Science, Technology, and Society

Reading Material for Chapter 2: Lesson 7:

The Good Life

Lesson Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, the students should be able to:

• Examine what is meant by a good life.

• Identify how humans attempt to attain what is deemed to be a good life.
• Recognize possibilities available to human beings to attain the good life.

Introduction:

In Ancient Greece, long before the word “science” is coined, the need to understand the
world and reality was bound with the need to understand the self and the good life. For Plato, the
task of understanding the things in the world runs parallel with the job of truly getting into what
will make the soul flourish. In an attempt to understand reality and the external world, man must
seek to understand himself too. It was Aristotle who gave a definitive distinction between the
theoretical and practical sciences. Among the theoretical disciplines, Aristotle included logic,
biology, physics, and metaphysics, among others. Among the practical ones, Aristotle counted
ethics and politics. Whereas “truth” is the aim of theoretical sciences, the “good” is the end goal
of the practical ones. Every attempt to know is connected in some way in an attempt to find the
“good” or as said in the previous lesson, the attainment of human flourishing. Rightly so, one
must find the truth about what the good is before one can even try to locate that which is good.

In the previous lesson, we have seen how a misplaced or an erroneous idea of human
flourishing can turn tables for all of us, make the sciences work against us rather than for us, and
draw a chasm between the search for truth and for the good. In this lesson, we endeavor to go
back a little and answer these questions: What does it really mean to live a good life? What
qualifies a good existence? Granting this understanding, we are assumed to be in a better position
to reconcile our deepest existential needs as human beings and science as tool to maneuver
around the world.
Aristotle and How We All Aspire for a Good Life:

It is interesting to note that the first philosopher who approached the problem of reality
from a “scientific” lens as we know now, is also the first thinker who dabbled into the complex
problematization of the end goal of life: happiness. This man is none other than Aristotle.

Compared to his teacher and predecessor, Plato, Aristotle embarked on a different

approach in figuring out reality. In contrast to Plato who thought that things in this world are not
real and are only copies of the real in the world of forms, Aristotle puts everything back to the
ground in claiming that this world is all there is to it and that this world is the only reality we can
access. For Plato, change is so perplexing that it can only make sense if there are two realities:
the world of forms and the world of matter. Consider the human person. When you try to see
yourself in front of the mirror, you normally say and think that you are looking at yourself—that
is, you are the person who slept last night and you are the same person looking at yourself now,
despite the occasional changes like a new pimple that grows on your nose. The same is true for a
seed that you threw out of the garden last month. When you peek into the same patch of land
where the seed ingrained itself into, you may be surprised to see a little plant showing itself to
you and to the sun. Plato recognized change as a process and as a phenomenon that happens in
the world, that in fact it is constant. However, Plato also claims that despite the reality of change,
things remain and they retain their ultimate “whatness”; that you remain to be you despite the
pimple that now sits atop your nose. Plato was convinced that reality is full of these seemingly
contrasting manifestations of change and permanence. For Plato, this can only be explained by
postulating two aspects of reality, two worlds if you wish: the world of forms and the world of
matter. In the world of matter, things are changing and impermanent. In the world of forms, the
entities are only copies of the ideal and the models, and the forms are the only real entities.
Things are red in this world because they participate in what it means to be red in the world of
forms.

Aristotle, for his part, disagreed with his teacher’s position and forwarded the idea that
there is no reality over and above what the senses can perceive. As such, it is only by observation
of the external world that one can truly understand what reality is all about. Change is a process
that is inherent in things. We, along with all other entities in the world, start as potentialities and
move toward actualities. The movement, of course, entails change. Consider a seed that
eventually germinates and grows into a plant. The seed that turned to become the plant
underwent change—from the potential plant that is the seed to its full actuality, the plant.

Aristotle extends this analysis from the external world into the province of the human
person and declares that even human beings are potentialities who aspire for their actuality.
Every human being moves according to some end. Every action that emanates from a human
person is a function of the purpose (telos) that the person has. When a boy asks for a burger from
a Filipino burger joint, the action that he takes is motivated primarily by the purpose that he has,
inferably to get full or to taste the burger that he only sees on TV. When a girl tries to finish her
degree in the university, despite the initial failures she may have had, she definitely is being
propelled by a higher purpose than to just graduate. She wants something more, maybe to have a
license and land a promising job in the future. Every human person, according to Aristotle,
aspires for an end. This end, we have learned from the previous chapters, is happiness or human
flourishing.

No individual—young or old, fat or skinny, male or female—resists happiness. We all

want to be happy. Aristotle claims that happiness is the be all and end all of everything that we
do. We may not realize it but the end goal of everything that we do is happiness. If you ask one
person why he is doing what he is doing, he may not readily say that it is happiness that
motivates him. Hard-pressed to explain why he is motivated by what motivates him will reveal
that happiness is the grand, motivating force in everything that he does. When Aristotle claims
that we want to be happy, he does not necessarily mean the everyday happiness that we obtain
when we win a competition or we eat our favorite dish in a restaurant. What Aristotle actually
means is human flourishing, a kind of contentment in knowing that one is getting the best out of
life. A kind of feeling that one has maxed out his potentials in the world, that he has attained the
crux of his humanity.

