definition of a good life essay

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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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.

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.

17 Exercises To Increase Happiness and Wellbeing

Add these 17 Happiness & Subjective Well-Being Exercises [PDF] to your toolkit and help others experience greater purpose, meaning, and positive emotions.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

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 Does It Mean to Live the Good Life?

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• Philosophical Theories & Ideas
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• Ph.D., Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin
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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.

• An Introduction to Virtue Ethics
• The 5 Great Schools of Ancient Greek Philosophy
• Summary and Analysis of Meno by Plato
• Moral Philosophy According to Immanuel Kant
• Epicurus and His Philosophy of Pleasure
• 3 Stoic Strategies for Becoming Happier
• 30 Quotes by Aristotle
• Plato's 'Apology'
• Would You Kill One Person to Save Five?
• Understanding Socratic Ignorance
• Three Basic Principles of Utilitarianism, Briefly Explained
• What Is Philosophy?
• How Can I Be Happy? An Epicurean and Stoic Perspective
• An Introduction to Plato and His Philosophical Ideas
• The Allegory of the Cave From the Republic of Plato

• Concepts and Ideas

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 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.

Table of Contents

How to Achieve a Good Life? Essay

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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IvyPanda. (2023, November 2). How to Achieve a Good Life? https://ivypanda.com/essays/life/

"How to Achieve a Good Life?" IvyPanda , 2 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/life/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'How to Achieve a Good Life'. 2 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "How to Achieve a Good Life?" November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/life/.

1. IvyPanda . "How to Achieve a Good Life?" November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/life/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "How to Achieve a Good Life?" November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/life/.

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Big Ideas Articles & More

The four keys to a meaningful life, a new book explores how writers, philosophers, and everyday people think about pursuing meaning in 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 psychology professor with expertise in well-being, religion, and spirituality.

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12 Notions of the Good Life

Ruut Veenhoven, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands and, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

• Published: 01 August 2013
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The term “happiness” denotes different meanings; sometimes it is used as an umbrella term for all of value, and at other times to denote special merits. This chapter is about the specific meanings of the terms. It proposes a classification based on two bi-partitions; between life “chances” and life “results,” and between “outer” and “inner” qualities. Together these dichotomies imply four qualities of life: (1) livability of the environment, (2) life-ability of the individual, (3) external utility of life, and (4) inner appreciation of life. This fourfold matrix is used to place the notions of happiness discussed in this volume.

The word “happiness” has many different meanings. In the broadest sense it denotes the quality of life as a whole and in the most limited sense it refers to a moment of bliss. This “Handbook of Happiness” is about happiness in a broad sense and could as well have been entitled “Handbook of Quality of Life” or “Handbook of Well-being.” Given the breadth of the topic, it is useful to start this section with an inspection of the more specific meanings of the word happiness and explain which of these meanings are used in the following chapters.

Four Qualities of Life

Let us start with the term with the broadest connotation, that is, “quality of life.” This term suggests that there is such a thing as a single quality of life, but we have never agreed on what that quality is. The term quality is easily used in rhetoric but the concept crumbles when analyzed scientifically, and it appears to be “multidimensional”. After ages of fruitless discussion, it is time to acknowledge that we cannot meaningfully put all the good in one hat. So we ought to think of different qualities of life. In this context it is useful to distinguish between chances for a good life and outcomes of life, and between external and internal qualities of life.

Chances and outcomes

Much of the literature on the good life is about chances, the preconditions that act upon an individual's life, for example having loving parents or, conversely, losing one's parents in a car accident. These “chances” are not the same as “outcomes”, or life results. Chances can fail to be cultivated, as in the cases of gifted people who squander their talents. Conversely, people sometimes make much of their life in spite of poor chances, as in the case of migrants who start with nothing and work hard to build successful lives.

This distinction between chances and outcomes is quite common in the field of public health research. Preconditions for good health, such as adequate nutrition and professional care, are seldom mixed in with health itself. Much health research is aimed at assessing the relationships between chances and outcomes; for instance by checking whether common nutritional advice really yields extra years lived in good health. However, chances and outcomes are less well distinguished in other fields.

External and internal qualities

A second difference is between “external” and “internal” qualities of life. In the first case the quality is in the environment, in the latter it is in the individual. Lane ( 1994 ) made this distinction clear by extricating “quality of society” from “quality of persons.” This distinction is also quite commonly made in public health. External pathogens are distinguished from internal disorders, and researchers try to identify the mechanisms by which the former produce the latter and the conditions in which this is more and less likely. Yet again this basic insight is often lacking in discussions in other fields.

The combination of these two dichotomies yields a fourfold matrix. This classification is presented in Table 12.1 . The distinction between chances and outcomes is presented vertically, the difference between external and internal qualities is shown horizontally.

Two kinds of life chances

In the upper half of the scheme in Table 12.1 we see two variants of potential quality of life: the external opportunities in one's environment and the internal capacities to exploit these. The external chances are denoted by the term livability , while the internal chances are identified by the term life-ability . This distinction is not new, however, the language used to describe these conditions is; in the literature on the psychology of stress these conditions often bear negative connotations, for example outer “burden” and inner “bearing power.”

Livability of the environment

The top left quadrant represents the meaning of good living conditions. These can be physical conditions such as clean air or social conditions such as mutual trust. Often the terms “quality of life” and “well-being” are used in this particular meaning, especially in the writings of ecologists and sociologists. Economists (e.g. Allardt, 1976) sometimes use the term “welfare” while another term used by sociologists is “level of living.”

“Livability” is a better word, because it does not have the limited connotation of material conditions. It also refers explicitly to a characteristic of the environment, for example, physical aspects of livability are moderate temperature and fresh air, while some social aspects are rule of law and freedom. Elsewhere I have explored the concept of livability in more detail (Veenhoven, 1996 , pp. 7–9).

Life-ability of the person

The top right quadrant in Table 12.1 denotes inner life chances, that is, how well we are equipped to cope with the problems of life. This involves physical abilities such as good sight, as well as mental abilities such as social intelligence. This aspect of the good life is also known by different names. The words “quality of life” and “well-being” are also used to denote this specific meaning, especially by doctors and psychologists. There are more names, however. In biology the phenomenon is referred to as “adaptive potential.” On other occasions it is denoted by the medical term “health,” in the medium variant of the word, 1 or by psychological terms such as “efficacy” or “potency.” I prefer the simple term “life-ability,” which contrasts elegantly with “livability.”

Two kinds of life outcomes

The lower half of the scheme in Table 12.1 is about the quality of life with respect to its outcomes. These outcomes can be judged by the value they provide to one's environment as well as the value they provide to the self. The worth of a life for the external environment is denoted by the term “utility of life.” The inner valuation is called “appreciation of life.” These matters are, of course, related. Knowing that one's life is useful will typically add to the appreciation of it. Yet, not all useful lives are happy lives, and neither are all “useless” lives unhappy.

Utility of life

The bottom left quadrant represents the external outcomes of life, that is, the product or result of one's life endeavors. There is no current generic term for these effects of a persons life on his or her environment. Gerson ( 1976 , p. 795) referred to “transcendental” conceptions of quality of life. Another appellation is “meaning of life,” which denotes a universal sense of significance or purpose and is beyond a subjective sense of meaning (Frankl, 1946). I prefer the more simple “utility of life,” admitting that this label may also give rise to misunderstanding. 2 Be aware that this external outcome does not require inner awareness. A person's life may be useful from some viewpoints, without them knowing, as demonstrated by Victor Frankl's logo-therapy, that aims to help people recognize and believe in the meanings of their life that they are not able to see for themselves.

Appreciation of life

Finally, the bottom right quadrant represents the internal outcomes of life. That is, how the individual judges or perceives the quality of their own life. This is commonly referred to by terms such as “subjective well-being,” “life-satisfaction,” and “happiness” in a limited sense of the word. Life has more of this quality, the more and the longer it is enjoyed. In fairy tales this combination of intensity and duration is denoted with the phrase “they lived long and happily ever after.”

Similar distinctions in biology

In evolutionary biology, external living conditions are referred to as the “biotope” or “habitat.” A biotope can be more or less suitable (livable) for a species, depending on, for example, availability of food, shelter, and competition. Inner capabilities to survive in that environment are called “fitness.” This latter term acknowledges that capabilities must meet (fit) environmental demand. Unlike moral philosophers, biologists see no quality in a capacity that is not functional.

This chance-constellation is seen to result in “adaptation,” and good adaptation is seen to manifest in “survival,” that is, a relatively long life. An organism that perishes prematurely has adapted less well than the one that completed its expected lifetime. In humans, good adaptation also reflects in increased hedonic experience. Continuous stress and pain are indicative of poor adaptation, while positive experiences, like pleasure and joy, denote good adaptation. As humans are capable of reflecting on their experiences, their feelings of pleasure and pain condense into overall appraisals of life satisfaction. So, human adaptation manifests in long and happy living. Though inner experience is no great issue in biology, this idea is implied in its logic. These biological concepts are summarized in Table 12.2 .

Meanings within Quality Quadrants

Most discussions of the good life deal with more specific values than the four qualities of life discerned here. Within each of the quadrants there is a myriad of submeanings, most of which are known under different names. It would require a voluminous book to record all the terms and meanings used in the literature. I present some of the main variants next. The main points are summarized in Table 12.3 .

Aspects of livability

Livability is an umbrella term for the various qualities of the environment that seem relevant for meeting human needs. In rhetorical use, the word refers mostly to specific kinds of qualities which typically root in some broader perception of a good society. The circumstantial qualities that are emphasized differ widely across contexts and disciplines.

For example, ecologists see livability in the natural environment and describe it in terms of pollution, global warming, and degradation of nature. Currently, they associate livability typically with environmental preservation. City planners see livability in the built environment and associate it with such things as sewer systems, traffic jams, and ghetto formation. Here the good life is seen as a fruit of human intervention.

In the sociological view, society is central. Firstly, livability is associated with the quality of society as a whole. Classic concepts of a good society stress material welfare and social equality, sometimes equating the concept more or less with the welfare state (Bellah et al., 1992). Current notions emphasize close networks, strong norms, and active voluntary associations. The reverse of this livability concept is social fragmentation. Secondly, livability is seen in one's position in society and equated with one's position on the social ladder. For a long time the emphasis was on the “under-class,” people at the bottom of the social ladder seen to be “deprived.” Currently attentions have shifted form the “underclass” to what I call the “outer-class” where poor livability is seen as a matter of “social exclusion.”

Kinds of life-ability

The most common depiction of this life-ability is the absence of functional defects. This is “health” in the limited sense, sometimes referred to as “negative health.” In this context doctors focus on unimpaired functioning of the body, while psychologists stress the absence of mental defects. In their language, quality of life and well-being are often synonymous with mental health. This use of words presupposes a “normal” level of functioning. Good quality of life is the body and mind working as designed. This is the common meaning used in curative care.

Next to absence of disease one can consider excellence of function. This is referred to as “positive health” and associated with energy and resilience. Psychological concepts of positive mental health also involve autonomy, reality control, creativity, and inner synergy of traits and strivings. A new term in this context is “emotional intelligence” (Goleman, 1998). Though originally meant for specific mental skills, this term has come to denote a broad range of mental capabilities. This broader definition is the favorite in training professions.

A further step is to evaluate capability in a developmental perspective and to include acquisition of new skills for living. This is commonly denoted by the term “self-actualization” (Maslow, 1970). From this point of view, a middle-aged man is not “well” if he behaves like an adolescent, even if he functions without problems at this level. Since abilities do not develop in idleness, this quality of life is close to the “activity” which is close to Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia that he defined as “virtuous activity in accordance with reason” (Ostenfelt, 1994 ). This quality concept is also currently used in the training professions.

Lastly, the term “art of living” denotes special life-abilities; in most contexts this quality is distinguished from mental health and sometimes even attributed to slightly disturbed persons. Art of living is associated with refined tastes, an ability to enjoy life, and an original style of life.

Criteria for utility of life

When evaluating the external effects of a life, one can consider its functionality for the environment. In this context, doctors stress how essential a patient's life is to their intimates. The life of a mother with young children is valued more highly than the life of a woman of the same age without children.

At a higher level, quality of life is seen in contributions to society. Historians see quality in the addition an individual can make to human culture, and rate, for example, the lives of great inventors higher than those of anonymous peasants. Moralists see quality in the preservation of the moral order, and would deem the life of a saint to be better than that of a sinner.

