Relation to oneself· Happiness and desirecoredifficulty
The highest good
What makes a life truly good: pleasure, flourishing, or virtue?
"The highest good" is the classical name for happiness in the fullest sense: not the mood of a moment, but what makes an entire life a good one, what the Greeks called eudaimonia. What it consists in is another matter, and the question is far from idle: what fills a life with pleasure can drain it of meaning, and what makes it virtuous can cost it its happiness. Depending on the answer we give, often without ever putting it to ourselves, we do not pursue the same life, and an age does not set itself the same ideal of success.
Hedonism
9Pleasure is the supreme good and the ultimate end of a successful life. Whether through immediate enjoyment or sober, lasting pleasures, a good life is always measured by pleasure and the absence of pain.
Explore this position →Benthamexplicit
Bentham starts from what he takes to be a fact of nature: pleasure and pain are the only two things we actually seek and shun as ends. Good and evil then have no separate content: to call a thing "good" says no more than that it tends to produce pleasure or ward off pain. Hence a at once psychological and moral, welding fact to norm through the same two sovereign masters and leaving no room for a flourishing or perfection distinct from the agreeable, against the objective goods of the Aristotelian tradition.
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. I, §1
Epicurusexplicit
The criterion is drawn from the very nature of the living being: from birth, every creature pursues and shuns pain without any reasoning persuading it, which proves pleasure to be the first, connatural good. But Epicurus redefines what this pleasure is worth: its summit is not enjoyment in motion, which merely fills a lack, but the stable state in which, once the lack is filled, nothing remains to be added, the of the soul and the aponia of the body. Pleasure therefore has a limit, the absence of all pain, which makes it fully attainable and turns back the objection that pleasure is insatiable. This is his break both with vulgar pleasure and with the intellectualist eudaimonism of and .
Letter to Menoeceus, 128-129 · Principal Doctrines, III and XVIII (the limits of pleasure)
Lucretiusexplicit
The highest good is pleasure understood as peace, not as enjoyment: the end of the whole of physics is , the state in which, the fears of the gods and of death dispelled, nothing more troubles the soul. Nature, says Lucretius, asks for only one thing, a body free of pain and a mind freed of care and dread. This definition of the sovereign good is taken over from ; Lucretius makes it the avowed aim of his poem and the famous image of the sage who, from the shore, watches the shipwrecked without peril.
On the Nature of Things, II, 1-61 (the proem: suave mari magno; nature asks for little)
Calliclesexplicit
Pressed to say what the good is, he flatly identifies the pleasant and the good: to live well is to feel as much as possible. This is not Epicurus's measured but a hedonism of intensity. Cornered by Socrates, who makes him grant that even base pleasures count, he gives ground, but the opening thesis remains his own avowal.
Plato, Gorgias, 494e-495a (the pleasant and the good are one) · Plato, Gorgias, 495a-499b (the Socratic refutation)
Epicureanismexplicit
The criterion of the good is read in nature before any reasoning: from birth every living thing seeks and flees pain, untaught. What the animal pursues spontaneously is therefore the first good in accordance with our nature, and no one proves it, any more than one proves that fire is hot. Yet the same argument turns against unbridled enjoyment: pleasure admits no degree beyond the removal of pain, so its summit is a stable state, the absence of bodily suffering and of mental disturbance (), not the heaping-up of vivid sensations. Against the Stoics, who demote pleasure to an and reserve the title of good for virtue alone, Epicureanism holds pleasure to be the end itself, being only the art of reckoning it.
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, 128-129 · Epicurus, Principal Doctrines, III
Utilitarianismexplicit
To fix what consequences ought to maximize, utilitarianism seeks the one thing desired for its own sake and never as a means: it is, the movement answers, happiness, that is pleasure and the absence of pain. 's argument is psychological, the only proof that something is desirable being that it is actually desired, and every desire reducing ultimately to happiness. This and welfarist thesis grounds the good in a fact of lived experience, not in an abstract perfection; adds a qualitative hierarchy of higher and lower pleasures that brings the framework close to a without leaving it.
