39. The good life

Morality is, or should be, subordinate to ethics, to what the good life is. What is happiness? It is customary to classify ethics into three kinds: virtue ethics (e.g. Plato and Aristotle), consequentialist ethics concerning the effects of actions, such as utility, and deontology or duty ethics (e.g. Kant).

My preference is for virtue ethics, following Aristotle. Virtues have no other goals than themselves, forming a broad notion of happiness. One can enjoy virtue, though that is not its purpose. There is no universal moral duty rooted in absolute, transcendent reality, as with Christianity, or in rationality, as with Kant. Happiness is not only a feeling or psychological state but lies especially in action. Deeds not only have an extrinsic, instrumental value but also intrinsic value.

There is no overarching measure, no guaranteed commensurability, of what is good; not all good things can be reduced to a single measure such as pleasure or utility. One cannot add up happiness in love, attending a concert, sympathy for others, etc.

Overarching virtues for Aristotle were prudence, moderation, courage and justice. Material conditions, pleasure and enjoyment are part of the good life, but in moderation. Virtues can also conflict with each other. Insoluble dilemmas occur regularly. For the human being the highest good is the realisation of the potential he/she has by nature, in human flourishing. According to many Greek and enlightenment philosophers (e.g. Spinoza) the highest potential is that of the intellect. However, for Aristotle also feeling and emotion are part of practical wisdom (phronesis).

Next to realisation of potential my preference goes to virtues of benevolence, reasonableness, extending the benefit of the doubt to people, openness, sincerity, commitment, moral courage and justice. That comes close to old Greek virtues.

It is a long tradition in philosophy, with some ancient Greeks and Romans, and later especially with Schopenhauer, to seek happiness first of all in invulnerability and peace of mind, in avoidance of pain, danger, risk, and emotion. That leads to what Schopenhauer himself called ‘the half life’. The only achievable happiness lies in the avoidance of danger and dependence on others. The ideal is autarky: liberation from what is foreign and different, from what comes from outside. The blind person is happy because he/she is not bothered by all there is to see. One should treat others as if they are objects: without mind and immutable, or as children: don’t spoil them with friendliness or openness. Suspicion is better than trust. There is freedom only in lonesomeness.

But that is the freedom of a prison into which one has locked oneself. I turn it around: we need the foreign, the different, the other, from outside, to free ourselves from incarceration in the self. The other does not revolve around us, we revolve around others.

There is no life without risk. Ambition and creation carry risk of failure and danger, but also an opportunity for new possibilities and insights, and also suffering is a ground for learning. We find this also in Nietzsche.