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What makes a good life? Existentialists believed we should embrace freedom and authenticity

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/oscar-davis-876589">Oscar Davis</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> How do we live good, fulfilling lives? Aristotle first took on this question in his <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/">Nicomachean Ethics</a> – arguably the first time anyone in Western intellectual history had focused on the subject as a standalone question. He formulated a teleological response to the question of how we ought to live. Aristotle proposed, in other words, an answer grounded in an investigation of our purpose or ends (telos) as a species. Our purpose, he argued, can be uncovered through a study of our essence – the fundamental features of what it means to be human. <h2>Ends and essences</h2> “Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good;” Aristotle states, “and so the good has been aptly described as that at which everything aims.” To understand what is good, and therefore what one must do to achieve the good, we must first understand what kinds of things we are. This will allow us to determine what a good or a bad function actually is. For Aristotle, this is a generally applicable truth. Take a knife, for example. We must first understand what a knife is in order to determine what would constitute its proper function. The essence of a knife is that it cuts; that is its purpose. We can thus make the claim that a blunt knife is a bad knife – if it does not cut well, it is failing in an important sense to properly fulfil its function. This is how essence relates to function, and how fulfilling that function entails a kind of goodness for the thing in question. Of course, determining the function of a knife or a hammer is much easier than determining the function of Homo sapiens, and therefore what good, fulfilling lives might involve for us as a species. Aristotle argues that our function must be more than growth, nutrition and reproduction, as plants are also capable of this. Our function must also be more than perception, as non-human animals are capable of this. He thus proposes that our essence – what makes us unique – is that humans are capable of reasoning. What a good, flourishing human life involves, therefore, is “some kind of practical life of that part that has reason”. This is the starting point of Aristotle’s ethics. We must learn to reason well and develop practical wisdom and, in applying this reason to our decisions and judgements, we must learn to find the right balance between the excess and deficiency of virtue. It is only by living a life of “virtuous activity in accordance with reason”, a life in which we flourish and fulfil the functions that flow from a deep understanding of and appreciation for what defines us, that we can achieve eudaimonia – the highest human good. <h2>Existence precedes essence</h2> Aristotle’s answer was so influential that it shaped the development of Western values for millennia. Thanks to philosophers and theologians such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Thomas-Aquinas">Thomas Aquinas</a>, his enduring influence can be traced through the medieval period to the Renaissance and on to the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, the dominant philosophical and religious traditions, which included Aristotle’s work, were reexamined in light of new Western principles of thought. Beginning in the 18th century, the Enlightenment era saw the birth of modern science, and with it the adoption of the principle nullius in verba – literally, “take nobody’s word for it” – which became the motto of the <a href="https://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/">Royal Society</a>. There was a corresponding proliferation of secular approaches to understanding the nature of reality and, by extension, the way we ought to live our lives. One of the most influential of these secular philosophies was existentialism. In the 20th century, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Paul-Sartre">Jean-Paul Sartre</a>, a key figure in existentialism, took up the challenge of thinking about the meaning of life without recourse to theology. Sartre argued that Aristotle, and those who followed in Aristotle’s footsteps, had it all back-to-front. <figure class="align-right zoomable"><figcaption></figcaption></figure> Existentialists see us as going about our lives making seemingly endless choices. We choose what we wear, what we say, what careers we follow, what we believe. All of these choices make up who we are. Sartre summed up this principle in the formula “existence precedes essence”. The existentialists teach us that we are completely free to invent ourselves, and therefore completely responsible for the identities we choose to adopt. “The first effect of existentialism,” Sartre wrote in his 1946 essay <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm">Existentialism is a Humanism</a>, “is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders.” Crucial to living an authentic life, the existentialists would say, is recognising that we desire freedom above everything else. They maintain we ought never to deny the fact we are fundamentally free. But they also acknowledge we have so much choice about what we can be and what we can do that it is a source of anguish. This anguish is a felt sense of our profound responsibility. The existentialists shed light on an important phenomenon: we all convince ourselves, at some point and to some extent, that we are “bound by external circumstances” in order to escape the anguish of our inescapable freedom. Believing we possess a predefined essence is one such external circumstance. But the existentialists provide a range of other psychologically revealing examples. Sartre tells a story