Abstract
This chapter examines the evolution of the notion of the Good Life, from the Upper Palaeolithic until modern times. It looks particularly at the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, the significance of the doctrine of the Imago Dei in Judaeo-Christian thought, the growing influence of autonomy from the Renaissance onwards, and the tension between utilitarianism and more individualistic models of human thriving.
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Notes
- 1.
Most famously in the ‘Venus of Brassempouy’—one of the first known representations of the human form: an ivory figurine from the Upper Palaeolithic, c 25,000 years old.
- 2.
In Topeka, Kansas, noted for its ‘God Hates Fags’ campaigns.
- 3.
In John 10:10 Jesus, in a comment that endorses the idea of the Good Life, says that he has ‘come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ (NIV).
- 4.
- 5.
Romans 3:23. ‘Amartiai’ is not used there, but ‘sinned’ is expounded in terms that echo ‘amartiai’.
- 6.
Book 1 of the Republic contains some virulent diatribes against the Sophists.
- 7.
Plato gave a lecture entitled ‘On the Good’. It was apparently very disappointing. Aristoxenus of Tarentum explains: ‘Each came expecting to learn something about the things that are generally considered good for men, such as wealth, good health, physical strength, and altogether a kind of wonderful happiness. But when the mathematical demonstrations came, including numbers, geometrical figures and astronomy, and finally the statement Good is One seemed to them, I imagine, utterly unexpected and strange; hence some belittled the matter, while others rejected it.’ Elementa harmonica II: 30–31, cited Gaiser, Konrad (1980). ‘Plato’s enigmatic lecture: ‘On the Good’’ Phronesis 25(1); 5–37.
- 8.
In The Republic, Book 10, Plato suggests that all of Homer’s works should be banned, because Homer has never achieved anything useful or made anyone virtuous.
- 9.
Ibid, p. 20.
- 10.
Happiness in the Jewish Perspective, lecture at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University, 2010.
- 11.
Chapter 11: cited Sacks, ibid.
- 12.
Sacks, ibid.
- 13.
Genesis 32: 22–32.
- 14.
Genesis 2: 18.
- 15.
See Numbers 6:1–11.
- 16.
See Talmud Nazir 22a: ‘As it is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Elazar HaKappar the esteemed says: What is the meaning when the verse states:’And make atonement for him, for that he sinned by reason of the soul’ (Numbers 6:11)? And with which soul did this nazirite sin? Rather, because he deprived himself of wine he is therefore called a sinner. And are not these matters inferred a fortiori: And if this one, who deprived himself only of wine, is nevertheless called a sinner, in the case of one who deprives himself of everything by fasting or other acts of mortification, all the more so is he labeled a sinner. According to this opinion, she brings a sin-offering to atone for uttering the vow itself, despite the fact that her husband later uprooted it entirely.’
- 17.
1 Corinthians 7:1; 7: 8–9.
- 18.
354-430 CE.
- 19.
Thanks to Sally Foster for this expression.
- 20.
1463-94. He was himself an enthusiastic Neo-Platonist, profoundly influenced by Kabbalah.
- 21.
Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486.
- 22.
‘The quest for the good has, in all epochs, primarily taken the form of conflict between humanistic and transcendentalist perspectives’: Grayling, ibid, p 132.
- 23.
The seeds of this revolution had been sown in the 17th century by Descartes (1596–1650) and Hobbes (1588–1679). Descartes’ crucial move was to divide the universe into two distinct parts: the immaterial (into which he placed human minds and ‘spiritual’ entities) and matter. It seems innocent. But it entails an assertion that matter has no mind. Bodies—both human and animal—were quietly but emphatically demoted. They had previously been seen as infused by spirit. Now they were machines. For Hobbes, the state in which humans would exist without a social contract was wretched: ‘there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. (Leviathan, 1651). To thrive, then, was to escape from this state of nature.
- 24.
‘Desire without end’: Times Literary Supplement, 27 February 2009, p. 3.
- 25.
1724–1804.
- 26.
For instance, re the morality of suicide, he held that: ‘A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels sick of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether taking his own life would not be contrary to his duty to himself. Now he asks whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. But his maxim is this: from self-love I make as my principle to shorten my life when its continued duration threatens more evil than it promises satisfaction. There only remains the question as to whether this principle of self-love can become a universal law of nature. One sees at once that a contradiction in a system of nature whose law would destroy life by means of the very same feeling that acts so as to stimulate the furtherance of life, and hence there could be no existence as a system of nature. Therefore, such a maxim cannot possibly hold as a universal law of nature and is, consequently, wholly opposed to the supreme principle of all duty.’ Ibid., 30–31.
- 27.
1711–1776.
- 28.
Treatise of Human Nature.
- 29.
1649–1722.
- 30.
1747–1832.
- 31.
1806–1873.
- 32.
On Liberty (1859).
- 33.
1809–1882.
- 34.
1823–1913.
- 35.
1921–2002.
- 36.
1856–1939.
- 37.
1875–1961.
- 38.
1905–1980.
- 39.
1913–1960.
- 40.
1889–1976.
References
Grayling AC (2007) What is good? The search for the best way to live. Phoenix
Kant E (1785) Grounding for the metaphysics of morals, 3rd edn (Transl. Ellington JW) Hackett (1993)
Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice, Harvard University Press
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Foster, C., Herring, J. (2018). The Idea of Human Thriving: A Brief History. In: Human Thriving and the Law. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01135-2_2
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