Mill, Utilitarianism, chapter 2 · Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
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Millexplicit
Against the old objection that brands a doctrine fit for swine, Mill replies that it errs not about pleasure but about man: our higher faculties demand a happiness of another kind. Hence his break with 's purely quantitative calculus: pleasures differ in quality as well, and those of the intellect, the feelings and the imagination intrinsically prevail, because whoever knows both would not consent for anything to sink to the lower. At the heart of the argument lies a sense of dignity that an existence confined to bodily satisfactions would wound, which tilts Mill's hedonism toward a flourishing close to .
Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (quality versus quantity of pleasures) · Utilitarianism, ch. 4 (happiness, the only thing desirable as an end)
Lockeinferable
Locke holds that good is what produces pleasure and evil what produces pain; happiness, the sum of pleasures, is what all pursue. But the prudent man, able to suspend his desires, aims at a lasting, well-examined happiness rather than at immediate pleasures, which tempers the hedonism with a concern for reasonable flourishing.
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, ch. 20 (pleasure and pain) and ch. 21, §§51-60 (the pursuit of true happiness)
Camusinferable
Camus cultivates a sensual, carnal relation to the world, the happiness of flesh, sun and sea, close to a pagan affirmed in . But this happiness comes with a demand for lucidity and dignity, hence a measure of moral perfectionism that keeps it from being reduced to pleasure alone.
Nuptials (1939) · Summer (1954)
Arguments and objections (4)
Eudaimonism
22The highest good is human flourishing in all its dimensions: exercising one's capacities, fulfilling one's proper function, leading a fully realized life. Pleasure accompanies such a life, but it is not its goal.
Explore this position →Sextus Empiricusexplicit
The end the skeptic aims at is , the absence of disturbance in matters of opinion, together with , the moderation of unavoidable feelings. But the remarkable trait is that it is not pursued as a good by nature, which would already be a dogmatic thesis: Sextus reports that tranquillity supervenes on whoever suspends judgment, as a shadow follows a body, by a chance the skeptic notes only after the fact. This is neither the hedonism of pleasure nor the perfectionism of virtue, but a happy form of life reached by subtraction, by ceasing to hold things good or bad in themselves.
Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 25-30 (the goal of skepticism)
Aristotelianismexplicit
The argument proceeds from the proper function: as the flute-player's good lies in performing his function well, the human good lies in the activity specific to humans, the exercise of reason, which neither plant nor animal shares. The sovereign good thus cannot be pleasure, which every beast pursues, against ; nor an external good like honour, which depends on others. It is , an activity of the soul in accord with virtue: an active fulfilment, not a possessed state, unfolding across a whole life and requiring also goods of body and fortune.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I, 7 · Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, qq. 1-5
Aristotleexplicit
If every action aims at an end, and ends link up as means, then, on pain of infinite regress, there must be a final end willed for its own sake and never for the sake of anything else: this self-sufficient good is . What it consists in is settled by the function argument (ergon): as the flute-player has his excellence, the human has his own, the activity of the soul's rational part carried out in accordance with virtue. Happiness is therefore neither pleasure, nor honour, nor wealth, but an excellent activity unfolded over a whole life, whose highest form is contemplation.
Nicomachean Ethics, I.7 (1097b) · Nicomachean Ethics, X.7
Pyrrhoexplicit
The testimony's third question gives the end aimed at: to one who holds things indeterminate and gives up pronouncing on them, there comes first (saying nothing), then , the absence of disturbance. The highest good is thus neither pleasure nor virtue, but a peace reached by subtraction: it is by ceasing to believe things good or bad by nature that one ceases to pursue or flee them, and the disturbance falls away. is said to have likened this imperturbability to the calm of a sage whom nothing reaches. The eudaimonist strand remains, since tranquillity is indeed the flourishing sought, but without the proper function or the excellence of the Aristotelian successful life.
Aristocles (after Timon), cited by Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, XIV, 18 · Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, IX, 107-108
Nietzscheexplicit
Nietzsche mocks the pleasure-happiness of the utilitarians as much as the morality of duty: the good is neither enjoyment nor disinterested virtue. It is the enhancement of life, the flourishing of power and self-overcoming, the great health of one who dares to create himself and to say yes to existence. A transvalued eudaimonism, where success is measured by strength and greatness, not by comfort.
Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows · The Gay Science, IV-V · Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Śaṅkaraexplicit
The sovereign good is (mokṣa), understood as the recognition of the identity of the self and the absolute: not a pleasure, not even a virtue for its own sake, but the achievement of what one already is. This liberation is described as bliss (ānanda), a beatitude that is the very nature of : we are close to a eudaimonism, the sovereign good being the realized fullness of being. A perfectionist strand remains, since the path demands discipline, renunciation and purification of the mind, but these means do not create liberation: they remove what was veiling it.
Commentary on the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (on ānanda) · Upadeśasāhasrī
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Spinozaexplicit
The summit of knowledge, the third kind, grasps things in God; this necessarily generates a joy referred to its cause, the . Hence the reversal peculiar to Spinoza: blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself, for to know adequately is already to be powerful and free.
Ethics, V, props. 32-36 (intellectual love of God, blessedness) · Ethics, V, prop. 42 (blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself)
Skepticismexplicit
What torments a person, the skeptic argues, is not the event but the opinion held about it, judging it good or bad by nature: whoever pursues what he takes for a good and flees what he takes for an evil knows no rest. To suspend that opinion is therefore to defuse the disturbance at its source. is thus not a goal the skeptic aims at directly, which would make him dependent once more: it supervenes by surprise, as the unexpected fruit of . Here lies the school's paradox: one reaches serenity precisely by giving up the search for it in a knowledge of the good.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 25-30 · Diogenes Laertius, Lives, IX, 107-108
Marxinferable
For Marx, the good life is neither the pursuit of pleasure nor the observance of a virtue, but the full flourishing of the human being: the free unfolding of one's powers and needs, unalienated creative activity. True wealth is that of universally developed individuals, which only a society freed from exploitation makes possible.
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 · Grundrisse
Marxisminferable
Marxism locates the good in human flourishing: not pleasure or private virtue, but the free development of everyone's faculties and needs, made possible by the abolition of alienation and exploitation. The society aimed at is one where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 · Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Pragmatisminferable
For pragmatism, the good is not a fixed end to contemplate but growth itself: the continuous enrichment of experience, the development of capacities, the intelligent resolution of problems that makes life fuller. Dewey rejects the idea of an immutable highest good in favor of an open, revisable flourishing.
Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy · Dewey, Democracy and Education
Odysseusinferable
For Odysseus, the good of a life is neither pleasure nor the blissful oblivion Calypso offers, but the fulfilment of his own life: to become fully who he is again, king, husband and father, in his recovered home. He leaves immortal delight for this task of an existence carried through to its end and its form, closer to a concrete , the flourishing of a whole life, than to a mere pursuit of pleasure.
Odyssey, V, 203-224 (the refusal of Calypso) · Odyssey, XIII-XXIII (the recovery of his household)
Descartesinferable
Descartes develops no systematic ethics, but the provisional morality and the analysis of in locate the sovereign good in the right use of and firmness of judgment, the source of a stable inner contentment close to a self-mastery .
Discourse on Method, III · The Passions of the Soul, arts. 153-156 and 212
Taoisminferable
The Taoist good is flourishing through accord with the Tao: following one's spontaneous nature (ziran), acting without forcing (wu-wei), savoring simplicity and contentment. It is neither Confucian virtue nor the pursuit of pleasures, but an easeful, attuned life, where health, longevity and inner peace arise from harmony with the course of things.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching · Zhuangzi
Beauvoirinferable
The good, for Beauvoir, is neither pleasure nor a nature to be fulfilled, but the authentic existence that assumes its freedom and realizes itself in open projects. This self-realization is inseparable from a moral demand: to will one's own freedom is also to will that of others. Self-realization and the value of freedom are knotted together, against the abdication of seriousness.
The Ethics of Ambiguity
Humeinferable
Hume sketches a sociable, temperate good life: a blend of delicate pleasures, activity, friendship and benevolence. Virtue itself has worth only through what is useful and agreeable, to oneself and to others; the monkish virtues, fasting and mortification, are rejected as useless and so vicious. Neither rigorism nor pure hedonism, but a natural human flourishing.