In this vein the quality of a life is also linked to effects on the ecosystem. Ecologists see more quality in a life lived in a “sustainable” manner than in the life of a polluter. In a broader view, the utility of life can be seen in its consequences for long-term evolution. As an individual's life can have many environmental effects, the number of such utilities is almost infinite.

Apart from its functional utility, life is also judged on its moral or esthetic value. Most of us would attribute more quality to the life of Florence Nightingale than to that of a criminal, even if it appeared that her good works had a negative result in the end (for example, medical care for soldiers lowered the threshold for warfare). In classic moral philosophy this is called virtuous living, and is often presented as the essence of true happiness. This concept of exemplaric utility sometimes merges with notions of inner life-ability, in particular in the case of self-actualization. Self-development is deemed good, even if it might complicate life (VonWright, 1963 ).

This quality criterion is external, that is, individuals need not be aware of their usefulness or may actually despise it. It is an outsider that appraises the quality of the individual's life on the basis of an external criterion. In religious thinking, such a judgment is made by God on the basis of eternal truth, in postmodern thought it is narrated by self-proclaimed experts on the basis of local conviction.

Clearly, the utility of life is not easy to grasp; both the criteria and those who would judge it, are multifarious and this prohibits comprehensive measurement of this quality of life.

Appreciations of life

Humans are capable of evaluating their life in different ways. As already noted, we can appraise our situation affectively. We feel good or bad about particular things and our mood level signals overall adaptation. As in animals, these affective appraisals are automatic, but unlike other animals, humans can reflect on that experience. We have an idea of how we have felt over the last year, while a cat does not. Humans can also judge life cognitively by comparing life as it is with notions of how it should be.

Cognition and affect

Most human evaluations are based on two sources of information, that is, intuitive affective appraisal and cognitively guided evaluation. The mix depends mainly on the object. Tangible things such as our income are typically evaluated by cognitive comparison; intangible matters such as sexual attractiveness are evaluated by how they feel, that is, intuitive affective appraisal. This dual evaluation system probably makes the human experiential repertoire richer than that of our fellow-creatures.

In evaluating our life we typically summarize this rich experience in overall appraisals. For instance we appreciate particular domains of life. When asked how we feel about our “work” or our “marriage,” we will mostly have an opinion. Likewise, most people form ideas about separate qualities of their life, for instance, how “challenging” their life is and whether there is any “meaning” in it. Next to these appraisals of particular parts of our life, we also evaluate the quality of our life as a whole. Such judgments are made in different time-perspectives, in the past, the present, and the future. As the future is less palpable than the past and the present, hopes and fears depend more on affective inclination than on cognitive calculation.

Mostly such judgments are not very salient in our consciousness. Now and then they come to mind spontaneously, and they can be recalled and refreshed when needed. Sometimes, however, life-appraisals develop into pervasive mental syndromes such as depression.

Dominance of affect

Many scholars think of happiness as the result of a cognitive operation. For instance, utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1789/1983) spoke of a “mental calculus.” More recently, Andrews and Withey ( 1976 ) suggest that individuals compute a weighed average of earlier life-aspect evaluations, while Michalos's ( 1985 ) multiple discrepancy theory presumes that individuals compare life as it is with various standards of how it should be. Many philosophers see happiness as an estimate of success in realizing one's life-plan (e.g., Nordenfelt, 1989 ).

Yet there are good reasons to assume that overall life-satisfaction is mostly inferred from affective experience (Veenhoven, 2009 ). One reason is that life as a whole is not a suitable object for calculative evaluation. Life has many aspects and there is usually not one clear-cut ideal model to compare it with. Another reason seems to be that affective signals tend to dominate; seemingly cognitive appraisals are often instigated by affective cues (Zajonc, 1980 ). This fits the theory that the affective system is the older in evolutionary terms, and that cognition works as an addition to that navigation system rather than as a replacement (Veenhoven, 2009).

This issue has important consequences for the significance of subjective appreciation as a criterion for quality of life. If appreciation is a matter of mere comparison with arbitrary standards, there is little of value in a positive evaluation; dissatisfaction is then an indication of high demands. If, however, life satisfaction signals the degree to which innate needs are met, it denotes how well we thrive.

Whatever the method of assessment, the fact that we are able to come to an overall evaluation of life is quite important. Later on in this chapter we will see that this is the only basis for encompassing judgments of the quality of life.

Meanings Denoted by Related Terms

With the help of the taxonomy given earlier, we can now clarify the substantive meaning of several terms that are commonly used for denoting qualities of life. This enumeration is not exhaustive; the goal is to illustrate this approach. The following diagrams refer to Table 12.1 and indicate which of the four qualities of life are at stake. The darker the shade of a quadrant, the more that particular quality of life is addressed.

This term came into use in the 1940s (see Cavan et al., 1949), particularly in gerontological studies of “adjustment to old age,” and was used interchangeably with “adaptation.” These words were soon ousted by phrases like “morale,” “psychological well-being,” and “life-satisfaction.” Adjustment refers to personal qualities; hence it belongs on the right side of our matrix. Adjustment denotes how well a person deals with life, and refers to both equipment and success. Hence the concept does not fit one quadrant, but covers both life-abilities and life-appraisals. In the diagram this is indicated by two equally dark quadrants.

Art of living

The expression “art of living” refers, first of all, to a person's life-ability and therefore belongs in the top right quadrant. As noted earlier, the term depicts mostly the quality of a lifestyle, typically refined Epicurianism, but sometimes the wisdom of simple living is also valued as artistry. This main meaning is reflected in the dark colored quadrant. Yet the term bears other connotations, capacity is often associated with its intended results, hence art of living tends to be equated with happiness, or at least with sensory gratification. Further, the life of an artist is sometimes valued as a piece of art in itself, which has some external utility. For instance, we see quality in the life of Casanova, renowned for his love of life and refined enjoyments, even though the man himself seems not to have been particularly happy. The adjunct connotations of the word are indicated in gray.

In Sen's (1985) work, the word “capability” denotes the abilities required to improve one's situation, typically in the context of developing countries. Nussbaum rather refers to capability as “being able to live a truly human life” in the context of affluent society. “Being able” requires both freedom from external restraints and personal skills. Freedom from external restraints belongs in the top left quadrant of the matrix, while the personal competency to use environmental chances belongs in the top right quadrant. In Sen's work, the emphasis is in the top left quadrant, in particular where he argues against discrimination. Yet he also highlights education, which is an individual quality. In Nussbaum and Sen's ( 1993 ) work the emphasis is in the top right quadrant. Most of the capabilities on her list are inner aptitudes, e.g., practical reason and imagination. Yet she also mentions protection against violent assault, which is an environmental factor. 3

Deprivation

The word “deprivation” refers to a shortfall of something. When used in an absolute sense it means failure to meet basic human needs, when used in a relative sense it means being less well off than others. The word is typically used in the latter meaning, while suggesting the former. Current specifications of this notion are “poverty” and “social exclusion.”

In most contexts the lack is in external conditions of life, and concerns access to income, power, and prestige. In social policy this kind of deprivation is typically met with redistribution of these scarce resources. This main meaning belongs in the livability quadrant.

Sometimes the word also refers to deficiency in the capacity to stand up for oneself. The political cure for this problem is “empowerment,” common ingredients of which are general education, political training, and boosting of self-esteem. The latter adjunct definition belongs in the life-ability quadrant.

Usually these conditions are associated with individual happiness. Hence measures of deprivation often include items on dissatisfaction, depression, and suicidal ideation. Enjoyment of life in spite of objective deprivation is seen as an anomaly and referred to as “resignation” (Zapf, 1984 ).

As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the word “happiness” has often been used as a generic for all worth and is, in this sense, synonymous with comprehensive quality of life or “well-being.” I distinguished four qualities of life (Table 12.1 ), one of which “appreciation of life” (bottom right quadrant), typically indicates satisfaction with life as a whole. The latter use of the word is most common in present day “happiness studies” and is the conceptual focus of the World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven, 2010a ).

Beyond this main denotation of the word, there are still further adjunctive uses of the term. This appears for example in the well known definition of happiness given by Tatarkiewicz ( 1975 , p. 16) as “… justified satisfaction with life.” The adjective “justified” means that mere enjoyment of life does not constitute (true) happiness if it occurs in objective situations, for example a prisoner cannot be really happy. Similarly, Tatarkiewicz would not call someone happy when the evaluation is based on misperception, such as when the enjoyment is derived from a “useless” life.

Notions of Happiness Addressed in this Volume

What kinds of happiness are addressed in this section on “Definitions of Happiness”? Using the conceptual matrix we can place the meanings addressed in each of the chapters.

Eudaimonic happiness: Chapters 15 and 16

The term eudaimonic happiness is commonly used in contrast with hedonic happiness, and denotes that simply feeling good is not everything. The essence of a good life is seen in “living good” rather than in “enjoying life” and living good is seen as “psychological development.” In the words of Niemiec and Ryan in this volume (Chapter 16 ): “Eudaimonia… describes a process of living based on contemplation, virtue, and realization of potentials.” In this context, philosophers emphasize intellectual development, while psychologist associate it with “full functioning” and “living in accord with one's true nature” (cf. Huta).

In this view of the good life, the emphasis is on life-ability in the top right quadrant of our conceptual matrix. Still, subjective enjoyment of life is commonly seen as an inseparable by-product of psychological thriving and for that reason the bottom right quadrant is colored gray. Likewise, individual thriving is often associated with living a useful life and for that reason the bottom left quadrant is colored gray as well.

Subjective well-being: Chapter 13

The term subjective well-being (SWB) is often used in one breath with “life-satisfaction” and “happiness” and denotes “appreciation of life” in the bottom right quadrant. Following Diener ( 1984 ), Miao, Koo, and Oishi use the term for the subjective appreciation of life of one's life as a whole. “Appreciation” is seen to involve both affective enjoyment and cognitive contentment. “A person who scores high on subjective well-being should experience many positive and few negative emotions, while also reporting high life and specific domain evaluations.”

Happiness: Chapter 14

In Chapter 14 , Cummins uses the term happiness in a wider meaning and incorporates both affective and cognitive appraisals of life. In that use of the word, happiness is synonymous with subjective well-being (SWB) as defined by Diener, discussed in Chapters 13 and 15 .

Functional well-being: Chapter 17

In the last chapter of this section, Vittersø introduces the notion of “functional well-being.” He considers not only how well we feel, but also the effects of that experience on other qualities of life. In this view, well-being as such belongs in the bottom right quadrant. The functional effects are depicted with arrows pointing to the other quadrants.

The term happiness is used for four different notions of the good life. In this section on “Definitions of Happiness” the emphasis is on two of these: “life ability” and “life satisfaction.” In other words: this section is about psychological well-being, both in the objective sense of thriving well and in the subjective sense of enjoying life.

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There are three main meanings for health: The maxi variant is all the good (World Health Organization (WHO) definition), the medium variant is life-ability, and the mini variant is absence of physical defect.

A problem with this term is that the utilitarians used the word “utility” for subjective appreciation of life, the sum of pleasures and pains.

These concepts are discussed in more detail in Veenhoven ( 2010b ).

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The Better Good Life: An Essay on Personal Sustainability

Imagine a cherry tree in full bloom, its roots sunk into rich earth and its branches covered with thousands of blossoms, all emitting a lovely fragrance and containing thousands of seeds capable of producing many more cherry trees. The petals begin to fall, covering the ground in a blanket of white flowers and scattering the seeds everywhere.

Some of the seeds will take root, but the vast majority will simply break down along with the spent petals, becoming part of the soil that nourishes the tree — along with thousands of other plants and animals.

Looking at this scene, do we shake our heads at the senseless waste, mess and inefficiency? Does it look like the tree is working too hard, showing signs of strain or collapse? Of course not. But why not?

Well, for one thing, because the whole process is beautiful, abundant and pleasure producing: We enjoy seeing and smelling the trees in bloom, we’re pleased by the idea of the trees multiplying (and producing delicious cherries ), and everyone for miles around seems to benefit in the process.

The entire lifecycle of the cherry tree is rewarding, and the only “waste” involved is an abundant sort of nutrient cycling that only leads to more good things.

The entire lifecycle of the cherry tree is rewarding, and the only “waste” involved is an abundant sort of nutrient cycling that only leads to more good things. Best of all, this show of productivity and generosity seems to come quite naturally to the tree. It shows no signs of discontent or resentment — in fact, it looks like it could keep this up indefinitely with nothing but good, sustainable outcomes.

