinking, analysis and composition.
Plato generally revolves around the idea that (mind) is the force capable of revealing the concept and order that govern the world of changing appearances, concluding that when the city is ruled by a philosopher, he performs his role in educating the city, restoring respect to it, and protecting it from injustice and tyranny against his people. He instills in it a love of justice, loyalty to the city, and creates a harmonious and good life between the government and the people.
Aristotle:
In his discussions about what the good life is, Aristotle reviews one of the prevailing concepts of the good life in society, which is the concept of pleasure. Many people in society assume that the good life revolves around pleasure, and although Aristotle believes that the good life is enjoyable, those who seek pleasure in life do not actually live a good life. This is because they tend to search for pleasure in the wrong ways and places. In their search for pleasure, they end up being distracted from living the good life. Constantly running after pleasure and trying to find it in various ways may delay us from realizing the reality of many aspects of our lives, which together, if examined and contemplated, would constitute sufficient ingredients for achieving a good and happy life.
According to the philosopher, the happiness that leads to a good life requires the individual to engage in activities that will bring it, such as those activities that require engaging in good relationships and friendships, so that it can be said that the goal of every human relationship and every social activity is to achieve well-being and a comfortable living, as long as the person is guided in all of this by the light of reason. Therefore, in order to live a good life, Aristotle concludes that activities that help humans express their mental abilities are necessary to allow individuals to live the good life.
Freedom, in general, is the most basic element in philosophy to achieve the good life. According to Aristotle, a good life can only be lived if one is free to make one’s decisions. However, a limited understanding of our needs restricts this freedom to make decisions, and our desires are reinforced by the so-called “frivolous opinions” of those around us, which do not reflect the natural hierarchy of our needs. According to Aristotle, we should distinguish this matter and realize that prevailing opinions do not usually stem from a strict process of contemplation, but rather through centuries of intellectual confusion, and this brings us back to the importance of reason and thinking to achieve the good life.
One of the main contradictions on which Aristotle’s theory of virtues and their relationship to happiness is based in his saying: Everything has a function, and an individual’s happiness is determined by the extent of his ability to perform that function successfully, and because the function that characterizes a person is thinking, then the virtuous person is the one who is guided in his actions and way of living with clear wisdom, because he knows what he must and must not do to achieve the desired life. Therefore, by thinking and reasoning, we awaken our dormant wisdom, which philosophy takes as basic proof of the human ability to create a better life for living. Alain de Botton summarized it by saying: “Reason allowed us to control our passions and to correct the false notions prompted by our instincts.”
Stoicism:
Stoicism, like other ancient doctrines, has a general goal of achieving happiness and the good life. Both logic and ethics among the Stoics played a fundamental role in determining and achieving this goal, and they believed that the special sciences that people usually work with most of the time are nothing but intellectual shortcomings and inability to facilitate this aspect.
The Stoics, for example, believed that living within the shadows of reason and in agreement with nature (our nature as human beings) is the purpose of life, and that by trying to exploit our minds – by thinking – about this nature, understanding it better, and then acting on this basis, is the way to live a good life.
It is our nature as human beings to adapt to pleasures, and it is also difficult for us to maintain the state of joy resulting from our achievements. This joy quickly turns into new and different desires. Therefore, the logical path to happiness for the Stoics is to learn to desire what we already possess. The Roman Stoic Epictetus describes it as wisdom in his saying: “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
In detail on the issue of desire, Epictetus came up with the term “dichotomy of control.” He divided our desires into internal (under our control) or external (beyond our control) and pointed out that desire for something outside of our will and control is illogical and a stumbling block for those trying to achieve a good and happy life. He suggested the process of internalizing goals to avoid falling into desires outside our control, by dividing our goals and distributing them into small categories that belong to what is completely under our control or completely outside of it. In this way, we can ignore external factors and put our full focus on internal factors only.
Pessimism:
Some other philosophical schools of thought, such as pessimism, have a different opinion regarding the condition of permanent happiness to achieve a happy life. These doctrines were characterized by a strict opposition to optimism in the future, emphasizing their keeping up with nature through the pursuit of an immaterial lifestyle. The common ground for the beliefs of the owners of this philosophy was the characteristic of virtue, and the tendency to the inevitability of the presence of evil in all aspects of our lives, restricted by what they call “consciousness of evil,” they believed that the happiness that comes from fulfilling our desires is only a temporary process that is on the way to fading, because life, in its nature, continues to be continuous attempts to achieve satisfaction with it.
In recognition of this, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer depicted life as a pendulum, when he said: “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom,” concluding from this that sacrificing pleasure in order to avoid this distress is a clear gain for the sake of a good life.
In his philosophy, he went on to say that there is a driving force that controls our lives, and this is what requires us not to take life completely seriously, comforting those who suffer from disappointment and sadness at times that happiness does not always require that it be part of the plan. This is because our lives are beyond our control and will.
Hence, the adherents of this philosophy have concluded that stopping pinning hopes on tomorrow and the future and directing our goals – not towards what is enjoyable and palatable, but towards what steers us away from the countless evils of life as much as possible – and being content with what the present moment holds, is the most appropriate way to live life with the least mental and psychological pain, far from being overly optimistic.