An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, IX · A Treatise of Human Nature, III
Leibnizinferable
Happiness consists in a continual progress toward new pleasures and new perfections: felicity is not a state but a path () along which the mind grows in knowledge and power (perfectionism). Pleasure is integrated, but as the feeling of a perfection, not as a sensory end, hence a minor hedonist weight.
Principles of Nature and Grace, §18 (happiness as perpetual progress toward new pleasures) · New Essays, II, 21 (felicity as a road rather than a dwelling)
Sartreinferable
Lacking given values, the good is not received but made: it is the authentic existence that assumes its freedom and its project without taking refuge in bad faith or in a reassuring essence. The successful life is the one that lucidly realizes itself in action and engagement, more than a codified virtue or a pursued pleasure.
Existentialism Is a Humanism · Being and Nothingness, IV
Zhuangziinferable
Zhuangzi's sovereign good is (xiaoyao you): a life loosened from honors, offices and rankings, that delights in whatever comes and plays with the world's metamorphoses. Refusing the court that offers him a ministry, choosing to stay "a turtle dragging its tail in the mud," he aims neither at accumulated pleasure nor at the discharge of a function, but at a joy without object, the ease of one who clings to nothing. This felicity is not the Greek of a life made good by perfecting a nature, yet it shares the idea of a flourishing, tinged with a keen taste for the jubilation of the moment.
Zhuangzi, ch. 1 (Free and Easy Wandering) · Zhuangzi, ch. 17 (the turtle in the mud)
Empiricisminferable
Moral empiricism, from Hume to the utilitarians, measures the good life by experience: a balanced blend of pleasures, useful activity and agreeable relations. Virtue is worth its effects, its utility and agreeableness, not worthwhile in itself; the asceticism that sacrifices sensible happiness is rejected as contrary to nature.
Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals · Mill, Utilitarianism
Existentialisminferable
Existentialism does not receive the good from a nature or a heaven of values: the successful life is the authentic existence that assumes its freedom and realizes itself in chosen projects. This self-realization carries a quasi-moral demand, authenticity and responsibility against bad faith, without merging into a pleasure or a codified virtue.
Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism · Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity
Rationalisminferable
The rationalists converge on an intellectual highest good: the perfection and joy of the knowing soul. Descartes' firm contentment, Spinoza's blessedness as the intellectual love of God, and Leibniz's increasing perfection place the good life in the accomplished exercise of reason, where flourishing and virtue unite, more than in pleasure.
Spinoza, Ethics, V · Descartes, The Passions of the Soul · Leibniz, Monadology
Arguments and objections (4)
Virtue / moral perfectionism
18Only virtue, or the good will, has unconditional worth: the good life is the morally upright life, even at the cost of pleasure or comfort. Happiness matters only insofar as it is deserved through moral excellence.
Explore this position →Marcus Aureliusexplicit
The only good lies in virtue, that is, in the rightness of the ; health, honours and pleasures are mere that no good use turns into goods. Nothing, he repeats, equals the justice, truth and temperance of a soul.
Meditations, II, 5 · Meditations, III, 6 · Meditations, VI, 41
Stoicismexplicit
The good, the Stoics argue, must be what always benefits and never harms; yet health, wealth or pleasure can be misused: they are not goods but , at most « preferred ». Only virtue, the right use of reason, meets the criterion, hence the school's most disputed thesis, against : it , and the sage stays happy even amid torments.
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius · Cicero, On Moral Ends, book III
Diogenes of Sinopeexplicit
Whatever can be misused, or lost to a stroke of fortune, cannot be a true good: neither health, nor wealth, nor pleasure passes the test. Only virtue deserves the name, because it alone always benefits and cannot be taken away; once acquired it suffices for happiness. But Diogenes hardens the Socratic legacy on one decisive point: virtue is not knowledge but a strength, won through and proven by deeds, not by definition, against the intellectualism that would make the good a science teachable in words. A thin eudaimonist strand remains, since this life according to nature is also presented as the happiest.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 11 and 104-105
Epictetusexplicit
The good resides exclusively in virtue, that is, in the right use of and of the will: this is Stoic moral perfectionism. A dimension remains, since this virtue is also the path to serenity (), but pleasure is never the criterion.