of watching a waiter in a cafe in Paris. He observes that the waiter moves a little too precisely, a little too quickly, and seems a little too eager to impress. Sartre believes the waiter’s exaggeration of waiter-hood is an act – that the waiter is deceiving himself into being a waiter. In doing so, argues Sartre, the waiter denies his authentic self. He has opted instead to assume the identity of something other than a free and autonomous being. His act reveals he is denying his own freedom, and ultimately his own humanity. Sartre calls this condition “bad faith”. <h2>An authentic life</h2> Contrary to Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia, the existentialists regard acting authentically as the highest good. This means never acting in such a way that denies we are free. When we make a choice, that choice must be fully ours. We have no essence; we are nothing but what we make for ourselves. One day, Sartre was visited by a pupil, who sought his advice about whether he should join the French forces and avenge his brother’s death, or stay at home and provide vital support for his mother. Sartre believed the history of moral philosophy was of no help in this situation. “You are free, therefore choose,” he replied to the pupil – “that is to say, invent”. The only choice the pupil could make was one that was authentically his own. We all have feelings and questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives, and it is not as simple as picking a side between the Aristotelians, the existentialists, or any of the other moral traditions. In his essay, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm#link2HCH0019">That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die</a> (1580), Michel de Montaigne finds what is perhaps an ideal middle ground. He proposes “the premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty” and that “he who has learnt to die has forgot what it is to be a slave”. In his typical style of jest, Montaigne concludes: “I want death to take me planting cabbages, but without any careful thought of him, and much less of my garden’s not being finished.” Perhaps Aristotle and the existentialists could agree that it is just in thinking about these matters – purposes, freedom, authenticity, mortality – that we overcome the silence of never understanding ourselves. To study philosophy is, in this sense, to learn how to live.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204364/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/oscar-davis-876589">Oscar Davis</a>, Indigenous Fellow - Assistant Professor in Philosophy and History, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> Image credits: Getty Images This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-good-life-existentialists-believed-we-should-embrace-freedom-and-authenticity-204364">original article</a>.

Caring

Karl Marx: his philosophy explained

In 1845, Karl Marx <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm">declared</a>: “philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. Change it he did. Political movements representing masses of new industrial workers, many inspired by his thought, reshaped the world in the 19th and 20th centuries through revolution and reform. His work influenced unions, labour parties and social democratic parties, and helped spark revolution via communist parties in Europe and beyond. Around the world, “Marxist” governments were formed, who claimed to be committed to his principles, and who upheld dogmatic versions of his thought as part of their official doctrine. Marx’s thought was groundbreaking. It came to stimulate arguments in every major language, in philosophy, history, politics and economics. It even helped to found the discipline of sociology. Although his influence in the social sciences and humanities is not what it once was, his work continues to help theorists make sense of the complex social structures that shape our lives. <h2>Economics</h2> Marx was writing when mid-Victorian capitalism was at its Dickensian worst, analysing how the new industrialism was causing radical social upheaval and severe urban poverty. Of his many writings, perhaps the most well known and influential are the rather large Capital Volume 1 (1867) and the very small Communist Manifesto (1848), penned with his collaborator Frederick Engels. On economics alone, he made important observations that influenced our understanding of the role of boom/bust cycles, the link between market competition and rapid technological advances, and the tendency of markets towards concentration and monopolies. Marx also made prescient observations regarding what we now call “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/351/35192/capital/9780140445688.html">globalisation</a>”. He emphasised “the newly created connections […] of the world market” and the important role of international trade. At the time, property owners held the vast majority of wealth, and their wealth rapidly accumulated through the creation of factories. The labour of the workers – the property-less masses – was bought and sold like any other commodity. The workers toiled for starvation wages, as “appendages of the machine[s]”, in Marx’s famous phrase. By holding them in this position, the owners grew ever richer, siphoning off the value created by this labour. This would inevitably lead to militant international political organisation in response. It is from this we get Marx’s <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/">famous call</a> in 1848, the year of Europe-wide revolutions, "workers of the world unite!" <h2>Society</h2> To do philosophy properly, Marx thought, we have to form theories that capture the concrete details of real people’s lives – to make theory fully grounded in practice. His primary interest wasn’t simply capitalism. It was human existence and our potential. His enduring philosophical