A path through philosophy
How should we live?
What is the good life, and how should a human being live it?
Before philosophy asked what exists, it asked how to live. Compare the great answers — virtue, pleasure, duty, detachment, harmony — from China and India to Greece, Rome, and the modern West.
- 1
In China: cultivate humaneness (ren) and ritual propriety (li), becoming a person of virtue through learning and right relationships.
- 2
In India: life is pervaded by suffering rooted in craving; the Eightfold Path of ethics, meditation, and wisdom leads to its end.
- 3
The unexamined life is not worth living; virtue is knowledge, and nothing matters more than the care of the soul.
- 4
- 5
The aim is pleasure, rightly understood as tranquillity and freedom from fear — of the gods and of death.
Responding tothe fear of death
- 6
The Stoic path: virtue alone is good; live in agreement with nature and master only what is up to us.
Responding toEpicurus
- 7
Freedom is wanting only what is in our power — our own judgements — and calmly accepting all the rest.
- 8
Even an emperor must master his own mind, do his duty, and meet fate with equanimity.
- 9
The restless heart finds rest only in God; rightly ordered love is the key to the good life.
Responding tothe pagan philosophies
- 10
Fuses Aristotle and Christianity: happiness is virtuous activity, completed by the vision of God.
Responding toAristotle
- 11
Morality springs from sentiment and sympathy, not reason; the good life is one of useful and agreeable character.
Responding tothe rationalists
- 12
Act only on maxims you could will as universal law; live by duty, treating every person as an end and never merely a means.
Responding toHume's sentiment
- 13
Seek the greatest happiness — but honor the higher pleasures and, above all, individual liberty.
Responding toKant's rigid duty
- 14
Reject herd morality; revalue your values and become who you are, affirming life itself.
Responding totraditional Christian and Kantian morality
- 15
There is no given essence to fulfill: create yourself through free, responsible choice, in good faith.
Responding toevery fixed ideal of human nature
- 16
Widen the circle of moral concern: reduce suffering — human and animal — and do the most good you can.
Responding toour narrow, partial sympathies