jojosue
Member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
- Messages
- 27
This topic can be very complicated and you can get many different answers depending on who you ask. For the most part, I think everyone has a general idea on how they want to live their lives. In philosophy, we always try to ask questions and think critically on many subjects, this includes the way we live our lives. Although no one can really tell you how to live your life, I think we all try to do our best to live our lives the way we want. However, I do think it’s worthwhile to think critically of one's own life because it can lead you to discover more about yourself, it can clarify what you find to be important in life, and can help you solidify the reasons for why you do the things you do. Just as the Greek philosopher Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
This question of how to live a good life has been in the minds of philosophers since the beginning of philosophy really, so there are many different theories that try to answer this question: Kantianism, Utilitarianism, Hedonism, Virtue Theory, Existentialism, etc. I would highly recommend watching this video since it does a good job explaining the question being asked and introduces many ideas/ theories related to this question.
I was going to go over and explain some of these theories here but there’s just too much to go over and I would probably not do a great job going through all that information. Instead what I decided to do is to open the question up to all of you:
1) What does your 'ideal life' look like? For instance, one person might think that travelling the world and having adventures is the best kind of life, while another is content to settle down in a small peaceful town. Some strive to own many beautiful or useful possessions, while others aren't much interested in material things. Is pleasure, health, beauty, authenticity, morality, social activism, or peace of mind part of the good life? If so, what do these things mean to you?
2) Do you determine the value of your own life, or are other people better judges of whether you've lived a good life? In other words, can you be wrong about whether you've led a good life?
(These questions were taken from the philosophy club I'm in)
This question of how to live a good life has been in the minds of philosophers since the beginning of philosophy really, so there are many different theories that try to answer this question: Kantianism, Utilitarianism, Hedonism, Virtue Theory, Existentialism, etc. I would highly recommend watching this video since it does a good job explaining the question being asked and introduces many ideas/ theories related to this question.
1) What does your 'ideal life' look like? For instance, one person might think that travelling the world and having adventures is the best kind of life, while another is content to settle down in a small peaceful town. Some strive to own many beautiful or useful possessions, while others aren't much interested in material things. Is pleasure, health, beauty, authenticity, morality, social activism, or peace of mind part of the good life? If so, what do these things mean to you?
2) Do you determine the value of your own life, or are other people better judges of whether you've lived a good life? In other words, can you be wrong about whether you've led a good life?
(These questions were taken from the philosophy club I'm in)
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