contribution is an insightful, historically grounded perspective on human beings and industrial society. Marx observed capitalism wasn’t only an economic system by which we produced food, clothing and shelter; it was also bound up with a system of social relations. Work structured people’s lives and opportunities in different ways depending on their role in the production process: most people were either part of the “owning class” or “working class”. The interests of these classes were fundamentally opposed, which led inevitably to conflict between them. On the basis of this, Marx predicted the inevitable collapse of capitalism leading to equally inevitable working-class revolutions. However, he seriously underestimated capitalism’s adaptability. In particular, the way that parliamentary democracy and the welfare state could moderate the excesses and instabilities of the economic system. <h2>Innovation</h2> Marx argued social change is driven by the tension created within an existing social order through technological and organisational innovations in production. Technology-driven changes in production make new social forms possible, such that old social forms and classes become outmoded and displaced by new ones. Once, the dominant class were the land owning lords. But the new industrial system produced a new dominant class: the capitalists. Against the philosophical trend to view human beings as simply organic machines, Marx saw us as a creative and productive type of being. Humanity uses these capacities to transform the natural world. However, in doing this we also, throughout history, transform ourselves in the process. This makes human life distinct from that of other animals. <h2>History</h2> The conditions under which people live deeply shape the way they see and understand the world. As Marx put it, "men make their own history [but] they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves." Marx viewed human history as process of people progressively overcoming impediments to self-understanding and freedom. These impediments can be mental, material and institutional. He believed philosophy could offer ways we might realise our human potential in the world. Theories, he said, were not just about “interpreting the world”, but “changing it”. Individuals and groups are situated in social contexts inherited from the past which limit what they can do – but these social contexts afford us certain possibilities. The present political situation that confronts us and the scope for actions we might take to improve it, is the result of our being situated in our unique place and time in history. This approach has influenced thinkers across traditions and continents to better understand the complexities of the social and political world, and to think more concretely about prospects for change. On the basis of his historical approach, Marx argued inequality is not a natural fact; it is socially created. He sought to show how economic systems such as feudalism or capitalism – despite being hugely complex historical developments – were ultimately our own creations. <h2>Alienation and freedom</h2> By seeing the economic system and what it produces as objective and independent of humanity, this system comes to dominate us. When systematic exploitation is viewed as a product of the “natural order”, humans are, from a philosophical perspective, “enslaved” by their own creation. What we have produced comes to be viewed as alien to us. Marx called this process “alienation”. Despite having intrinsic creative capacities, most of humanity experience themselves as stifled by the conditions in which they work and live. They are alienated a) in the production process (“what” is produced and “how”); b) from others (with whom they constantly compete); and c) from their own creative potential. For Marx, human beings intrinsically strive toward freedom, and we are not really free unless we control our own destiny. Marx believed a rational social order could realise our human capacities as individuals as well as collectively, overcoming political and economic inequalities. Writing in a period before workers could even vote (as voting was restricted to landowning males) Marx argued “the full and free development of every individual” – along with meaningful participation in the decisions that shaped their lives – would be realised through the creation of a “classless society [of] the free and equal”. <h2>Ideology</h2> Marx’s concept of ideology introduced an innovative way to critique how dominant beliefs and practices – commonly taken to be for the good of all – actually reflect the interests and reinforce the power of the “ruling” class. For Marx, beliefs in philosophy, culture and economics often function to rationalise unfair advantages and privileges as “natural” when, in fact, the amount of change we see in history shows they are not. He was not saying this is a conspiracy of the ruling class, where those in the dominant class believe things simply because they reinforce the present power structure. Rather, it is because people are raised and learn how to think within a given social order. Through this, the views that seem eminently rational rather conveniently tend to uphold the distribution of power and wealth as they are. Marx had always aspired to be a philosopher, but was unable to pursue it as a profession because his views were judged too radical for a university post in his native Prussia. Instead, he earned his living as a crusading journalist. By any account, Marx was a giant of modern thought. His influence was so far reaching that people are often unaware just how much his ideas have shaped their own thinking. Image credits: Getty Images This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/karl-marx-his-philosophy-explained-164068" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.

Mind

Where to start reading philosophy?

