THE GOOD LIFE AND HAPPINESS pp

Think/Pair/Share  What is the “Good Life”? What is happiness? How are they connected?  Do you feel the message from this commercial embodies the “Good Life”? What part of the “Good Life” do you feel was missing?

 The Christian tradition has always believed that we have been created for happiness.  We recognize this desire for happiness as natural, as God has placed it in the human heart.  The desire for happiness is connected intimately to ethics and morality.  The good life (ethical and moral) is also a happy life.

Plato ( B.C.)  The closest we come to good is through contemplation.  Plato had a high regard for the good – like the sun.  We cannot locate the good as it is in all things without being something itself. (We can’t find the good, only good things)  Reason finds the good that pervades everything – the highest pursuit in life is to contemplate the good.

Aristotle ( B.C.)  Student of Plato, teacher to Alexander the Great.  The good is to be found in God – God is the mover who inscribed the good in all of creation.  Contemplation is the highest good – but it is not the idea of good, but rather the good that is within all things.  Each thing has and end and each thing is oriented toward its good, so long as it is oriented to its end.

St. Thomas Aquinas ( )  A Dominican friar who incorporated Aristotle’s thinking into theology.  At our core is a desire to do good, according to Aquinas (natural desire to do good is the basis of ethics).  For Aquinas and Aristotle, God is the highest good.  The fullness of a good life is experienced in the resurrection.

2 Levels of Aquinas’s Ethics 1) Aristotle’s view of the good life and happiness from living well and acting well – using our intelligences and capabilities.  God’s creation is good – We must use our intellect and sensory capacities and follow natural law – the light of understanding placed in us by God.  We know what we must do and what e must not not do.

Cardinal Virtues (from Aristotle) Prudence – How to reason well in moral decision making. Temperance – How to remain moderate in the exercise of the emotions. Fortitude – How to be courageous in the face of life’s difficulties. Justice – How to act well in relation to others

2) God’s self-gift to us in Jesus and the Holy Spirit changes the way we define good.  From St. Paul’s 1 st Letter to the Corinthians (3 things that last – Theological Virtues)  Spiritual life is structured around them.  They come from God.

Theological Virtues Faith – Trusting in God’s self-revealing action Hope – Expectation of God’s fulfillment of his promise of salvation and redemption. Charity (love) – God’s love for us as the model to love others.

Immanuel Kant ( )  Lived during the Age of Enlightenment.  He rejected Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ idea that happiness is a byproduct of doing good.  Believe in good will – we must find the reason for doing good within ourselves – it then becomes our duty.

 Faith, hope and charity lose there place in Kant’s ethical theory.  Kant believed the supreme good was attainable but not in this life.  God too is held to duty just as we are, according to Kant, since God is needed to achieve the supreme good in the next life.

Emmanuel Levinas ( )  God, the Infinite Good is at the heart of ethics.  Good is a call or vocation.  Good requires a response to another.  We are called to recognize the needs of others.