The cherry-tree scenario is one model that renowned designer and sustainable-development expert William McDonough uses to illustrate how healthy, sustainable systems are supposed to work. “Every last particle contributes in some way to the health of a thriving ecosystem,” he writes in his essay (coauthored with Michael Braungart), “The Extravagant Gesture: Nature, Design and the Transformation of Human Industry” (available at).

Rampant production in this scenario poses no problem, McDonough explains, because the tree returns all of the resources it extracts (without deterioration or diminution), and it produces no dangerous stockpiles of garbage or residual toxins in the process. In fact, rampant production by the cherry tree only enriches everything around it.

In this system and most systems designed by nature, McDonough notes, “Waste that stays waste does not exist. Instead, waste nourishes; waste equals food.”

If only we humans could be lucky and wise enough to live this way — using our resources and energy to such good effect; making useful, beautiful, extravagant contributions; and producing nothing but nourishing “byproducts” in the process.

If only we humans could be lucky and wise enough to live this way — using our resources and energy to such good effect; making useful, beautiful, extravagant contributions ; and producing nothing but nourishing “byproducts” in the process. If only our version of rampant production and consumption produced so much pleasure and value and so little exhaustion, anxiety, depletion and waste.

Well, perhaps we can learn. More to the point, if we hope to create a decent future for ourselves and succeeding generations, we must. After all, a future produced by trends of the present — in which children are increasingly treated for stress, obesity, high blood pressure and heart disease, and in which our chronic health problems threaten to bankrupt our economy  — is not much of a future.

We need to create something better. And for that to happen, we must begin to reconsider which parts of our lives contribute to the cherry tree’s brand of healthy vibrance and abundance, and which don’t.

The happy news is, the search for a more sustainable way of life can go hand in hand with the pursuit of a healthier, more rewarding life. And isn’t that the kind of life most of us are after?

In Search of Sustainability and Satisfaction

McDonough’s cherry-tree model represents several key principles of sustainability — including lifecycle awareness, no-waste nutrient cycling and a commitment to “it’s-all-connected” systems thinking (see “ See the Connection “). And it turns out that many of these principles can be usefully applied not just to natural resources and ecosystems, but to all systems — from frameworks for economic and industrial production to blueprints for individual and collective well-being.

For example, when we look at our lives through the lens of sustainability, we can begin to see how unwise short-term tradeoffs (fast food, skipped workouts, skimpy sleep, strictly-for-the-money jobs) produce waste (squandered energy and vitality, unfulfilled personal potential, excessive material consumption) and toxic byproducts (illness, excess weight , depression, frustration, debt).

We can also see how healthy choices and investments in our personal well-being can produce profoundly positive results that extend to our broader circles of influence and communities at large.

Conversely, we can also see how healthy choices and investments in our personal well-being can produce profoundly positive results that extend to our broader circles of influence and communities at large. When we’re  feeling our best and overflowing with energy and optimism, we tend to be of greater service and support to others. We’re clearer of mind, meaning we can identify opportunities to reengineer the things that aren’t working in our lives. We can also more fully appreciate and emphasize the things that are (as opposed to feeling stuck in a rut , down in the dumps, unappreciated or entitled to something we’re not getting).

When you look at it this way, it’s not hard to see why sustainability plays such an important role in creating the conditions of a true “ good life ”: By definition, sustainability principles discourage people from consuming or destroying resources at a greater pace than they can replenish them. They also encourage people to notice when buildups and depletions begin occurring and to correct them as quickly as possible.

As a result, sustainability-oriented approaches tend to produce not just robust, resilient individuals , but resilient and regenerative societies — the kind that manage to produce long-term benefits for a great many without undermining the resources on which those benefits depend. (For a thought-provoking exploration of how and why this has been true historically, read Jared Diamond’s excellent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed .)

The Good Life Gone Bad

So, what exactly is a “good life”? Clearly, not everyone shares the same definition, but most of us would prefer a life filled with experiences we find pleasing and worthwhile and that contribute to an overall sense of well-being.

We’d prefer a life that feels good in the moment, but that also lays the ground for a promising future — a life, like the cherry tree’s, that contributes something of value and that benefits and enriches the lives of others, or at least doesn’t cause them anxiety and harm.

Unfortunately, historically, our pursuit of the good life has focused on increasing our material wealth and upgrading our socioeconomic status in the short term (learn more at “ What Is Affluenza? “). And, in the big picture, that approach has not turned out quite the way we might have hoped.

For too many, the current version of “the good life” involves working too-long hours and driving too-long commutes. It has us worrying and running ourselves ragged.

For too many, the current version of “the good life” involves working too-long hours and driving too-long commutes. It has us worrying and running ourselves ragged, overeating to soothe ourselves, watching TV to distract ourselves, binge-shopping to sate our desire for more, and popping prescription pills to keep troubling symptoms at bay. This version of “the good life” has given us only moments a day with the people we love, and virtually no time or inclination to participate as citizens or community members.

It has also given us anxiety attacks; obesity; depression ; traffic jams; urban sprawl; crushing daycare bills; a broken healthcare system; record rates of addiction, divorce and incarceration; an imploding economy; and a planet in peril.

From an economic standpoint, we’re more productive than we’ve ever been. We’ve focused on getting more done in less time. We’ve surrounded ourselves with technologies designed to make our lives easier, more comfortable and more amusing.

Yet, instead of making us happy and healthy, all of this has left a great many of us feeling depleted, lonely, strapped, stressed and resentful. We don’t have enough time for ourselves, our loved ones, our creative aspirations or our communities. And in the wake of the bad-mortgage-meets-Wall-Street-greed crisis, much of the so-called value we’ve been busy creating has seemingly vanished before our eyes, leaving future generations of citizens to pay almost inconceivably huge bills.

The conveniences we’ve embraced to save ourselves time have reduced us to an unimaginative, sedentary existence that undermines our physical fitness and mental health and reduces our ability to give our best gifts.

Meanwhile, the quick-energy fuels we use to keep ourselves going ultimately leave us feeling sluggish, inflamed and fatigued. The conveniences we’ve embraced to save ourselves time have reduced us to an unimaginative, sedentary existence that undermines our physical fitness and mental health and reduces our ability to give our best gifts. (Not sure what your best gift is? See “ Play to Your Strengths ” for more.)

Our bodies and minds are showing the telltale symptoms of unsustainable systems at work — systems that put short-term rewards ahead of long-term value. We’re beginning to suspect that the costs we’re incurring could turn out to be unacceptably high if we ever stop to properly account for them, which some of us are beginning to do.

Accounting for What Matters

Defining the good life in terms of productivity, material rewards and personal accomplishment is a little like viewing the gross domestic product (GDP) as an accurate measurement of social and economic progress.

In fact, the GDP is nothing more than a gross tally of products and services bought and sold, with no distinctions between transactions that enhance well-being and transactions that diminish it, and no accounting for most of the “externalities” (like losses in vitality, beauty and satisfaction) that actually have the greatest impact on our personal health and welfare.

We’d balk if any business attempted to present a picture of financial health by simply tallying up all of its business activity — lumping income and expense, assets and liabilities, and debits and credits together in one impressive, apparently positive bottom-line number (which is, incidentally, much the way our GDP is calculated).

Yet, in many ways, we do the same kind of flawed calculus in our own lives — regarding as measures of success the gross sum of the to-dos we check off, the salaries we earn, the admiration we attract and the rungs we climb on the corporate ladder.

But not all of these activities actually net us the happiness and satisfaction we seek, and in the process of pursuing them, we can incur appalling costs to our health and happiness. We also make vast sacrifices in terms of our personal relationships and our contributions to the communities, societies and environments on which we depend.

This is the essence of unsustainability , the equivalent of a cherry tree sucking up nutrients and resources and growing nothing but bare branches, or worse — ugly, toxic, foul-smelling blooms. So what are our options?

Asking the Right Questions

In the past several years, many alternative, GDP-like indexes have emerged and attempted to more accurately account for how well (or, more often, how poorly) our economic growth is translating to quality-of-life improvements.

Measurement tools like the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), developed by Redefining Progress, a nonpartisan public-policy and economic think tank, factor in well-being and quality-of-life concerns by considering both positive and negative impacts of various products and services. They also measure more impacts overall (including impacts on elements of “being” and “doing” vs. just “having”). And they evaluate whether various financial expenditures represent a net gain or net loss — not just in economic terms, but also in human, social and ecological ones (see “Sustainable Happiness,” below).

Perhaps it’s time to consider our personal health and well-being in the same sort of broader context — distinguishing productive activities from destructive ones, and figuring the true costs and unintended consequences of our choices into the assessment of how well our lives are working.

To that end, we might begin asking questions like these:

• Where, in our rush to accomplish or enjoy “more” in the short run, are we inadvertently creating the equivalent of garbage dumps and toxic spills (stress overloads, health crises, battered relationships, debt) that will need to be cleaned up later at great (think Superfund) effort and expense?
• Where, in our impatience to garner maximum gains in personal productivity, wealth or achievement in minimum time, are we setting the stage for bailout scenarios down the road? (Consider the sacrifices endured by our families, friends and colleagues when we fall victim to a bad mood, much less a serious illness or disabling health condition.)
• Where, in an attempt to avoid uncertainty, experimentation or change , are we burning through our limited and unrenewable resource of time (staying at jobs that leave us depleted, for example), rather than striving to harness our bottomless stores of purpose-driven enthusiasm (by, say, pursuing careers or civic duties of real meaning)?
• Where are we making short-sighted choices or non-choices (about our health, for example) that sacrifice the resources we need (energy, vitality, clear focus) to make progress and contributions in other areas of our lives?

In addition to these assessments, we can also begin imagining what a better alternative would look like:

• What might be possible if we embraced a different version of the good life — the kind of good life in which the vast majority of our choices both feel good and do good?
• What if we took a systems view of our life , acknowledging how various inputs and outputs play out (for better or worse) over time? What if we fully considered how those around us are affected by our choices now and in the long term?
• What if we embraced more choices that honor our true nature, that gave us more opportunities to use our talents and enthusiasms in the service of a higher purpose?

One has to wonder how many of our health and fitness challenges would evaporate under such conditions — how many compensatory behaviors (overeating, hiding out, numbing out) would simply no longer have a draw.

How many health-sustaining behaviors would become easy and natural choices if each of us were driven by a strong and joyful purpose , and were no longer saddled with the stress and dissatisfaction inherent in the lives we live now?

Think about the cherry-tree effect implicit in such a scenario: each of us getting our needs met, fulfilling our best potential, living at full vitality, and contributing to healthy, vital, sustainable communities in the process.

If it sounds a bit idealistic, that’s probably because it describes an ideal distant enough from our current reality to provoke a certain amount of hopelessness. But that doesn’t mean it’s entirely unrealistic. In fact, it’s a vision that many people are increasingly convinced is the only kind worth pursuing.

Turning the Corner

Maybe it has something to do with how many of our social, economic and ecological systems are showing signs of extreme strain. Maybe it’s how many of us are sick and tired of being sick and tired — or of living in a culture where everyone else seems sick and tired. Maybe it’s the growing realization that no matter how busy and efficient we are, if our efforts don’t feed us in a deep way, then all that output may be more than a little misguided. Whatever the reason, a lot of us are asking: If our rampant productivity doesn’t make us happy, doesn’t allow for calm and creativity, doesn’t give us an opportunity to participate in a meaningful way — then, really, what’s the point?

These days, it seems that more of us are taking a keen interest in seeking out better ways, and seeing the value of extending the lessons of sustainability beyond the natural world and into our own perspectives on what the good life is all about.

In her book MegaTrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism , futurist Patricia Aburdene describes a hopeful collection of social and economic trends shaped by a large and influential subset of the American consuming public. What these 70 million individuals have in common, she explains, are some very specific values-driven behaviors — most of which revolve around seeking a better, deeper, more meaningful and sustainable quality of life (discover the four pillars or meaning at “ How to Build a Meaningful Life “).

[“Conscious Consumers” balance] short-term desires and conveniences with long-term well-being — not just their own, but that of their local and larger communities, and of the planet as a whole.

These “Conscious Consumers,” as Aburdene characterizes them, are more carefully weighing material and economic payoffs against moral and spiritual ones. They are balancing short-term desires and conveniences with long-term well-being — not just their own, but that of their local and larger communities, and of the planet as a whole. They are acting, says Aburdene, out of a sort of “enlightened self-interest,” one that is deeply rooted in concerns about sustainability in all its forms.