Philosophy can seem a daunting subject in which to dabble. But there are many wonderful books on philosophy that tackle big ideas without requiring a PhD to digest. Here are some top picks for summer reading material from philosophers across Australia. Shame and Necessity by Bernard Williams After a year of Brexit, the return of Pauline Hanson and Donald Trump, many of us are wondering about the state of our public culture. Are we undergoing some kind of seismic cultural and moral shift in the way we live? However, the ancient Greeks would have been familiar with these phenomena for all kinds of reasons. They understood how anger, resentment and revenge shape politics. And they had some pretty interesting ways of dealing with outbreaks of populist rage and constitutional crises. Our language is still littered with them: think “ostracism”, “dictatorship” and “oligarchy” (let alone “democracy”). So, this year, amongst all the noise, I found myself driven back to the Greeks, and especially to some of the ideas that pre-date the great philosophical titans of Plato and Aristotle. Bernard Williams was one of our most brilliant philosophers, and Shame and Necessity is one of his best books. Stunningly – just given how good this book is, and how deep it goes into the classical mind – he didn’t consider himself a classicist, but rather a philosopher who happened to have benefited from a very good classical education. As a result, he is a delightful guide across the often rugged philosophical, historical and interpretive terrain of pre-Socratic thought. It might seem daunting at first, but the book is an elegant, searching essay on the ways in which we are now, in so many ways, in a situation more like the ancient Greeks then we realise. But it’s not a plea for a return to some golden age. Far from it. Instead, it challenges some of our most fundamental conceptions of self, responsibility, freedom and community, inviting us to think them afresh. The heroes of his tale are, interestingly enough, not the philosophers, but the tragedians and poets, who remind us of the complexity, contingency and fragility of our ideas of the good. Although almost 10 years old, it’s a book that gets more interesting the more often you return to it. It’s never been more relevant, or more enjoyable, than now. Duncan Ivison, University of Sydney The Philosophy Book by Will Buckingham Remember when the Guinness Book of World Records was the best gift ever for the little (or grown-up) thinker in your family? Well, if you’ve been there, done that for a few Christmases in a row and are in need of an exciting, innovative gift idea, try DK’s big yellow book of intellectual fun: The Philosophy Book. With contributions from a bunch of UK academics, this A4 sized tome is decorated with fun illustrations and great quotes from the world’s best philosophical thinkers. The structure of the book is historical, with between one to four pages allocated to the “big ideas” from ancient times all the way up to contemporary thought. It is accompanied by a neat glossary and directory: a who’s who of thought-makers. The focus is on the traditional Western approach to philosophy, although some Eastern thinkers are included. Each historical section – Ancient (700-250 BCE); Medieval (250-1500); The Renaissance (1500-1750); Revolution (1750-1900); Modern (1900-1950); and Contemporary (1950-present) – is divided into classical philosophical ideas from that time period. There are 107(!) in total, including Socrates’ “The life which is unexamined is not worth living”, Rene Descartes’ “I think therefore I am”, Thomas Hobbes’ “Man is a Machine”, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “The limits of my language are the limits of my world”, and even Slavoj Žižek’s analysis of Marx, just to name a few. The reader can trace the history and development of philosophical thought throughout the ages, in the context of what else was occurring at that time in the world. This gift would be suitable for ages 12+ as it is written in ordinary, accessible language. But, be warned… after reading this, your Boxing Day is likely to be filled with questions such as, “what is truth?”, “how can we think like a mountain?”, “can knowledge be bought and sold?”, and “how did the universe begin?” Laura D’Olimpio, The University of Notre Dame Australia 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know by Ben Dupré Obviously there are a lot more than 50 Philosophical Ideas we really need to know, as this book is a part of a great series of small hardback books that cover most of the great thoughts ever thunk. Dupré has a lot of fun in these 200 pages, with 50 short essays written on a variety of classical philosophical ideas, including the important thought experiments such as brain in a vat, Plato’s cave, the ship of Theseus, the prisoner’s dilemma and many more. The book’s blurb asks: <blockquote> Have you ever lain awake at night fretting over how we can be sure of the reality of the external world? Perhaps we are in fact disembodied brains, floating in vats at the whim of some deranged puppet-master? </blockquote> It is to philosophy that we turn, if not for definite answers to such mysteries, but certainly for multiple responses to these puzzles. The 50 essays in this volume cover things like the problems of knowledge, the philosophy of mind, ethics and animal rights, logic and meaning, science, aesthetics, religion, politics and justice. There is a nifty timeline running along the footer and inspired quotes by which the reader can link the main ideas, their original thinkers, and the time at which they were writing. This book would make a great gift for teachers, students and anyone interested in some of the big eternal questions. I would recommend it for ages 12+ given its clear writing style that illuminates and contextualises some of the most important ideas in philosophy. Laura D’Olimpio, The University of Notre Dame Australia On Bullshit by Harry G Frankfurt When someone asks you “where do I start with philosophy?”, it’s tempting to point them to a book that gives an overview of the history, key figures and problems of the discipline. But what about someone who doesn’t even want to go that far? Not everyone’s prepared to slog their way through Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy like my optometrist once did; every time I’d go in for new glasses he’d give me an update on where he was up to. And even if they’re prepared to put in the effort, some readers might come away from such a book not really seeing the value in philosophy beyond its historical