The Good Life

Abstract

What is the best life a human being can live? There can obviously be many different answers to this question with many different reasons. However, I would like to take an Aristotelian approach to this question. In order to do so, I will look specifically into Aristotle's Nicomachean EthicsJ along with several secondary sources to clarify the central idea behind Aristotle's work. The problem is that there is controversy as to what exactly Aristotle's good life entails. I intend to describe in more detail this important issue and the arguments and objections that surround it. I also want to look at the relevance Aristotle's argument has for our lives today, and apply his ancient thought to our modern world, but with some modern changes and with a more modern understanding. In the first section I describe Aristotle's notion of eudaimonia, or human flourishing, and the three possible lives he considers as contenders for the best human life. I dismiss the life of pleasure, as Aristotle does not view it as a serious contender, and focus on the arguments for the political and the contemplative lives, and also consider the possibility of a mixture of both. In the second section I inquire whether Aristotelian eudaimonia is relevant to our contemporary lives, and discuss the reasons both to think not and to think so. I conclude that an Aristotelian conception of the good is relevant to our modern day with some slight modifications. In the final section I make specific recommendations for these modifications in order to provide a more progressive Aristotelian conception of the good as applicable to a society today. [From introductory section]