Happiness as the Goal of a Good Life:

In the eighteenth century, John Stuart Mill declared the Greatest Happiness Principle by
saying that an action is right as far as it maximizes the attainment of happiness for the greatest
number of people. At a time when people were skeptical about claims on the metaphysical,
people could not make sense of the human flourishing that Aristotle talked about in the days of
old. Mill said that individual happiness of each individual should be prioritized and collectively
dictates the kind of action that should be endorsed. Consider the pronouncements against mining.
When an action benefits the greatest number of people, said action is deemed ethical. Does
mining benefit rather than hurt the majority? Does it offer more benefits rather than
disadvantages? Does mining result in more people getting happy rather than sad? If the answers
to the said questions are in the affirmative, then the said action, mining, is deemed ethical. The
ethical is, of course, meant to lead us to the good and happy life. Through the ages, as has been
expounded in the previous chapters, man has constantly struggled with the external world in
order to reach human flourishing. History has given birth to different schools of thought, all of
which aim for the good and happy life.

Materialism

The first materialists were the atomists in Ancient Greece. Democritus and Leucippus led
a school whose primary belief is that the world is made up of and is controlled by the tiny
indivisible units in the world called atomos or seeds. For Democritus and his disciples, the world,
including human beings, is made up of matter. There is no need to posit immaterial entities as
sources of purpose. Atomos simply comes together randomly to form the things in the world. As
such, only material entities matter. In terms of human flourishing, matter is what makes us attain
happiness. We see this at work with most people who are clinging on to material wealth as the
primary source of the meaning of their existence.

Hedonism

The hedonists, for their part, see the end goal of life in acquiring pleasure. Pleasure has
always been the priority of hedonists. For them, life is about obtaining and indulging in pleasure
because life is limited. The mantra of this school of thought is the famous, “Eat, drink, and be
merry for tomorrow we die.” Led by Epicurus, this school of thought also does not buy any
notion of afterlife just like the materialists.

Stoicism

Another school of thought led by Epicurus, the stoics espoused the idea that to generate
happiness, one must learn to distance oneself and be apathetic. The original term, apatheia,
precisely means to be indifferent. For the stoics, happiness can only be attained by a careful
practice of apathy. We should, in this worldview, adopt the fact that some things are not within
our control. The sooner we realize this, the happier we become.

Theism

Most people find the meaning of their lives using God as a fulcrum of their existence.
The Philippines, as a predominantly Catholic country, is witness to how people base their life
goals on beliefs that hinged on some form of supernatural reality called heaven. The ultimate
basis of happiness for theists is the communion with God. The world where we are in is only just
a temporary reality where we have to maneuver around while waiting for the ultimate return to
the hands of God.

Humanism

Humanism as another school of thought espouses the freedom of man to carve his own
destiny and to legislate his own laws, free from the shackles of a God that monitors and controls.
For humanists, man is literally the captain of his own ship. Inspired by the enlightenment in
seventeenth century, humanists see themselves not merely as stewards of the creation but as
individuals who are in control of themselves and the world outside them. This is the spirit of
most scientists who thought that the world is a place and space for freely unearthing the world in
seeking for ways on how to improve the lives of its inhabitants.

As a result of the motivation of the humanist current, scientists eventually turned to

technology in order to ease the difficulty of life as illustrated in the previous lessons. Scientists
of today meanwhile are ready to confront more sophisticated attempts at altering the world for
the benefit of humanity. Some people now are willing to tamper with time and space in the name
of technology. Social media, as an example, has been so far a very effective way of employing
technology in purging time and space. Not very long ago, communication between two people
from two continents in the planet will involve months of waiting for a mail to arrive. Seeing each
other real time while talking was virtually impossible. Now, communication between two people
wherever they are, is not just possible but easy. The Internet and smart phones made real-time
communication possible not just between two people, but even with multiple people
simultaneously.

Technology allowed us to tinker with our sexuality. Biologically male individuals can
now undergo medical operation if they so wish for sexual reassignment. Breast implants are now
available and can be done with relative convenience if anyone wishes to have one. Hormones
may also be injected in order to alter the sexual chemicals in the body.

Whether or not we agree with these technological advancements, these are all undertaken
in the hopes of attaining the good life. The balance, however, between the good life, ethics, and
technology has to be attained.

REFERENCES

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). John Stuart Mill. Accessed February 3, 2017.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/mill-eth.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). Renaissance Humanism. Accessed February 2,

2017. http://www.iep.utm.edu/humanism/.

Macat Thinking News. (2016). Aristotle’s Secret to Happiness: What Will Make Us Happy Now?
Accessed February 3, 2017. https://wwwmacat.com/blog/aristotles-secret-happiness/.

Psychology Today. (2013). Aristotle on Happiness. Accessed February 3, 2017.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201301/aristotle-happiness.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2001). Aristotle’s Ethics. Accessed February 3, 2017.

https://plato.standford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2005). Ancient Atomism. Accessed February 3, 2017.

https://plato.standford.edu/entries/atomism-ancient.

The Basics of Philosophy. (2008). Theism. Accessed February 3, 2017.

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch-theism.html.