interest. It’s easy to get lost in a fog of Greek names and -isms until you can’t see the forest for the trees. So there’s one book I recommend to everyone even if they have no interest in philosophy whatsoever: Harry Frankfurt’s classic 1986 essay “<a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html">On Bullshit</a>”, published as a book in 2005. It’s only a few pages long so you can knock it over in a couple of train trips, and it’s a great example of philosophy in action. Frankfurt starts with the arresting claim that: <blockquote> One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. </blockquote> In the best tradition of the discipline, Frankfurt takes something we don’t even typically notice and brings it into the light so we can see just how pervasive, strange and important it is. Bullshit, Frankfurt argues, is not simply lying. It’s worse than that. In order to lie, you first have to know the truth (or think you do), and you have to care about the truth enough to cover it up. To that extent at least the liar still maintains a relationship to the truth. The bullshitter, by contrast, doesn’t care about the truth at all. They just want you to believe what they say. What they tell you could even be true, for all they care, it doesn’t matter, so long as you buy it. The lying/bullshit distinction is a remarkably useful analytic tool. Be warned, though: once you have it, you’ll be seeing it everywhere. Patrick Stokes, Deakin University The Guardians in Action: Plato the Teacher by William H F Altman Plato’s dialogues were conceived by their author as a consummate, step-by-step training in philosophy, starting with the most basic beginners. Such is the orienting claim of The Guardians in Action, the second of a projected three volumes in American scholar William Altman’s continuing contemporary exploration of Plato as a teacher. Altman, for many years a high school teacher trained in the classical languages and philosophy, has devoted his retirement from the classroom to an extraordinary attempt to reread or reteach the Platonic dialogues as a sequential pedagogical program. The program begins with Socrates walking into the Hades-like den of sophists in the Protagoras. In the middle, the heart and high point of the 36 texts, stands the Republic, the subject of Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic of 2012 (Volume 1). Here, the education of the philosopher-“guardians” who will rule in the best city, having seen the true Idea of the Good, is timelessly laid out. The true philosopher, as Altman’s Plato conceived him, must “go back down” into the city to educate his fellows, even though he has seen the Transcendent End of his inquiries. The Republic itself begins emblematically, with Socrates “going back down” to the Piraeus to talk with his friends. As Altman sees things, the entire Platonic oeuvre ends with Socrates going back down into Athens, staying there to die in a cavelike prison for the sake of philosophy in the Phaedo. Who then did Plato want for his guardians, on Altman’s reading? We his readers –like the first generation of students in the Academy whom Altman pictures being taught by Plato through the syllabus of the dialogues. This is an extraordinarily learned book, maybe not for the complete beginner. You need to have spent a lifetime with a thinker to write books like this (with the finale, The Guardians on Trial set to come). But it is everywhere lightened by Altman’s style, and the warm affection for Plato and for the business of teaching that radiates from every page. So it is most certainly a book for anyone who loves or has ever wondered about Plato, still the original and arguably the best introduction to philosophy. Matt Sharpe, Deakin Philosophy as a Way of Life by Pierre Hadot This book is a collection of essays by the late French philosopher and philologist Pierre Hadot. After 1970, via his studies of classical literature, Hadot became convinced that the ancients conceived of philosophy very differently than we do today. It was, for them, primarily about educating and forming students, as well as framing arguments and writing books. Its goal was not knowledge alone but wisdom, a knowledge about how to live that translated into transformed ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, mediated by what Hadot calls “spiritual exercises” like the premeditation of evils and death, and the contemplation of natural beauty. The ideal was the sage, someone whose way of living was characterised by inner freedom, tranquillity, moral conscience and a constant sense of his own small place in the larger, ordered world. Hadot spent much of the last decades of his life exploring this idea in studies of ancient philosophy, particularly that of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He wrote long books in this light on Marcus Aurelius (The Inner Citadel) and the German poet Goethe, both of whom feature prominently in the essays in Philosophy as a Way of Life, Hadot’s most popular introductory book. Hadot’s writing is simple and graceful, and has been beautifully preserved in Michael Chase’s translations for English readers. I’ll let Hadot himself describe his intentions, in a passage which gives a sense of the spirit that breathes through the larger original: <blockquote> Vauvenargues said, “A truly new and truly original book would be one which made people love old truths.” It is my hope that I have been “truly new and truly original” in this sense, since my goal has indeed been to make people love a few old truths […] there are some truths whose meaning will never be exhausted by the generations of man. It is not that they are difficult; on the contrary, they are often extremely simple. Often, they even appear to be banal. Yet for their meaning to be understood, these truths must be lived, and constantly re-experienced. Each generation must take up, from scratch, the task of learning to read and to re-read these “old truths”. </blockquote> Matt Sharpe, Deakin<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51745/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> Written by Patrick Stokes, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin University; Duncan Ivison, Professor of Political Philosophy, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research), University of Sydney; Laura D'Olimpio, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Notre Dame Australia, and Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin University. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-to-start-reading-philosophy-51745">The Conversation</a>.

