Philosophers Exploring The Good Life

Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.

- Jim Mepham

I have attended a number of funerals recently and it has got me thinking. Imagine after you’ve died, your loved ones are sitting around, reminiscing about your life. What might they be saying about you? How will you be remembered? Did you have a good life? Well, how would they know? And what constitutes a good life, anyway?

The first thing to consider about what makes a life ‘good’, is whether the value of a life is determined by the liver of that life or by others. Suppose that your last thought before you died was that you had had an excellent life, but when your loved ones sit around and discuss you, they all decide that your life was awful. Is that possible? Could they be right about your life, and you be wrong? Or what if everyone else thinks your life was amazing, but you die miserable, feeling that your life was a total waste? Who would be right? And which of these two options would you prefer, anyway?

Ethics involve asking these deep questions about values. Other ethical questions include: Are you living the way you think you should? Are you working toward goals you actually care about? How important are these things to you? Right now, the choices you make about the way you spend your time are shaping the type of life you’ll live.

For the ancient Greek father of Western ethics, Socrates, ‘‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’’ For him, our life’s work (his idea of a good life) is to question one’s thinking rationally, and so to ‘know thyself’ through a relentless spirit of philosophical enquiry and dialogue with others.