Discourses, I.29 · Enchiridion, §8
Cynicismexplicit
Whatever can be misused, or lost to a stroke of fortune, cannot be a true good: neither health, nor wealth, nor pleasure passes the test. Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates, concludes that virtue alone deserves the name, because it alone always benefits and cannot be taken away; once acquired it is not lost, and it therefore suffices for happiness. But the Cynics harden the Socratic legacy on one decisive point: virtue is not knowledge but a strength, won through and proven by deeds, not by definition, against the intellectualism that would make the good a science teachable in words.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 11 · Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 104-105
Plotinusexplicit
Happiness lies neither in pleasure nor even in the virtuous life alone: virtue is only a first degree, a purification that detaches the soul from the sensible and makes it like the divine. The true sovereign good is beyond, in the contemplation of the Intellect and then in union with the , where the soul rejoins its source. Plotinus takes up Greek eudaimonism, the happy life as the activity of our best part, but shifts its summit: blessedness is no longer the excellence of action but a contemplative ascent that passes beyond moral virtue itself. The perfect sage, already united to the intelligible, stays happy even in misfortune, for his true self is not reached by it.
Enneads, I, 4 (On Well-Being) · Enneads, I, 2 (On Virtues)
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Socratesexplicit
Socrates urges the Athenians to care not for their body, their goods or their reputation as much as for the perfection of their soul. The only true good is the soul's excellence, virtue: everything else has worth only through it, wealth itself proceeding from virtue and not the reverse. The sovereign good is therefore neither pleasure nor a merely successful life, but the state of a soul made good.
Plato, Apology, 29d-30b (the care of the soul)
Senecaexplicit
The sovereign good is virtue, the only thing truly good; happiness () follows from it, never the reverse. External goods are : neither wealth, nor health, nor pleasure belongs to the good. Moral perfection thus clearly outweighs any flourishing received from fortune.
On the Happy Life, IV-VII (virtue alone is good) · Letters to Lucilius, LXXVI (the only good is the honourable)
Thomas Aquinasexplicit
Taking up 's , Thomas grants that every action aims at a final end, happiness; but he shows that no finite good, neither wealth, nor honour, nor pleasure, nor even philosophical contemplation, can satisfy the human being's natural desire, which is stilled only in the universal good. Now God alone is that good without limit: perfect beatitude can therefore consist only in the , the contemplation of the divine essence, unreachable in this life and received by grace. Greek eudaimonism is thus preserved yet surpassed, the sovereign good being referred to a perfecting that nature calls for without being able to attain it on its own.
Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 1-5
Platonismexplicit
The Platonic sovereign good is assimilation to the divine through the soul's ascent toward the Good, which presupposes the order of the virtues and the justice of the soul. Happiness, , follows from it, but is subordinated to a moral and contemplative perfection that requires turning one's gaze away from the sensible.
Plato, Republic, book IV, on the justice of the soul · Plato, Theaetetus, 176a-b, assimilation to god
Kantexplicit
Nothing is good without limitation except a good will: morality, not happiness, is the supreme good and the condition of all worth. The complete highest good does include happiness, but only proportioned to virtue and as crowning it, hence a minority weight and the exclusion of .
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section I · Critique of Practical Reason, Dialectic, II
Platoinferable
The sovereign good is likeness to the divine through contemplation of the Good and the justice of the soul, a moral perfectionism in which a life ordered by virtue is worth choosing for itself. A dimension remains, since this life of the just soul is presented as the happiest, with pleasure kept subordinate and deceptive.
Republic, IX, 580a-588a · Theaetetus, 176a-b
Confuciusinferable
The sovereign good is the moral excellence of the accomplished person, the junzi 君子 (person of noble character) who has attained full humaneness: a . A share of flourishing remains, for the practice of virtue yields a serene joy, yet sensory pleasure is never the criterion.