“Enlightened self-interest is not altruism,” she explains. “It’s self-interest with a wider view. It asks: If I act in my own self-interest and keep doing so, what are the ramifications of my choices? Which acts — that may look fine right now — will come around and bite me and others one year from now? Ten years? Twenty-five years?”

In other words, Conscious Consumers are not merely consumers, but engaged and concerned individuals who think in terms of lifecycles, who perceive the subtleties and complexities of interconnected systems .

As John Muir famously said: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” Just as the cherry tree is tethered in a complex ecosystem of relationships, so are we.

Facing Reality

When we live in a way that diminishes us or weighs us down — whether as the result of poor physical health and fitness, excess stress and anxiety, or any compromise of our best potential — we inevitably affect countless other people and systems whose well-being relies on our own.

For example, if we don’t have the time and energy to make food for ourselves and our families, we end up eating poorly, which further diminishes our energy, and may also result in our kids having behavior or attention problems at school, undermining the quality of their experience there, and potentially creating problems for others.

As satisfaction and well-being go down, need and consumption go up.

If we skimp on sleep and relaxation in order to “get more done,” we court illness and depression, risking both our own and others’ productivity and happiness in the process and diminishing the creativity with which we approach challenges.

At the individual level, unsustainable choices create strain and misery. At the collective level, they do the same thing, with exponential effect. Because, when not enough of us are living like thriving cherry trees, cycles of scarcity (rather than abundance) ensue. Life gets harder for everyone. As satisfaction and well-being go down, need and consumption go up. Our sense of “enough” becomes distorted.

Taking Full Account

The basic question of sustainability is this: Can you keep doing what you’re doing indefinitely and without ill effect to yourself and the systems on which you depend — or are you (despite short-term rewards you may be enjoying now, or the “someday” relief you’re hoping for) on a likely trajectory to eventual suffering and destruction?

When it comes to the ecology of the planet, this question has become very pointed in recent years. But posed in the context of our personal lives, the question is equally instructive: Are we living like the cherry tree — part of a sustainable and regenerative cycle — or are we sucking up resources, yet still obsessed with what we don’t have? Are we continually generating new energy, vitality, generosity and personal potential , or wasting it?

We can work just so hard and consume just so much before we begin to experience both diminishing personal returns and increasing degenerative costs.

The human reality, in most cases, isn’t quite as pretty as the cherry tree in full bloom. We can work just so hard and consume just so much before we begin to experience both diminishing personal returns and increasing degenerative costs. And when enough of us are in a chronically diminished state of well-being, the effect is a sort of social and moral pollution — the human equivalent of the greenhouse gasses that threaten our entire ecosystem.

Accounting for these soft costs, or even recognizing them as relevant externalities, is not something we’ve been trained to do well. But all that is changing — in part, because many of us are beginning to realize that much of what we’ve been sold in the name of “progress” is now looking like anything but. And, in part, because we’re starting to believe that not only might there be a better way, but that the principles for creating it are staring us right in the face.

By making personal choices that respect the principles of sustainability, we can interrupt the toxic cycles of overconsumption and overexertion. Ultimately, when confronted with the possibility of a better quality of life and more satisfying expression of our potential, the primary question becomes not just can we continue living the way we have been, but perhaps just as important, why would we even want to ?

If the approach we’ve been taking appears likely to make us miserable (and perhaps extinct), then it makes sense to consider our options. How do we want to live for the foreseeable and sustainable future, and what are the building blocks for that future? What would it be like to live in a community where most people were overflowing with vitality and looking for ways to be of service to others?

While no one expert or index or council claims to have all the answers to that question, when it comes to discerning the fundamentals of the good life, nature conveniently provides most of the models we need. It suggests a framework by which we can better understand and apply the principles of sustainability to our own lives. Now it’s up to us to apply them.

Make It Sustainable

Here are some right-now changes you can make to enhance and sustain your personal well-being:

1. Rethink Your Eating.

Look beyond meal-to-meal concerns with weight. Aim to eat consciously and selectively in keeping with the nourishment you want to take in, the energy and personal gifts you want to contribute, and the influence you want to have on the world around you.

To that end, you might start eating less meat, or fewer packaged foods, or you might start eating regularly so that you have enough energy to exercise (and so that your low blood sugar doesn’t negatively affect your mood and everyone around you).

You also might start packing your lunch, suggests money expert Vicki Robin: Not only will you have more control over what and how you eat, but the money you’ll save over the course of a career can amount to a year’s worth of work. “Bringing your lunch saves you a year of your life,” she says.

2. Set a Regular Bedtime

Having a target bedtime can help you get the sleep you need to be positive and productive, and to avoid becoming depleted and depressed. Research confirms that adequate sleep is essential to clear thinking, balanced mood, healthy metabolism, strong immunity, optimal vitality and strong professional performance.

Research also shows that going to bed earlier provides a higher quality of rest than sleeping in, so get your hours at the start of the night. By taking care of yourself in this simple way, you lay the groundwork for all kinds of regenerative (vs. depleting) cycles.

3. Own Your Outcomes

If there are parts of your life you don’t like — parts that feel toxic, frustrating or wasteful to you — be willing to trace the outcomes back to their origins, including your choices around self-care , seeking help, balancing priorities and sticking to your core values.

Also examine the full range of outputs and impacts: What waste or damage is occurring as a result of this area of unresolved challenge? Who else and what else in your life might be paying too-high a price for the scenario in question? If you’re unsure about whether or not a choice or an activity you’re involved in is sustainable, ask yourself the following questions:

• Given the option, would I do or choose this again? Would I do it indefinitely?
• How long can I keep this up, and at what cost — not just to me, but to the other people and systems I care about?
• What have I sacrificed to get here; what will it take for me to continue? Are the rewards worth it, even if the other areas of my life suffer?

Sustainable Happiness

Not all growth and productivity represent progress, particularly if you consider happiness and well-being as part of the equation. The growing gap between our gross domestic product and Genuine Progress Indicator (as represented below) suggests we could be investing our resources with far happier results.

Data source: Redefining Progress, rprogress.org . Chart graphic courtesy of Yes! magazine.

Learn more about the most reliable, sustainable sources of happiness and well-being in the Winter 2009 issue of Yes! magazine, available at www.yesmagazine.org .

Learning From Nature

What can we learn from ecological sustainability about the best ways to balance and sustain our own lives? Here are a few key lessons:

• Everything is in relationship with everything else. So overdrawing or overproducing in one area tends to negatively affect other areas. An excessive focus on work can undermine your relationship with your partner or kids. Diminished physical vitality or low mood can affect the quality of your work and service to others.
• What comes around goes around. Trying to “cheat” or “skimp” or “get away with something” in the short term generally doesn’t work because the true costs of cheating eventually become painfully obvious. And very often the “cleanup” costs more and takes longer than it would have to simply do the right thing in the first place.
• Waste not, want not. Unpleasant accumulations or unsustainable drains represent opportunities for improvement and reinvention. Nature’s models of nutrient cycling show us that what looks like waste can become food for a process we simply haven’t engaged yet: Anxiety may be nervous energy that needs to be burned off, or a nudge to do relaxation and self-inquiry exercises that will churn up new insights and ideas. Excess fat may be fuel for enjoyable activities we’ve resisted doing or haven’t yet discovered — or a clue that we’re hungry for something other than food. The clutter in our homes may represent resources that we haven’t gotten around to sharing. Look for ways to put waste and excess to work, and you may discover all kinds of “nutrients” just looking for attention. (See “ The Emotional Toll of Clutter “.)

The Sustainable Self

Connie Grauds, RPh, is a pharmacist who combines her Western medical training with shamanic teachings, and in her view, we get caught in wearying patterns primarily because of fear . “Energy-depleting thoughts and feelings underlie energy-depleting habits,” Grauds writes in her book  The Energy Prescription , cowritten with Doug Childers. She says that we often burn ourselves out because we’re unconsciously afraid of what will happen if we don’t.

Grauds uses the shamanic term “susto” to describe our anxious response to external situations we can’t control — the traffic jam, the work deadline, the pressure to buy stuff we don’t really need. “Susto” triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, which encourages short-term, unconscious reactions to stress. When we shift to a more internal focus, tuning in to our body’s physical and emotional signals more reflectively, we act from what Grauds calls our “sustainable self.” She says the sustainable self can be accessed anytime with a simple four-step process:

• Take a deep breath ;
• Feel your body;
• Notice your thoughts, and then;
• Recognize that you are connected to a larger network of energy .

“A sustainable self recognizes and embraces its interdependent relationship to life,” she says, explaining that when we get our energy from controlling external circumstances we’re bound to collapse eventually, but when we’re connected to our internal reserves, we can be much more effective. “By consistently doing things that replenish us and not doing things that needlessly deplete us,” Grauds writes, “we access and conduct the energy we need to make and sustain positive changes and function at peak levels.”

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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) |

Related posts:

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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The Meaning of Life

Many major historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful, although they typically have not put it in these terms (with such talk having arisen only in the past 250 years or so, on which see Landau 1997). Consider, for instance, Aristotle on the human function, Aquinas on the beatific vision, and Kant on the highest good. Relatedly, think about Koheleth, the presumed author of the Biblical book Ecclesiastes, describing life as “futility” and akin to “the pursuit of wind,” Nietzsche on nihilism, as well as Schopenhauer when he remarks that whenever we reach a goal we have longed for we discover “how vain and empty it is.” While these concepts have some bearing on happiness and virtue (and their opposites), they are straightforwardly construed (roughly) as accounts of which highly ranked purposes a person ought to realize that would make her life significant (if any would).

Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only since the 1980s or so that a distinct field of the meaning of life has been established in Anglo-American-Australasian philosophy, on which this survey focuses, and it is only in the past 20 years that debate with real depth and intricacy has appeared. Two decades ago analytic reflection on life’s meaning was described as a “backwater” compared to that on well-being or good character, and it was possible to cite nearly all the literature in a given critical discussion of the field (Metz 2002). Neither is true any longer. Anglo-American-Australasian philosophy of life’s meaning has become vibrant, such that there is now way too much literature to be able to cite comprehensively in this survey. To obtain focus, it tends to discuss books, influential essays, and more recent works, and it leaves aside contributions from other philosophical traditions (such as the Continental or African) and from non-philosophical fields (e.g., psychology or literature). This survey’s central aim is to acquaint the reader with current analytic approaches to life’s meaning, sketching major debates and pointing out neglected topics that merit further consideration.

When the topic of the meaning of life comes up, people tend to pose one of three questions: “What are you talking about?”, “What is the meaning of life?”, and “Is life in fact meaningful?”. The literature on life's meaning composed by those working in the analytic tradition (on which this entry focuses) can be usefully organized according to which question it seeks to answer. This survey starts off with recent work that addresses the first, abstract (or “meta”) question regarding the sense of talk of “life’s meaning,” i.e., that aims to clarify what we have in mind when inquiring into the meaning of life (section 1). Afterward, it considers texts that provide answers to the more substantive question about the nature of meaningfulness (sections 2–3). There is in the making a sub-field of applied meaning that parallels applied ethics, in which meaningfulness is considered in the context of particular cases or specific themes. Examples include downshifting (Levy 2005), implementing genetic enhancements (Agar 2013), making achievements (Bradford 2015), getting an education (Schinkel et al. 2015), interacting with research participants (Olson 2016), automating labor (Danaher 2017), and creating children (Ferracioli 2018). In contrast, this survey focuses nearly exclusively on contemporary normative-theoretical approaches to life’s meanining, that is, attempts to capture in a single, general principle all the variegated conditions that could confer meaning on life. Finally, this survey examines fresh arguments for the nihilist view that the conditions necessary for a meaningful life do not obtain for any of us, i.e., that all our lives are meaningless (section 4).

1. The Meaning of “Meaning”

2.1. god-centered views, 2.2. soul-centered views, 3.1. subjectivism, 3.2. objectivism, 3.3. rejecting god and a soul, 4. nihilism, works cited, classic works, collections, books for the general reader, other internet resources, related entries.