Existentialism:
The existentialist philosopher has a point of similarity with most philosophical trends regarding the importance of virtue and morality in the good life. However, existentialists differ from these approaches by also focusing on human existence. Existential philosophy depends on its direct focus on the self, not on the subject, on man, not nature, and on free experience, not theoretical reason. This is because existentialism views man as being thrown into this world without a prior plan or goal, and he is the only one who has a sense of his existence and involvement in achieving his essence. Sartre says: “… man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself.”
From this angle, existentialism emphasizes the necessity for a person to choose himself and create himself, because he is a being open to countless possibilities, from which he chooses what he can use to realize himself. In order to live a good and worthy life, he must combine his choices with responsibility, as he is governed by freedom of choice and must bear responsibility for these choices. Then he must liberate his behavior and actions from the tyranny of the group and from blind imitation, escaping the false and inauthentic existence that separates a person from his own choices is what brings him that life.
Defending man’s individuality and freedom against dangers that might turn him into a mere head walking in the middle of a herd, in Nietzsche’s words, constitutes the most important points of this philosophy, which, if we employ it in our lives, can enable us to achieve a form of the good life. That is because it carries, in its essence, an invitation to thinking and questioning.
Also, according to existentialists, there are some elements that humans naturally need for a fulfilling life, such as pain. Happiness and unhappiness are two sides of the same coin, and one cannot be achieved without going through the other. Montaigne previously referred to this meaning in his essays by saying: “We must learn to suffer whatever we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of discords and varying tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only some of them, what could he sing? He has got to know how to use all of them and blend them together. So too must we with good and ill, which are of one substance with our life.”
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After examining these different views on what the good life is, we can extract some of the most important points that may help us imagine such a life:
1- The Test of Life and the Search for Knowledge:
Living without questioning and expressing our behaviors and beliefs may lead to spending our time on activities that are not worthwhile. Reason, on the other hand, allows us to control and correct our mistaken thoughts. By applying reason to the examination of life, a continuous stream of knowledge and virtues can be acquired. Cicero says: “There is no occupation so sweet as scholarship; scholarship is the means of making known to us, while still in this world, the infinity of matter, the immense grandeur of Nature, the heavens, the lands and the seas. Scholarship has taught us piety, moderation, greatness of heart; it snatches our souls from darkness and shows them all things, the high and the low, the first, the last and everything in between; scholarship furnishes us with the means of living well and happily; it teaches us how to spend our lives without discontent and without vexation.”
2- Building Good Relationships:
Most philosophers valued good relationships in order to achieve a good life. Aristotle’s concept of friendship, for example, had moral and social connotations. He saw friendship as rooted in human nature and as one of the essential elements underpinning a virtuous and fulfilling existence. Aristotle was, of course, referring to a specific type of virtuous friendship – one with the capacity to nurture our ability to think and behave in a rational manner. As Alain de Botton says: “We don’t exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand, while to be surrounded by friends is constantly to have our identity confirmed.”
3- Enjoy Simple Pleasures and Live in the Moment:
The good life does not consist of constantly chasing what does not exist. Instead, simplicity and the ability to extract happiness from what we already have are integral aspects of the good life.
4- Being Rational About Our Choices and Acting Wisely:
According to Seneca, we must adapt ourselves to the incompleteness associated with existence. Wisdom lies in correctly distinguishing the moment when we are able to adapt reality according to our desires, and when we should calmly accept things that are difficult to change quietly. According to him also, when we learn not to exacerbate the intractability of the world [in front of us] through our reactions, we have attained sufficient wisdom to live a happy life.
5- Freedom of Opinion and Achieving Self-sovereignty:
Living the good life is about mastering ourselves, but it’s interesting that most people don’t think about perfecting themselves when it comes to pursuing a good life. Instead, they prefer to chase their desires, which often leads them into confusion resulting from their little understanding of their needs, therefore, they possess unreasonable qualities that do not reflect the personality of a free and self-mastering human being.
6- Gratitude and Contentment with What We Have:
Gratitude is an important aspect of living a good life. Through feeling content and grateful, we can also overcome the endless pursuit of limitless desires.
7- Not Worrying About Matters Beyond Our Control:
Life presents us with two different sides:
First – those aspects of our lives that can be affected or changed by our pursuit.
Second: Aspects or events that exceed our ability to influence or change.
We are simply responsible for the former while having no influence on the latter. Therefore, we must reduce the negative effects resulting from our inability to influence them. The main key to enduring life’s hardships lies in the way we allow these events to affect us.
In conclusion:
Philosophy, in its essence, is a tireless search towards devoting ourselves through questioning and contemplation beyond appearances, in a way that makes us refuse to accept any prevailing understanding that has not yet been subjected to scrutiny in a detailed and satisfactory manner.
There is no doubt that everything that makes us feel better is the only thing worth understanding and reviewing. Because the apparent is what shapes our world, as philosophy is a process of exploring the depths of this phenomenon and not just scratching its surface. Through exploration, research, and achieving self-mastery, we can take control of matters that would inevitably fail if they were not controlled and understood.
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