Analects, VII, 15 (joy amid a frugal life, unjust wealth as a passing cloud) · Analects, IV, 5 (the junzi never abandons humaneness, not even for the space of a meal)
Nāgārjunainferable
The highest good remains, for Nagarjuna, liberation (nirvana), but understood in the light of emptiness: to see that samsara and nirvana are equally empty is to cease grasping and to be freed. The bodhisattva path adds to this compassion for all beings. A spiritual perfection through wisdom, beyond pleasure as much as beyond mere worldly virtue.
Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā), XXV · Precious Garland (Ratnāvalī)
Vedānta (Advaita)explicit
The highest good of Vedanta is liberation (moksha): release from the cycle of rebirths through the knowledge that the Self (atman) is identical with Brahman. It is neither a pleasure nor a worldly virtue, but the supreme realization, a bliss (ananda) beyond all sensible satisfaction, which presupposes detachment and spiritual discipline.
Upanishads (Chandogya, Mundaka) · Shankara, The Crest-Jewel of Discrimination
The Buddhaexplicit
The Buddha's highest good is nirvana, the extinction of craving and the cessation of suffering, presented as the highest peace and bliss, yet beyond the pleasure of the senses as much as beyond pain. It is won through the path, which unites wisdom, ethical discipline (sila) and meditation: a liberating perfection, not a happiness of enjoyment.
Dhammapada, XV and XXIII · Sermon at Benares (the four noble truths)
Buddhismexplicit
Buddhism places the highest good in nirvana, the cessation of craving and suffering, a supreme peace beyond pleasure and pain. It is won through the eightfold path, which unites wisdom, ethical conduct and meditation: a liberating perfection, not a happiness of enjoyment nor a mere moral uprightness.
Sermon at Benares (the four noble truths) · Dhammapada, XXV
Confucianismexplicit
The Confucian highest good is moral: to become fully humane (ren), an exemplary person (junzi) accomplished through long self-cultivation, the rites and study. This moral excellence is also a flourishing, the human being realizing his proper vocation in society and right relationships, but pleasure is never the end.
Analects (Lunyu) · Mencius
Arguments and objections (4)
See the problem map in the Atlas →
- PrescriptiveVital Thought experimentHappiness without reality
Would a life of perfect but wholly simulated pleasure be the highest good, or does the highest life require contact with reality, and not merely the feeling of happiness?
a life - PrescriptiveMoral Thought experimentVirtue in the face of misfortune
Was his life, in spite of everything, a good one? In other words: is happiness safe from misfortune, or can it be torn away from us?
a life - PrescriptiveMoral QuestionSucceeding without uprightness
Imagine someone clever and unscrupulous: he has lied, betrayed, crushed his rivals, and was never troubled for it. Rich, admired, surrounded by others, he dies old and content, without the slightest remorse.
a life
Sub-problems to deepen this axis's discussion
- PrescriptiveVitalWanting or feeling
Is wellbeing what one feels, or the fulfilment of what one truly wants, even when one never experiences that fulfilment, like a child who flourishes after our death?
a life - PrescriptiveExistentialThe moment or the whole life
Is a life worth the sum of its good moments, or its overall shape, so that a life rising would be worth more than one declining, at equal total pleasure?
the course of a life - PrescriptiveVitalWhat we want or what is good
Does wellbeing depend entirely on what each of us desires or feels, or are some things, such as health, friendship, or knowledge, good for us whether we want them or not?
wellbeing - DescriptiveVitalCan happiness be measured?
Can pleasures and pains be summed and compared, as the felicific calculus would have it, or is there in wellbeing something that escapes any common measure?
wellbeing - PrescriptiveVitalQuantity or quality of pleasures
Is a good life measured by the sum of its pleasures, or are some pleasures worth more than others, regardless of their intensity?
a life - PrescriptiveVitalEnjoyment or tranquillity
Is the highest good to enjoy as much as possible, or to free oneself from disturbance and pain, even at the cost of desiring only what is necessary?
a life - PrescriptiveOne good, or many?