One of the field's aims consists of the systematic attempt to identify what people (essentially or characteristically) have in mind when they think about the topic of life’s meaning. For many in the field, terms such as “importance” and “significance” are synonyms of “meaningfulness” and so are insufficiently revealing, but there are those who draw a distinction between meaningfulness and significance (Singer 1996, 112–18; Belliotti 2019, 145–50, 186). There is also debate about how the concept of a meaningless life relates to the ideas of a life that is absurd (Nagel 1970, 1986, 214–23; Feinberg 1980; Belliotti 2019), futile (Trisel 2002), and not worth living (Landau 2017, 12–15; Matheson 2017).

A useful way to begin to get clear about what thinking about life’s meaning involves is to specify the bearer. Which life does the inquirer have in mind? A standard distinction to draw is between the meaning “in” life, where a human person is what can exhibit meaning, and the meaning “of” life in a narrow sense, where the human species as a whole is what can be meaningful or not. There has also been a bit of recent consideration of whether animals or human infants can have meaning in their lives, with most rejecting that possibility (e.g., Wong 2008, 131, 147; Fischer 2019, 1–24), but a handful of others beginning to make a case for it (Purves and Delon 2018; Thomas 2018). Also under-explored is the issue of whether groups, such as a people or an organization, can be bearers of meaning, and, if so, under what conditions.

Most analytic philosophers have been interested in meaning in life, that is, in the meaningfulness that a person’s life could exhibit, with comparatively few these days addressing the meaning of life in the narrow sense. Even those who believe that God is or would be central to life’s meaning have lately addressed how an individual’s life might be meaningful in virtue of God more often than how the human race might be. Although some have argued that the meaningfulness of human life as such merits inquiry to no less a degree (if not more) than the meaning in a life (Seachris 2013; Tartaglia 2015; cf. Trisel 2016), a large majority of the field has instead been interested in whether their lives as individual persons (and the lives of those they care about) are meaningful and how they could become more so.

Focusing on meaning in life, it is quite common to maintain that it is conceptually something good for its own sake or, relatedly, something that provides a basic reason for action (on which see Visak 2017). There are a few who have recently suggested otherwise, maintaining that there can be neutral or even undesirable kinds of meaning in a person’s life (e.g., Mawson 2016, 90, 193; Thomas 2018, 291, 294). However, these are outliers, with most analytic philosophers, and presumably laypeople, instead wanting to know when an individual’s life exhibits a certain kind of final value (or non-instrumental reason for action).

Another claim about which there is substantial consensus is that meaningfulness is not all or nothing and instead comes in degrees, such that some periods of life are more meaningful than others and that some lives as a whole are more meaningful than others. Note that one can coherently hold the view that some people’s lives are less meaningful (or even in a certain sense less “important”) than others, or are even meaningless (unimportant), and still maintain that people have an equal standing from a moral point of view. Consider a consequentialist moral principle according to which each individual counts for one in virtue of having a capacity for a meaningful life, or a Kantian approach according to which all people have a dignity in virtue of their capacity for autonomous decision-making, where meaning is a function of the exercise of this capacity. For both moral outlooks, we could be required to help people with relatively meaningless lives.

Yet another relatively uncontroversial element of the concept of meaningfulness in respect of individual persons is that it is logically distinct from happiness or rightness (emphasized in Wolf 2010, 2016). First, to ask whether someone’s life is meaningful is not one and the same as asking whether her life is pleasant or she is subjectively well off. A life in an experience machine or virtual reality device would surely be a happy one, but very few take it to be a prima facie candidate for meaningfulness (Nozick 1974: 42–45). Indeed, a number would say that one’s life logically could become meaningful precisely by sacrificing one’s well-being, e.g., by helping others at the expense of one’s self-interest. Second, asking whether a person’s existence over time is meaningful is not identical to considering whether she has been morally upright; there are intuitively ways to enhance meaning that have nothing to do with right action or moral virtue, such as making a scientific discovery or becoming an excellent dancer. Now, one might argue that a life would be meaningless if, or even because, it were unhappy or immoral, but that would be to posit a synthetic, substantive relationship between the concepts, far from indicating that speaking of “meaningfulness” is analytically a matter of connoting ideas regarding happiness or rightness. The question of what (if anything) makes a person’s life meaningful is conceptually distinct from the questions of what makes a life happy or moral, although it could turn out that the best answer to the former question appeals to an answer to one of the latter questions.

Supposing, then, that talk of “meaning in life” connotes something good for its own sake that can come in degrees and that is not analytically equivalent to happiness or rightness, what else does it involve? What more can we say about this final value, by definition? Most contemporary analytic philosophers would say that the relevant value is absent from spending time in an experience machine (but see Goetz 2012 for a different view) or living akin to Sisyphus, the mythic figure doomed by the Greek gods to roll a stone up a hill for eternity (famously discussed by Albert Camus and Taylor 1970). In addition, many would say that the relevant value is typified by the classic triad of “the good, the true, and the beautiful” (or would be under certain conditions). These terms are not to be taken literally, but instead are rough catchwords for beneficent relationships (love, collegiality, morality), intellectual reflection (wisdom, education, discoveries), and creativity (particularly the arts, but also potentially things like humor or gardening).

Pressing further, is there something that the values of the good, the true, the beautiful, and any other logically possible sources of meaning involve? There is as yet no consensus in the field. One salient view is that the concept of meaning in life is a cluster or amalgam of overlapping ideas, such as fulfilling higher-order purposes, meriting substantial esteem or admiration, having a noteworthy impact, transcending one’s animal nature, making sense, or exhibiting a compelling life-story (Markus 2003; Thomson 2003; Metz 2013, 24–35; Seachris 2013, 3–4; Mawson 2016). However, there are philosophers who maintain that something much more monistic is true of the concept, so that (nearly) all thought about meaningfulness in a person’s life is essentially about a single property. Suggestions include being devoted to or in awe of qualitatively superior goods (Taylor 1989, 3–24), transcending one’s limits (Levy 2005), or making a contribution (Martela 2016).

Recently there has been something of an “interpretive turn” in the field, one instance of which is the strong view that meaning-talk is logically about whether and how a life is intelligible within a wider frame of reference (Goldman 2018, 116–29; Seachris 2019; Thomas 2019; cf. Repp 2018). According to this approach, inquiring into life’s meaning is nothing other than seeking out sense-making information, perhaps a narrative about life or an explanation of its source and destiny. This analysis has the advantage of promising to unify a wide array of uses of the term “meaning.” However, it has the disadvantages of being unable to capture the intuitions that meaning in life is essentially good for its own sake (Landau 2017, 12–15), that it is not logically contradictory to maintain that an ineffable condition is what confers meaning on life (as per Cooper 2003, 126–42; Bennett-Hunter 2014; Waghorn 2014), and that often human actions themselves (as distinct from an interpretation of them), such as rescuing a child from a burning building, are what bear meaning.

Some thinkers have suggested that a complete analysis of the concept of life’s meaning should include what has been called “anti-matter” (Metz 2002, 805–07, 2013, 63–65, 71–73) or “anti-meaning” (Campbell and Nyholm 2015; Egerstrom 2015), conditions that reduce the meaningfulness of a life. The thought is that meaning is well represented by a bipolar scale, where there is a dimension of not merely positive conditions, but also negative ones. Gratuitous cruelty or destructiveness are prima facie candidates for actions that not merely fail to add meaning, but also subtract from any meaning one’s life might have had.

Despite the ongoing debates about how to analyze the concept of life’s meaning (or articulate the definition of the phrase “meaning in life”), the field remains in a good position to make progress on the other key questions posed above, viz., of what would make a life meaningful and whether any lives are in fact meaningful. A certain amount of common ground is provided by the point that meaningfulness at least involves a gradient final value in a person’s life that is conceptually distinct from happiness and rightness, with exemplars of it potentially being the good, the true, and the beautiful. The rest of this discussion addresses philosophical attempts to capture the nature of this value theoretically and to ascertain whether it exists in at least some of our lives.

2. Supernaturalism

Most analytic philosophers writing on meaning in life have been trying to develop and evaluate theories, i.e., fundamental and general principles, that are meant to capture all the particular ways that a life could obtain meaning. As in moral philosophy, there are recognizable “anti-theorists,” i.e., those who maintain that there is too much pluralism among meaning conditions to be able to unify them in the form of a principle (e.g., Kekes 2000; Hosseini 2015). Arguably, though, the systematic search for unity is too nascent to be able to draw a firm conclusion about whether it is available.

The theories are standardly divided on a metaphysical basis, that is, in terms of which kinds of properties are held to constitute the meaning. Supernaturalist theories are views according to which a spiritual realm is central to meaning in life. Most Western philosophers have conceived of the spiritual in terms of God or a soul as commonly understood in the Abrahamic faiths (but see Mulgan 2015 for discussion of meaning in the context of a God uninterested in us). In contrast, naturalist theories are views that the physical world as known particularly well by the scientific method is central to life’s meaning.

There is logical space for a non-naturalist theory, according to which central to meaning is an abstract property that is neither spiritual nor physical. However, only scant attention has been paid to this possibility in the recent Anglo-American-Australasian literature (Audi 2005).

It is important to note that supernaturalism, a claim that God (or a soul) would confer meaning on a life, is logically distinct from theism, the claim that God (or a soul) exists. Although most who hold supernaturalism also hold theism, one could accept the former without the latter (as Camus more or less did), committing one to the view that life is meaningless or at least lacks substantial meaning. Similarly, while most naturalists are atheists, it is not contradictory to maintain that God exists but has nothing to do with meaning in life or perhaps even detracts from it. Although these combinations of positions are logically possible, some of them might be substantively implausible. The field could benefit from discussion of the comparative attractiveness of various combinations of evaluative claims about what would make life meaningful and metaphysical claims about whether spiritual conditions exist.

Over the past 15 years or so, two different types of supernaturalism have become distinguished on a regular basis (Metz 2019). That is true not only in the literature on life’s meaning, but also in that on the related pro-theism/anti-theism debate, about whether it would be desirable for God or a soul to exist (e.g., Kahane 2011; Kraay 2018; Lougheed 2020). On the one hand, there is extreme supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for any meaning in life. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life is meaningless. On the other hand, there is moderate supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for a great or ultimate meaning in life, although not meaning in life as such. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life could have some meaning, or even be meaningful, but no one’s life could exhibit the most desirable meaning. For a moderate supernaturalist, God or a soul would substantially enhance meaningfulness or be a major contributory condition for it.

There are a variety of ways that great or ultimate meaning has been described, sometimes quantitatively as “infinite” (Mawson 2016), qualitatively as “deeper” (Swinburne 2016), relationally as “unlimited” (Nozick 1981, 618–19; cf. Waghorn 2014), temporally as “eternal” (Cottingham 2016), and perspectivally as “from the point of view of the universe” (Benatar 2017). There has been no reflection as yet on the crucial question of how these distinctions might bear on each another, for instance, on whether some are more basic than others or some are more valuable than others.

Cross-cutting the extreme/moderate distinction is one between God-centered theories and soul-centered ones. According to the former, some kind of connection with God (understood to be a spiritual person who is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful and who is the ground of the physical universe) constitutes meaning in life, even if one lacks a soul (construed as an immortal, spiritual substance that contains one’s identity). In contrast, by the latter, having a soul and putting it into a certain state is what makes life meaningful, even if God does not exist. Many supernaturalists of course believe that God and a soul are jointly necessary for a (greatly) meaningful existence. However, the simpler view, that only one of them is necessary, is common, and sometimes arguments proffered for the complex view fail to support it any more than the simpler one.

The most influential God-based account of meaning in life has been the extreme view that one’s existence is significant if and only if one fulfills a purpose God has assigned. The familiar idea is that God has a plan for the universe and that one’s life is meaningful just to the degree that one helps God realize this plan, perhaps in a particular way that God wants one to do so. If a person failed to do what God intends her to do with her life (or if God does not even exist), then, on the current view, her life would be meaningless.

Thinkers differ over what it is about God’s purpose that might make it uniquely able to confer meaning on human lives, but the most influential argument has been that only God’s purpose could be the source of invariant moral rules (Davis 1987, 296, 304–05; Moreland 1987, 124–29; Craig 1994/2013, 161–67) or of objective values more generally (Cottingham 2005, 37–57), where a lack of such would render our lives nonsensical. According to this argument, lower goods such as animal pleasure or desire satisfaction could exist without God, but higher ones pertaining to meaning in life, particularly moral virtue, could not. However, critics point to many non-moral sources of meaning in life (e.g., Kekes 2000; Wolf 2010), with one arguing that a universal moral code is not necessary for meaning in life, even if, say, beneficent actions are (Ellin 1995, 327). In addition, there are a variety of naturalist and non-naturalist accounts of objective morality––and of value more generally––on offer these days, so that it is not clear that it must have a supernatural source in God’s will.

