Monday, December 5, 2011

Terry on the good life


The good life is all about an enjoyable well-being, but that is not its immediate aim. Making enjoyment the end of your life, as, say, Mick Jagger seems remarkably successful at doing, may mean that you have to devote a lot of time to planning for it, which in turn may have the result of making your life less enjoyable. This does not seem to be the most tragic deficiency in Mick Jagger's life, but it makes the point that if you really want self-fulfillment, the best way is not to think about yourself. This is not to commend the altruism of the downtrodden, who forget about their own need so as to keep someone else in clover. IT is just to say that well-being is not something you aim at directly, since it is not one good among other. Rather, it is the result of many different kinds of goods. In this sense, Aristotle is a pluralist when it comes to what counts as the good life. 
-Terry Eagleton

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