Joh John Stuart Mill's View Of The Good Life

The “good life” is one of stability and the failure to be affected by forces and circumstances beyond the control of the individual. This has been clearly stated beginning with Socrates, stating how each life should be lived with self-purpose: no outside influences. The artificial “goods” represent that of wealth, status, and political power, whereas what an individual should cherish is their own personal beliefs and convictions. All items that society has taught a person to hold and respect create more damage and disruption than they benefit as they can easily be taken from oneself. A fortune can be lost, the President will run out of terms, but the moral holding of each person is something that cannot be lost or stripped by a force outside

Human nature dictates the necessity of being successful and happy, and to find internal contentment, but what truly defines the good life? Everyone makes decisions about the person they want to be and what is most important to them: Which do you value more, your wealth or your friendships? Do you want to be famous or truly loved? Do you care what people think or are you just trying to please yourself? I think the good life is a combination of everything, and is a fine line that everyone must walk if they want to be truly content.

The second philosophical view aiding in the setting of Shangri-La is the theory of Aristotle. Aristotle believed that the good life is one of balance. The people of Shangri-La also lived this way claiming "that our prevalent belief is moderation." (74). The "people are moderately sober, moderately chaste, and moderately honest" (75). Moderation is abundant throughout the setting of Shangri-La, and the people claim that "moderation [is], y'know-- the motto of the firm" (180), whereas firm represents Shangri-La. This "principle makes for a considerable degree of happiness" (74). This relates to the view of Aristotle, that the good life is a life of happiness. The happiness of Shangri-La is portrayed as "one of the pleasantest communities," (108) where the inhabitants are "courteous and carefree" (108) and where one "will doubtless find great happiness" (198). Even in happiness there is moderation. Shangri-La

In order to live the good life, one must eliminate all pain and live a life with maximum pleasure. Unlike other hedonist philosophers, Epicurus evaluated pleasures by their duration rather than their intensity, making psychological pleasures much more desirable to physical pleasures. Epicurus, as a consequentialist thought that in order to achieve the good life, one had to logically assess future consequences of human actions through rational reflection and evaluation. If one were to rationally reflect on death they would soon ‘realise that there was nothing but oblivion after death’ (de Botton 2000, p. 59).

As a mixture of chemical and electrical reactions making up my thoughts, my actions and emotions in which drives this meat body through reality, is something I try to grasp regularly. We’re a super-organism consisting of zillions different things all interacting in such intricate ways to create us and everything we do. In my opinion until you accept this and start to understand what life really is, good might not find a place in your life. I am very interested in the various ways, in what constitutes a good life. The works of Zhuangzi and Plato’s diotima speech has two interesting and different perspectives on this argument which will

The texts of Socrates and Confucius examine what it means to live the good life. Although, the texts have similarities, especially in clarifying what the good life isn’t, their philosophies on how to obtain the good life differ greatly. Additionally, the two texts are even ambiguous on what living the good life truly means, so it is first necessary to identify what the good life is.

John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant in my opinion was two great scholars with two great but very different views, on morality. John Stuart strong beliefs was named Utilitarianism. Simply stated Utilitarianism is the belief in doing what is good specifically for the greater good of the masses/everyone not just someone.

Socrates definition of the good life is being able to fulfill the “inner life” by inquiring and expanding the mind to the greatest extent possible. Socrates would agree with the good life being more important than life itself. If today’s society was asked the question regarding which one is more important, my guess will be that not many will even be able to differentiate. It will be a very controversial discussion with a lot of bias opinions. David Hume is one of the philosophers who would disagree with Socrates. Socrates proposed his idea of the good life in his encounter with Crito which was written by Plato.

The skepticism of other minds is the belief we only have access to our mind and other minds are invisible also to assume that their minds are like ours. The other minds problem comes from a philosophical problem from John Stuart Mill he created the analogical inference to other minds. Descartes was the first on the disconnection of mind from the body and his view that only human’s animals had minds. Similar to Descartes, John Locke believed other people minds are invisible. The problem of other minds is that as human beings we have our own ideas and minds separately from anybody. By examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes, I could know what I want or what I’m trying to believe. No one else could feel what

Aristotle is one of the greatest thinkers in the history of western philosophy, and is most notably known for expressing his view of happiness in Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle develops a theory of how to live the good life and reach eudaimonia (happiness). Eudaimonia has been translated into, living a happy and virtuous life. Aristotle’s definition of the good life as the happy life, consist of balancing virtues (arête), the mean, external goods, political science, and voluntary action.

power to alter the exchange as it sees fit. If this function of the state is

John Locke (1632-1704) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) are two important thinkers of liberty in modern political thought. They have revolutionized the idea of human freedom at their time and have influenced many political thinkers afterwards. Although their important book on human freedom, John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government (1689) and John Mill’s On Liberty (1859), are separated 170 years, some scholars thinks that they are belonging to the same conceptual tradition, English Liberalism. In this essay, I will elaborate John Locke and John Stuart Mill view on human freedom and try to find the difference between their concept of human freedom despite their similar liberal tradition background.

Another reason why I agree with John Stuart Mill’s is, everyone has a different idea of happiness because if you were to ask your family, friend or anyone, they would have a different answer from everyone because everyone has their own idea of happiness. If someone were to ask me it wouldn't be the same as anyone else's because i'm living a happy life for myself and no one else. Everyone doesn't have one specific thing that makes them happy, it's not the things people receive or buy to feel that they are happy, but in reality just getting things your way and what you want isn't the true value of living a very happy and successful life. John Stuart Mill's illustrates that “without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without forestalling

The Good Life. A definition that will always slightly change depending on what’s happening in my life, but will always follow the same criteria. The most crucial step will be that I am happy with who I am and the decisions that I’m making. And to follow my relationships will reflect this attitude that I with myself. When I was in high school my dad and I would get breakfast every Sunday morning so my dad could share his words of wisdom. My dad lives in such a way that makes everyone around him want to treat him with respect and therefore he has many healthy relationships with people to accompany that. Now although I’m speaking on the topic of relationships in general, my dad’s opinion on my significant other is extremely

There is a belief that pain and good will are closely related to achieving some type of happiness or fulfillment in one’s life. There are many who believe that there must have been some type of great effort yielding positive outcomes or results after passing through suffering, failure, bad luck, or any element of pain. Having a “good life’ as characterized by Nietzsche, it fosters a level of discomfort or reversal between success and achievement because he believed happiness or fulfillment was capable after failing or experiencing some type of destitution. In other words, a baseball bat was swung to a person’s head by the accomplice, causing severe pain because that person failed to steal the bubble gum from the grocery store since they had