One recurrent objection to the idea that God’s purpose could make life meaningful is that if God had created us with a purpose in mind, then God would have degraded us and thereby undercut the possibility of us obtaining meaning from fulfilling the purpose. The objection harks back to Jean-Paul Sartre, but in the analytic literature it appears that Kurt Baier was the first to articulate it (1957/2000, 118–20; see also Murphy 1982, 14–15; Singer 1996, 29; Kahane 2011; Lougheed 2020, 121–41). Sometimes the concern is the threat of punishment God would make so that we do God’s bidding, while other times it is that the source of meaning would be constrictive and not up to us, and still other times it is that our dignity would be maligned simply by having been created with a certain end in mind (for some replies to such concerns, see Hanfling 1987, 45–46; Cottingham 2005, 37–57; Lougheed 2020, 111–21).

There is a different argument for an extreme God-based view that focuses less on God as purposive and more on God as infinite, unlimited, or ineffable, which Robert Nozick first articulated with care (Nozick 1981, 594–618; see also Bennett-Hunter 2014; Waghorn 2014). The core idea is that for a finite condition to be meaningful, it must obtain its meaning from another condition that has meaning. So, if one’s life is meaningful, it might be so in virtue of being married to a person, who is important. Being finite, the spouse must obtain his or her importance from elsewhere, perhaps from the sort of work he or she does. This work also must obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is meaningful, and so on. A regress on meaningful conditions is present, and the suggestion is that the regress can terminate only in something so all-encompassing that it need not (indeed, cannot) go beyond itself to obtain meaning from anything else. And that is God. The standard objection to this relational rationale is that a finite condition could be meaningful without obtaining its meaning from another meaningful condition. Perhaps it could be meaningful in itself, without being connected to something beyond it, or maybe it could obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is beautiful or otherwise valuable for its own sake but not meaningful (Nozick 1989, 167–68; Thomson 2003, 25–26, 48).

A serious concern for any extreme God-based view is the existence of apparent counterexamples. If we think of the stereotypical lives of Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, and Pablo Picasso, they seem meaningful even if we suppose there is no all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good spiritual person who is the ground of the physical world (e.g., Wielenberg 2005, 31–37, 49–50; Landau 2017). Even religiously inclined philosophers have found this hard to deny these days (Quinn 2000, 58; Audi 2005; Mawson 2016, 5; Williams 2020, 132–34).

Largely for that reason, contemporary supernaturalists have tended to opt for moderation, that is, to maintain that God would greatly enhance the meaning in our lives, even if some meaning would be possible in a world without God. One approach is to invoke the relational argument to show that God is necessary, not for any meaning whatsoever, but rather for an ultimate meaning. “Limited transcendence, the transcending of our limits so as to connect with a wider context of value which itself is limited, does give our lives meaning––but a limited one. We may thirst for more” (Nozick 1981, 618). Another angle is to appeal to playing a role in God’s plan, again to claim, not that it is essential for meaning as such, but rather for “a cosmic significance....intead of a significance very limited in time and space” (Swinburne 2016, 154; see also Quinn 2000; Cottingham 2016, 131). Another rationale is that by fulfilling God’s purpose, we would meaningfully please God, a perfect person, as well as be remembered favorably by God forever (Cottingham 2016, 135; Williams 2020, 21–22, 29, 101, 108). Still another argument is that only with God could the deepest desires of human nature be satisfied (e.g., Goetz 2012; Seachris 2013, 20; Cottingham 2016, 127, 136), even if more surface desires could be satisfied without God.

In reply to such rationales for a moderate supernaturalism, there has been the suggestion that it is precisely by virtue of being alone in the universe that our lives would be particularly significant; otherwise, God’s greatness would overshadow us (Kahane 2014). There has also been the response that, with the opportunity for greater meaning from God would also come that for greater anti-meaning, so that it is not clear that a world with God would offer a net gain in respect of meaning (Metz 2019, 34–35). For example, if pleasing God would greatly enhance meaning in our lives, then presumably displeasing God would greatly reduce it and to a comparable degree. In addition, there are arguments for extreme naturalism (or its “anti-theist” cousin) mentioned below (sub-section 3.3).

Notice that none of the above arguments for supernaturalism appeals to the prospect of eternal life (at least not explicitly). Arguments that do make such an appeal are soul-centered, holding that meaning in life mainly comes from having an immortal, spiritual substance that is contiguous with one’s body when it is alive and that will forever outlive its death. Some think of the afterlife in terms of one’s soul entering a transcendent, spiritual realm (Heaven), while others conceive of one’s soul getting reincarnated into another body on Earth. According to the extreme version, if one has a soul but fails to put it in the right state (or if one lacks a soul altogether), then one’s life is meaningless.

There are three prominent arguments for an extreme soul-based perspective. One argument, made famous by Leo Tolstoy, is the suggestion that for life to be meaningful something must be worth doing, that something is worth doing only if it will make a permanent difference to the world, and that making a permanent difference requires being immortal (see also Hanfling 1987, 22–24; Morris 1992, 26; Craig 1994). Critics most often appeal to counterexamples, suggesting for instance that it is surely worth your time and effort to help prevent people from suffering, even if you and they are mortal. Indeed, some have gone on the offensive and argued that helping people is worth the sacrifice only if and because they are mortal, for otherwise they could invariably be compensated in an afterlife (e.g., Wielenberg 2005, 91–94). Another recent and interesting criticism is that the major motivations for the claim that nothing matters now if one day it will end are incoherent (Greene 2021).

A second argument for the view that life would be meaningless without a soul is that it is necessary for justice to be done, which, in turn, is necessary for a meaningful life. Life seems nonsensical when the wicked flourish and the righteous suffer, at least supposing there is no other world in which these injustices will be rectified, whether by God or a Karmic force. Something like this argument can be found in Ecclesiastes, and it continues to be defended (e.g., Davis 1987; Craig 1994). However, even granting that an afterlife is required for perfectly just outcomes, it is far from obvious that an eternal afterlife is necessary for them, and, then, there is the suggestion that some lives, such as Mandela’s, have been meaningful precisely in virtue of encountering injustice and fighting it.

A third argument for thinking that having a soul is essential for any meaning is that it is required to have the sort of free will without which our lives would be meaningless. Immanuel Kant is known for having maintained that if we were merely physical beings, subjected to the laws of nature like everything else in the material world, then we could not act for moral reasons and hence would be unimportant. More recently, one theologian has eloquently put the point in religious terms: “The moral spirit finds the meaning of life in choice. It finds it in that which proceeds from man and remains with him as his inner essence rather than in the accidents of circumstances turns of external fortune....(W)henever a human being rubs the lamp of his moral conscience, a Spirit does appear. This Spirit is God....It is in the ‘Thou must’ of God and man’s ‘I can’ that the divine image of God in human life is contained” (Swenson 1949/2000, 27–28). Notice that, even if moral norms did not spring from God’s commands, the logic of the argument entails that one’s life could be meaningful, so long as one had the inherent ability to make the morally correct choice in any situation. That, in turn, arguably requires something non-physical about one’s self, so as to be able to overcome whichever physical laws and forces one might confront. The standard objection to this reasoning is to advance a compatibilism about having a determined physical nature and being able to act for moral reasons (e.g., Arpaly 2006; Fischer 2009, 145–77). It is also worth wondering whether, if one had to have a spiritual essence in order to make free choices, it would have to be one that never perished.

Like God-centered theorists, many soul-centered theorists these days advance a moderate view, accepting that some meaning in life would be possible without immortality, but arguing that a much greater meaning would be possible with it. Granting that Einstein, Mandela, and Picasso had somewhat meaningful lives despite not having survived the deaths of their bodies (as per, e.g., Trisel 2004; Wolf 2015, 89–140; Landau 2017), there remains a powerful thought: more is better. If a finite life with the good, the true, and the beautiful has meaning in it to some degree, then surely it would have all the more meaning if it exhibited such higher values––including a relationship with God––for an eternity (Cottingham 2016, 132–35; Mawson 2016, 2019, 52–53; Williams 2020, 112–34; cf. Benatar 2017, 35–63). One objection to this reasoning is that the infinity of meaning that would be possible with a soul would be “too big,” rendering it difficult for the moderate supernaturalist to make sense of the intution that a finite life such as Einstein’s can indeed count as meaningful by comparison (Metz 2019, 30–31; cf. Mawson 2019, 53–54). More common, though, is the objection that an eternal life would include anti-meaning of various kinds, such as boredom and repetition, discussed below in the context of extreme naturalism (sub-section 3.3).

3. Naturalism

Recall that naturalism is the view that a physical life is central to life’s meaning, that even if there is no spiritual realm, a substantially meaningful life is possible. Like supernaturalism, contemporary naturalism admits of two distinguishable variants, moderate and extreme (Metz 2019). The moderate version is that, while a genuinely meaningful life could be had in a purely physical universe as known well by science, a somewhat more meaningful life would be possible if a spiritual realm also existed. God or a soul could enhance meaning in life, although they would not be major contributors. The extreme version of naturalism is the view that it would be better in respect of life’s meaning if there were no spiritual realm. From this perspective, God or a soul would be anti-matter, i.e., would detract from the meaning available to us, making a purely physical world (even if not this particular one) preferable.

Cross-cutting the moderate/extreme distinction is that between subjectivism and objectivism, which are theoretical accounts of the nature of meaningfulness insofar as it is physical. They differ in terms of the extent to which the human mind constitutes meaning and whether there are conditions of meaning that are invariant among human beings. Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i.e., depends on an individual’s pro-attitudes such as her particular desires or ends, which are not shared by everyone. Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she strongly wants it or intends to seek it out and she gets it. Objectivists maintain, in contrast, that there are some invariant standards for meaning because meaning is at least partly mind-independent, i.e., obtains not merely in virtue of being the object of anyone’s mental states. Here, something is meaningful (partially) because of its intrinsic nature, in the sense of being independent of whether it is wanted or intended; meaning is instead (to some extent) the sort of thing that merits these reactions.

There is logical space for an orthogonal view, according to which there are invariant standards of meaningfulness constituted by what all human beings would converge on from a certain standpoint. However, it has not been much of a player in the field (Darwall 1983, 164–66).

According to this version of naturalism, meaning in life varies from person to person, depending on each one’s variable pro-attitudes. Common instances are views that one’s life is more meaningful, the more one gets what one happens to want strongly, achieves one’s highly ranked goals, or does what one believes to be really important (Trisel 2002; Hooker 2008). One influential subjectivist has recently maintained that the relevant mental state is caring or loving, so that life is meaningful just to the extent that one cares about or loves something (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94, 2004). Another recent proposal is that meaningfulness consists of “an active engagement and affirmation that vivifies the person who has freely created or accepted and now promotes and nurtures the projects of her highest concern” (Belliotti 2019, 183).

Subjectivism was dominant in the middle of the twentieth century, when positivism, noncognitivism, existentialism, and Humeanism were influential (Ayer 1947; Hare 1957; Barnes 1967; Taylor 1970; Williams 1976). However, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, inference to the best explanation and reflective equilibrium became accepted forms of normative argumentation and were frequently used to defend claims about the existence and nature of objective value (or of “external reasons,” ones obtaining independently of one’s extant attitudes). As a result, subjectivism about meaning lost its dominance. Those who continue to hold subjectivism often remain suspicious of attempts to justify beliefs about objective value (e.g., Trisel 2002, 73, 79, 2004, 378–79; Frankfurt 2004, 47–48, 55–57; Wong 2008, 138–39; Evers 2017, 32, 36; Svensson 2017, 54). Theorists are moved to accept subjectivism typically because the alternatives are unpalatable; they are reasonably sure that meaning in life obtains for some people, but do not see how it could be grounded on something independent of the mind, whether it be the natural or the supernatural (or the non-natural). In contrast to these possibilities, it appears straightforward to account for what is meaningful in terms of what people find meaningful or what people want out of their lives. Wide-ranging meta-ethical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language are necessary to address this rationale for subjectivism.