Is there a single supreme good that orders all the others, or plural and incommensurable goods that can conflict with no common measure?
a life - PrescriptiveThe three lives
Among the life of pleasure, the active life turned toward the city, and the contemplative life, which deserves to be called the highest?
a life - PrescriptiveActing or being well-off
Is happiness an activity, a way of exercising one's soul day after day, or the state of one who has all they need to be happy, whatever they do?
the soul's activity, the satisfaction of desires - PrescriptiveSacredA good beyond this world?
Is the highest good attainable here below, or does it lie elsewhere: union with God, salvation, a beatitude that neither earthly pleasure nor virtue can give?
a life
Related problems to broaden toward other axes
- PrescriptiveExistentialThe happy fool
Does a happiness built on ignorance still count as a successful life, or is the good then missing one of its ingredients?
a life - PrescriptiveExistentialVocation or self-invention
Is the good life the fulfillment of a nature or function given to us, or is there no fixed nature, each person having to invent what, for them, makes a life good?
a life - PrescriptiveExistentialHappiness and meaning
Is a good life necessarily a happy one, or can it be full of meaning while being hard, demanding, sometimes unhappy?
a life - PrescriptiveAlone or with others
Is flourishing self-sufficient, or does it require friends and a city, so that one cannot be fully happy apart from others?
the city, our bonds - DescriptiveKnowing or imagining happiness
Do we really know what would make us happy, or is happiness a shifting ideal of the imagination, so indeterminate that no firm rule can be drawn from it?
a life - PrescriptiveAestheticBeauty as the highest good
What if the highest good were beauty: making one's life a work of art, seeking the intensity of beautiful forms rather than pleasure, virtue, or serenity?
a life - PrescriptiveAesthetic Thought experimentLife as a work of art
Making one's life a work of art, seeking the intensity of beautiful sensations: is such a life self-sufficient, or does it end up hollow, indifferent to good and evil and stalked by boredom?
a whole lifeBeauty in life - PrescriptiveExistentialSerenity, or achievement?
Is the good of a life the peace of an untroubled soul, or the active achievement of one who transforms the world and leaves a mark on it?
a good lifeScope of action - PrescriptivePolitical & legalEquality of what?
To distribute fairly, should one equalize incomes, resources, well-being, or each person's real capabilities to act? One cannot be just without first saying which advantage is at issue.
the advantage to distributeDistributive justice - DescriptiveHappiness or meaning
Is a successful life necessarily happy, or can it be worthwhile through its meaning while being hard, demanding, at times unhappy?
a lifeThe meaning of life - PrescriptiveExistentialDiscourse or a way of life
Is philosophy a body of doctrines, or first of all a way of life made of exercises that transform the one who practices them, since reduced to mere theory?
philosophy itselfThe point of philosophy - PrescriptiveExistentialThe happy fool
Is a lucid life better, even if troubled by what it discovers, than a happy life in ignorance? Is truth a component of living well, or an instrument worth only what it brings?
a lifeThe value of truth
It is not from wealth that virtue arises, but from virtue that wealth and every other good come to men.Socrates · Plato, Apology, 30b
Nothing in the world, indeed nothing even beyond the world, can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will.Kant · Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section I
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.Mill · Utilitarianism, ch. 2
Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that.Nietzsche · Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12
Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.Spinoza · Ethics, V, proposition 42, scholium
Ultimate and perfect beatitude can lie only in the vision of the divine essence.Thomas Aquinas · Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 3, a. 8
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.Bentham · An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. I, §1
Nature cries aloud for nothing else but that pain be kept away from the body, and that the mind enjoy pleasant sensation, free of care and fear.Lucretius · On the Nature of Things, II, 16-19
Tranquillity followed the suspension of judgment as a shadow follows its body.Sextus Empiricus · Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 29
The good of man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are several virtues, in accordance with the best and most complete.Aristotle · Nicomachean Ethics, I.7 (1098a)
Pleasure is the beginning and the end of the blessed life.Epicurus · Letter to Menoeceus, 128
The highest good is a mind that despises the gifts of chance and takes joy in virtue.Seneca · On the Happy Life, IV
This is the life of gods and of godlike and blessed men: a deliverance from all things here below, the flight of the alone to the Alone.Plotinus · Enneads, VI, 9, 11