There is a cluster of other, more circumscribed arguments for subjectivism, according to which this theory best explains certain intuitive features of meaning in life. For one, subjectivism seems plausible since it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life is an authentic one (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94). If a person’s life is significant insofar as she is true to herself or her deepest nature, then we have some reason to believe that meaning simply is a function of those matters for which the person cares. For another, it is uncontroversial that often meaning comes from losing oneself, i.e., in becoming absorbed in an activity or experience, as opposed to being bored by it or finding it frustrating (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94; Belliotti 2019, 162–70). Work that concentrates the mind and relationships that are engrossing seem central to meaning and to be so because of the subjective elements involved. For a third, meaning is often taken to be something that makes life worth continuing for a specific person, i.e., that gives her a reason to get out of bed in the morning, which subjectivism is thought to account for best (Williams 1976; Svensson 2017; Calhoun 2018).

Critics maintain that these arguments are vulnerable to a common objection: they neglect the role of objective value (or an external reason) in realizing oneself, losing oneself, and having a reason to live (Taylor 1989, 1992; Wolf 2010, 2015, 89–140). One is not really being true to oneself, losing oneself in a meaningful way, or having a genuine reason to live insofar as one, say, successfully maintains 3,732 hairs on one’s head (Taylor 1992, 36), cultivates one’s prowess at long-distance spitting (Wolf 2010, 104), collects a big ball of string (Wolf 2010, 104), or, well, eats one’s own excrement (Wielenberg 2005, 22). The counterexamples suggest that subjective conditions are insufficient to ground meaning in life; there seem to be certain actions, relationships, and states that are objectively valuable (but see Evers 2017, 30–32) and toward which one’s pro-attitudes ought to be oriented, if meaning is to accrue.

So say objectivists, but subjectivists feel the pull of the point and usually seek to avoid the counterexamples, lest they have to bite the bullet by accepting the meaningfulness of maintaining 3,732 hairs on one’s head and all the rest (for some who do, see Svensson 2017, 54–55; Belliotti 2019, 181–83). One important strategy is to suggest that subjectivists can avoid the counterexamples by appealing to the right sort of pro-attitude. Instead of whatever an individual happens to want, perhaps the relevant mental state is an emotional-perceptual one of seeing-as (Alexis 2011; cf. Hosseini 2015, 47–66), a “categorical” desire, that is, an intrinsic desire constitutive of one’s identity that one takes to make life worth continuing (Svensson 2017), or a judgment that one has a good reason to value something highly for its own sake (Calhoun 2018). Even here, though, objectivists will argue that it might “appear that whatever the will chooses to treat as a good reason to engage itself is, for the will, a good reason. But the will itself....craves objective reasons; and often it could not go forward unless it thought it had them” (Wiggins 1988, 136). And without any appeal to objectivity, it is perhaps likely that counterexamples would resurface.

Another subjectivist strategy by which to deal with the counterexamples is the attempt to ground meaningfulness, not on the pro-attitudes of an individual valuer, but on those of a group (Darwall 1983, 164–66; Brogaard and Smith 2005; Wong 2008). Does such an intersubjective move avoid (more of) the counterexamples? If so, does it do so more plausibly than an objective theory?

Objective naturalists believe that meaning in life is constituted at least in part by something physical beyond merely the fact that it is the object of a pro-attitude. Obtaining the object of some emotion, desire, or judgment is not sufficient for meaningfulness, on this view. Instead, there are certain conditions of the material world that could confer meaning on anyone’s life, not merely because they are viewed as meaningful, wanted for their own sake, or believed to be choiceworthy, but instead (at least partially) because they are inherently worthwhile or valuable in themselves.

Morality (the good), enquiry (the true), and creativity (the beautiful) are widely held instances of activities that confer meaning on life, while trimming toenails and eating snow––along with the counterexamples to subjectivism above––are not. Objectivism is widely thought to be a powerful general explanation of these particular judgments: the former are meaningful not merely because some agent (whether it is an individual, her society, or even God) cares about them or judges them to be worth doing, while the latter simply lack significance and cannot obtain it even if some agent does care about them or judge them to be worth doing. From an objective perspective, it is possible for an individual to care about the wrong thing or to be mistaken that something is worthwhile, and not merely because of something she cares about all the more or judges to be still more choiceworthy. Of course, meta-ethical debates about the existence and nature of value are again relevant to appraising this rationale.

Some objectivists think that being the object of a person’s mental states plays no constitutive role in making that person’s life meaningful, although they of course contend that it often plays an instrumental role––liking a certain activity, after all, is likely to motivate one to do it. Relatively few objectivists are “pure” in that way, although consequentialists do stand out as clear instances (e.g., Singer 1995; Smuts 2018, 75–99). Most objectivists instead try to account for the above intuitions driving subjectivism by holding that a life is more meaningful, not merely because of objective factors, but also in part because of propositional attitudes such as cognition, conation, and emotion. Particularly influential has been Susan Wolf’s hybrid view, captured by this pithy slogan: “Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 2015, 112; see also Kekes 1986, 2000; Wiggins 1988; Raz 2001, 10–40; Mintoff 2008; Wolf 2010, 2016; Fischer 2019, 9–23; Belshaw 2021, 160–81). This theory implies that no meaning accrues to one’s life if one believes in, is satisfied by, or cares about a project that is not truly worthwhile, or if one takes up a truly worthwhile project but fails to judge it important, be satisfied by it, or care about it. A related approach is that, while subjective attraction is not necessary for meaning, it could enhance it (e.g., Audi 2005, 344; Metz 2013, 183–84, 196–98, 220–25). For instance, a stereotypical Mother Teresa who is bored by and alienated from her substantial charity work might have a somewhat significant existence because of it, even if she would have an even more significant existence if she felt pride in it or identified with it.

There have been several attempts to capture theoretically what all objectively attractive, inherently worthwhile, or finally valuable conditions have in common insofar as they bear on meaning in a person’s life. Over the past few decades, one encounters the proposals that objectively meaningful conditions are just those that involve: positively connecting with organic unity beyond oneself (Nozick 1981, 594–619); being creative (Taylor 1987; Matheson 2018); living an emotional life (Solomon 1993; cf. Williams 2020, 56–78); promoting good consequences, such as improving the quality of life of oneself and others (Singer 1995; Audi 2005; Smuts 2018, 75–99); exercising or fostering rational nature in exceptional ways (Smith 1997, 179–221; Gewirth 1998, 177–82; Metz 2013, 222–36); progressing toward ends that can never be fully realized because one’s knowledge of them changes as one approaches them (Levy 2005); realizing goals that are transcendent for being long-lasting in duration and broad in scope (Mintoff 2008); living virtuously (May 2015, 61–138; McPherson 2020); and loving what is worth loving (Wolf 2016). There is as yet no convergence in the field on one, or even a small cluster, of these accounts.

One feature of a large majority of the above naturalist theories is that they are aggregative or additive, objectionably treating a life as a mere “container” of bits of life that are meaningful considered in isolation from other bits (Brännmark 2003, 330). It has become increasingly common for philosophers of life’s meaning, especially objectivists, to hold that life as a whole, or at least long stretches of it, can substantially affect its meaningfulness beyond the amount of meaning (if any) in its parts.

For instance, a life that has lots of beneficence and otherwise intuitively meaning-conferring conditions but that is also extremely repetitive (à la the movie Groundhog Day ) is less than maximally meaningful (Taylor 1987; Blumenfeld 2009). Furthermore, a life that not only avoids repetition but also ends with a substantial amount of meaningful (or otherwise desirable) parts seems to have more meaning overall than one that has the same amount of meaningful (desirable) parts but ends with few or none of them (Kamm 2013, 18–22; Dorsey 2015). Still more, a life in which its meaningless (or otherwise undesirable parts) cause its meaningful (desirable) parts to come about through a process of personal growth seems meaningful in virtue of this redemptive pattern, “good life-story,” or narrative self-expression (Taylor 1989, 48–51; Wong 2008; Fischer 2009, 145–77; Kauppinen 2012; May 2015, 61–138; Velleman 2015, 141–73). These three cases suggest that meaning can inhere in life as a whole, that is, in the relationships between its parts, and not merely in the parts considered in isolation. However, some would maintain that it is, strictly speaking, the story that is or could be told of a life that matters, not so much the life-story qua relations between events themselves (de Bres 2018).

There are pure or extreme versions of holism present in the literature, according to which the only possible bearer of meaning in life is a person’s life as a whole, and not any isolated activities, relationships, or states (Taylor 1989, 48–51; Tabensky 2003; Levinson 2004). A salient argument for this position is that judgments of the meaningfulness of a part of someone’s life are merely provisional, open to revision upon considering how they fit into a wider perspective. So, for example, it would initially appear that taking an ax away from a madman and thereby protecting innocent parties confers some meaning on one’s life, but one might well revise that judgment upon learning that the intention behind it was merely to steal an ax, not to save lives, or that the madman then took out a machine gun, causing much more harm than his ax would have. It is worth considering how far this sort of case is generalizable, and, if it can be to a substantial extent, whether that provides strong evidence that only life as a whole can exhibit meaningfulness.

Perhaps most objectivists would, at least upon reflection, accept that both the parts of a life and the whole-life relationships among the parts can exhibit meaning. Supposing there are two bearers of meaning in a life, important questions arise. One is whether a certain narrative can be meaningful even if its parts are not, while a second is whether the meaningfulness of a part increases if it is an aspect of a meaningful whole (on which see Brännmark 2003), and a third is whether there is anything revealing to say about how to make tradeoffs between the parts and whole in cases where one must choose between them (Blumenfeld 2009 appears to assign lexical priority to the whole).

Naturalists until recently had been largely concerned to show that meaning in life is possible without God or a soul; they have not spent much time considering how such spiritual conditions might enhance meaning, but have, in moderate fashion, tended to leave that possibility open (an exception is Hooker 2008). Lately, however, an extreme form of naturalism has arisen, according to which our lives would probably, if not unavoidably, have less meaning in a world with God or a soul than in one without. Although such an approach was voiced early on by Baier (1957), it is really in the past decade or so that this “anti-theist” position has become widely and intricately discussed.

One rationale, mentioned above as an objection to the view that God’s purpose constitutes meaning in life, has also been deployed to argue that the existence of God as such would necessarily reduce meaning, that is, would consist of anti-matter. It is the idea that master/servant and parent/child analogies so prominent in the monotheist religious traditions reveal something about our status in a world where there is a qualitatively higher being who has created us with certain ends in mind: our independence or dignity as adult persons would be violated (e.g., Baier 1957/2000, 118–20; Kahane 2011, 681–85; Lougheed 2020, 121–41). One interesting objection to this reasoning has been to accept that God’s existence is necessarily incompatible with the sort of meaning that would come (roughly stated) from being one’s own boss, but to argue that God would also make greater sorts of meaning available, offering a net gain to us (Mawson 2016, 110–58).

Another salient argument for thinking that God would detract from meaning in life appeals to the value of privacy (Kahane 2011, 681–85; Lougheed 2020, 55–110). God’s omniscience would unavoidably make it impossible for us to control another person’s access to the most intimate details about ourselves, which, for some, amounts to a less meaningful life than one with such control. Beyond questioning the value of our privacy in relation to God, one thought-provoking criticism has been to suggest that, if a lack of privacy really would substantially reduce meaning in our lives, then God, qua morally perfect person, would simply avoid knowing everything about us (Tooley 2018). Lacking complete knowledge of our mental states would be compatible with describing God as “omniscient,” so the criticism goes, insofar as that is plausibly understood as having as much knowledge as is morally permissible.

Turn, now, to major arguments for thinking that having a soul would reduce life’s meaning, so that if one wants a maximally meaningful life, one should prefer a purely physical world, or at least one in which people are mortal. First and foremost, there has been the argument that an immortal life could not avoid becoming boring (Williams 1973), rendering life pointless according to many subjective and objective theories. The literature on this topic has become enormous, with the central reply being that immortality need not get boring (for more recent discussions, see Fischer 2009, 79–101, 2019, 117–42; Mawson 2019, 51–52; Williams 2020, 30–41, 123–29; Belshaw 2021, 182–97). However, it might also be worth questioning whether boredom is sufficient for meaninglessness. Suppose, for instance, that one volunteers to be bored so that many others will not be bored; perhaps this would be a meaningful sacrifice to make. Being bored for an eternity would not be blissful or even satisfying, to be sure, but if it served the function of preventing others from being bored for an eternity, would it be meaningful (at least to some degree)? If, as is commonly held, sacrificing one’s life could be meaningful, why not also sacrificing one’s liveliness?

Another reason given to reject eternal life is that it would become repetitive, which would substantially drain it of meaning (Scarre 2007, 54–55; May 2009, 46–47, 64–65, 71; Smuts 2011, 142–44; cf. Blumenfeld 2009). If, as it appears, there are only a finite number of actions one could perform, relationships one could have, and states one could be in during an eternity, one would have to end up doing the same things again. Even though one’s activities might be more valuable than rolling a stone up a hill forever à la Sisyphus, the prospect of doing them over and over again forever is disheartening for many. To be sure, one might not remember having done them before and hence could avoid boredom, but for some philosophers that would make it all the worse, akin to having dementia and forgetting that one has told the same stories. Others, however, still find meaning in such a life (e.g., Belshaw 2021, 197, 205n41).

A third meaning-based argument against immortality invokes considerations of narrative. If the pattern of one’s life as a whole substantially matters, and if a proper pattern would include a beginning, a middle, and an end, it appears that a life that never ends would lack the relevant narrative structure. “Because it would drag on endlessly, it would, sooner or later, just be a string of events lacking all form....With immortality, the novel never ends....How meaningful can such a novel be?” (May 2009, 68, 72; see also Scarre 2007, 58–60). Notice that this objection is distinct from considerations of boredom and repetition (which concern novelty ); even if one were stimulated and active, and even if one found a way not to repeat one’s life in the course of eternity, an immortal life would appear to lack shape. In reply, some reject the idea that a meaningful life must be akin to a novel, and intead opt for narrativity in the form of something like a string of short stories that build on each other (Fischer 2009, 145–77, 2019, 101–16). Others, though, have sought to show that eternity could still be novel-like, deeming the sort of ending that matters to be a function of what the content is and how it relates to the content that came before (e.g., Seachris 2011; Williams 2020, 112–19).

There have been additional objections to immortality as undercutting meaningfulness, but they are prima facie less powerful than the previous three in that, if sound, they arguably show that an eternal life would have a cost, but probably not one that would utterly occlude the prospect of meaning in it. For example, there have been the suggestions that eternal lives would lack a sense of preciousness and urgency (Nussbaum 1989, 339; Kass 2002, 266–67), could not exemplify virtues such as courageously risking one’s life for others (Kass 2002, 267–68; Wielenberg 2005, 91–94), and could not obtain meaning from sustaining or saving others’ lives (Nussbaum 1989, 338; Wielenberg 2005, 91–94). Note that at least the first two rationales turn substantially on the belief in immortality, not quite immortality itself: if one were immortal but forgot that one is or did not know that at all, then one could appreciate life and obtain much of the virtue of courage (and, conversely, if one were not immortal, but thought that one is, then, by the logic of these arguments, one would fail to appreciate limits and be unable to exemplify courage).

The previous two sections addressed theoretical accounts of what would confer meaning on a human person’s life. Although these theories do not imply that some people’s lives are in fact meaningful, that has been the presumption of a very large majority of those who have advanced them. Much of the procedure has been to suppose that many lives have had meaning in them and then to consider in virtue of what they have or otherwise could. However, there are nihilist (or pessimist) perspectives that question this supposition. According to nihilism (pessimism), what would make a life meaningful in principle cannot obtain for any of us.

One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of extreme supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether a spiritual realm exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither is real, then you are committed to nihilism, to the denial that life can have any meaning. Athough this rationale for nihilism was prominent in the modern era (and was more or less Camus’ position), it has been on the wane in analytic philosophical circles, as extreme supernaturalism has been eclipsed by the moderate variety.

The most common rationales for nihilism these days do not appeal to supernaturalism, or at least not explicitly. One cluster of ideas appeals to what meta-ethicists call “error theory,” the view that evaluative claims (in this case about meaning in life, or about morality qua necessary for meaning) characteristically posit objectively real or universally justified values, but that such values do not exist. According to one version, value judgments often analytically include a claim to objectivity but there is no reason to think that objective values exist, as they “would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe” (Mackie 1977/1990, 38). According to a second version, life would be meaningless if there were no set of moral standards that could be fully justified to all rational enquirers, but it so happens that such standards cannot exist for persons who can always reasonably question a given claim (Murphy 1982, 12–17). According to a third, we hold certain beliefs about the objectivity and universality of morality and related values such as meaning because they were evolutionarily advantageous to our ancestors, not because they are true. Humans have been “deceived by their genes into thinking that there is a distinterested, objective morality binding upon them, which all should obey” (Ruse and Wilson 1986, 179; cf. Street 2015). One must draw on the intricate work in meta-ethics that has been underway for the past several decades in order to appraise these arguments.

In contrast to error-theoretic arguments for nihilism, there are rationales for it accepting that objective values exist but denying that our lives can ever exhibit or promote them so as to obtain meaning. One version of this approach maintains that, for our lives to matter, we must be in a position to add objective value to the world, which we are not since the objective value of the world is already infinite (Smith 2003). The key premises for this view are that every bit of space-time (or at least the stars in the physical universe) have some positive value, that these values can be added up, and that space is infinite. If the physical world at present contains an infinite degree of value, nothing we do can make a difference in terms of meaning, for infinity plus any amount of value remains infinity. One way to question this argument, beyond doubting the value of space-time or stars, is to suggest that, even if one cannot add to the value of the universe, meaning plausibly comes from being the source of certain values.

A second rationale for nihilism that accepts the existence of objective value is David Benatar’s (2006, 18–59) intriguing “asymmetry argument” for anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would always be on balance bad for them. For Benatar, the bads of existing (e.g., pains) are real disadvantages relative to not existing, while the goods of existing (pleasures) are not real advantages relative to not existing, since there is in the latter state no one to be deprived of them. If indeed the state of not existing is no worse than that of experiencing the benefits of existence, then, since existing invariably brings harm in its wake, it follows that existing is always worse compared to not existing. Although this argument is illustrated with experiential goods and bads, it seems generalizable to non-experiential ones, including meaning in life and anti-matter. The literature on this argument has become large (for a recent collection, see Hauskeller and Hallich 2022).

Benatar (2006, 60–92, 2017, 35–63) has advanced an additional argument for nihilism, one that appeals to Thomas Nagel’s (1986, 208–32) widely discussed analysis of the extremely external standpoint that human persons can take on their lives. There exists, to use Henry Sidgwick’s influential phrase, the “point of view of the universe,” that is, the standpoint that considers a human being’s life in relation to all times and all places. When one takes up this most external standpoint and views one’s puny impact on the world, little of one’s life appears to matter. What one does in a certain society on Earth over 75 years or so just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of temporal years and billions of light-years that make up space-time. Although this reasoning grants limited kinds of meaning to human beings, from a personal, social, or human perspective, Benatar both denies that the greatest sort of meaning––a cosmic one––is available to them and contends that this makes their lives bad, hence the “nihilist” tag. Some have objected that our lives could in fact have a cosmic significance, say, if they played a role in God’s plan (Quinn 2000, 65–66; Swinburne 2016, 154), were the sole ones with a dignity in the universe (Kahane 2014), or engaged in valuable activities that could be appreciated by anyone anywhere anytime (Wolf 2016, 261–62). Others naturally maintain that cosmic significance is irrelevant to appraising a human life, with some denying that it would be a genuine source of meaning (Landau 2017, 93–99), and others accepting that it would be but maintaining that the absence of this good would not count as a bad or merit regret (discussed in Benatar 2017, 56–62; Williams 2020, 108–11).

Finally, a distinguishable source of nihilism concerns the ontological, as distinct from axiological, preconditions for meaning in life. Perhaps most radically, there are those who deny that we have selves. Do we indeed lack selves, and, if we do, is a meaningful life impossible for us (see essays in Caruso and Flanagan 2018; Le Bihan 2019)? Somewhat less radically, there are those who grant that we have selves, but deny that they are in charge in the relevant way. That is, some have argued that we lack self-governance or free will of the sort that is essential for meaning in life, at least if determinism is true (Pisciotta 2013; essays in Caruso and Flanagan 2018). Non-quantum events, including human decisions, appear to be necessited by a prior state of the world, such that none could have been otherwise, and many of our decisions are a product of unconscious neurological mechanisms (while quantum events are of course utterly beyond our control). If none of our conscious choices could have been avoided and all were ultimately necessited by something external to them, perhaps they are insufficient to merit pride or admiration or to constitute narrative authorship of a life. In reply, some maintain that a compatibilism between determinism and moral responsibility applies with comparable force to meaning in life (e.g., Arpaly 2006; Fischer 2009, 145–77), while others contend that incompatibilism is true of moral responsibility but not of meaning (Pereboom 2014).

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Delon, N., 2021, “ The Meaning of Life ”, a bibliography on PhilPapers.
• Metz, T., 2021, “ Life, Meaning of ”, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , E. Mason (ed.).
• O’Brien, W., 2021, “ The Meaning of Life: Early Continental and Analytic Perspectives ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.).
• Seachris, J., 2021, “ Meaning of Life: The Analytic Perspective ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.).

afterlife | death | ethics: ancient | existentialism | friendship | love | perfectionism, in moral and political philosophy | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic | well-being

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How to live ‘the good life’.

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Friendships matter.

Is there a secret to living a better and happier life?

In The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness , Robert Waldinger, M.D., and Marc Schultz, Ph.D., co-directors of the Harvard Adult Development study, write, “Positive relationships are essential to human well-being.” This finding, drawn from the Harvard Adult Development Study, which began in the late 1930s, echoes something we humans have known for millennials. The authors quote Lao Tzu, who wrote 2400 years ago, “The more you give to others, the greater your abundance.”

Building Relationships

Relationships, according to Waldinger, are not merely external. “If you think about it, you carry around many people you care about inside you all day long. You can call up a warm image of a friend or a loved one. And so in that sense, we carry them around. You carry around a warm image of somebody who may have passed away a long time ago. So it’s often useful to think about how we carry people with us as we go through the world.”

Fostering good relations with others can depend upon what the authors call "the power of generosity.”

In our recent interview , Waldinger said, “Research tells us that when we are generous, we feel better and happier. We feel like our lives are more meaningful. So when we help people, we take care of ourselves… We know that being generous makes us feel like our lives are better.”

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One practical element, among many, in the book is the W.I.S.E.R. model (Watch. Interpret. Select. Engage. Reflect). “Wiser model is really just a way of slowing things down when you have a challenging interaction, particularly with another person.” As the authors write, imagine you receive an email from your boss at 5 p.m. saying he wants to meet you at 9 a.m. The intent of the email is ambiguous. “And the problem with our wonderful minds doing that is that we can often create a story that isn’t true when we get this kind of challenging stimulus from somebody else.”

Waldinger says, “Don’t jump to conclusions, don’t reply right away if you don’t have to. But just think, okay, what might be going on? What am I assuming and what do I actually know for a fact?”

“When you receive an angry email or an angry text and you want to reply right away with something, and that’s the time to stop and slow down,” Waldinger says. “Take a moment, take a breath, or count backwards from five back to zero. Just anything to interrupt the swirl of thoughts. Think about it.”

Addressing Loneliness

Loneliness is an epidemic in our country, and according to the U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, it is a health issue. In a health advisory issued by his office in 2023, Murthy wrote that beyond health hazards such as cardiovascular disease and dementia, “the harmful consequences of a society that lacks social connection can be felt in our schools, workplaces, and civic organizations, where performance, productivity, and engagement are diminished.”

Fostering a sense of belonging is an essential antidote to loneliness. Human resource professionals need to address this issue more seriously in the workplace. Leaders must show the way by “being interested in other people’s lives, curiosity about your colleagues and your workers. It means modeling vulnerability and not knowing. It means modeling, learning to get help from other people, all that as part of enhancing relationships with other people.”

Valuing Others

Good relationships are essential to a life well-lived. We must find ways to connect that benefit others and, in turn, ourselves. It is important to be open to possibility of deep connection. It’s good for you and your life. The authors write in their concluding chapter that it is essential to realize that “the good life is not a destination. It is the path itself, and the people who are walking it with you.”

“Keep reaching out to people, email people, text people regularly saying, just thinking about you, wanting to say hi or checking in about how they’re doing,” Waldinger says. “For the people who are really important, make regular dates with them. Make sure that you have a once a month lunch with that friend who you don’t want to lose touch with no matter what.” Recognize their contributions to you and let them know it.

Note: Here is my full LinkedIn Live interview with Robert Waldinger.

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