Books

Why being rich won’t make us happier

Decent people take comfort in the idea that money is not profoundly connected with happiness. There are statistics that suggest that as income increases happiness does not rise to an equal degree; and that beyond a modest threshold, money does not make a big difference to one’s happiness. It’s a likeable thesis: it cheers for the underdog. It spits in the eye of money – and most people have been humiliated or disappointed by money at some time or other; there is a pleasure of revenge. Deep down we know that it would be too terrible if money could – by itself – cause happiness, with the clean causal power by which, for instance, alcohol makes us drunk. If money were a sufficient cause of happiness, the world would be truly hellish. If money, gained in whatever way (by undetected fraud, by sheer luck, by being above the law) and spent in whatever way (on tinsel, on securing flattery, on satisfying one’s most irresponsible and transient wishes) reliably produced happiness (the most desirable of all human conditions, the proper objective of our striving), how could one explain such an arrangement? Only a malevolent designer could create such a hideous order of things. But to win this point is not really to achieve much. For the question is not can money pure and simple produce happiness? The question is rather what connections, of more subtle kinds, there may be. By an unfortunate series of cultural events this crucial question has come to seem mean-spirited and philistine. It sounds cruel to ask: how can money produce happiness? Or, more provocatively, how can you buy happiness? In fact, this line of investigation deserves the utmost devotion of philosophical effort; we should treat it with the loving intelligence that went into working out the secret laws of nature. The first thing we have to do is look more closely at the idea of happiness. When we talk of happiness we sometimes mean a state of inner buoyancy, a sensation of inner satisfaction. And one can well imagine that money has only limited long-term effects on such feelings. But that inner state of buoyancy is not the true aim of most people’s lives. Of course, we all want to feel good about ourselves, not worry too much and not be depressed. Unless we have been kicked into desperation by life, we really don’t see the big issue as “how yummy do I feel?” Instead we see the issue as how much do I believe in what I am doing; what is the state of my self-respect? Do I give my life to worthy ends. How fully can I realise my higher nature. Have I served the good I see and the good I long to see? I believe that such concerns are true to human aspiration – and that few people would worry that they will bring with them a fair degree of anxiety, anguish, worry and disappointment. We’re not made of porcelain. In fact, what we usually mean by a happy life is flourishing. Flourishing is a semi technical term – the standard way of stating the realisation of a person’s best potential. If you live in a thuggish culture, or just a vulgar or silly one, it is certainly possible to feel good about yourself; but that would have little to do with realising your best potential or developing and exercising your best capacities. While feeling good about yourself seems to have natural limit, the good exercise of your capacities can always increase. Flourishing – or the larger, deeper ideal of happiness – is like beauty; it is an emergent property. An artist cannot endow a picture with beauty by adding one magical ingredient. But all the elements, worked together in the right way, may produce a ravishing portrait or a gracious still life. It is perfectly clear the mere possession of money does not enable a person to make the kinds of choices, or undertake the kinds of activities that constitute a flourishing life. Goethe provided us with a central metaphor here. In his novel Whilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – written in the last decade of the 18th century – he writes: “life lies before you, like a huge quarry before an architect. He does not deserve the name of architect unless out of this chance mass of material he can, with maximum economy, fitness and durability fashion a dwelling place” - that is, make a life. The material is diverse - external and internal (character traits, genetic endowment, nurture, historical circumstance …); it is fortuitous because you do not choose it; it is a mass before it is organised. But what you do with it depends upon your ideas, abilities, inspiration, drive, ambition, appetite to face difficulties and overcome them, the beauty of your ideals and the refinement of your taste. His point is that, of course you can have all kinds of resources – and money is just the abstract name for resources – but not know how to use them to make anything wonderful. On the other hand, a skilled person, with the right attitude of overcoming problems and making much out of little, can produce something admirable and fine with apparently unpromising materials. (And how much more, one might think, such a person could do if they were granted a bit more access to the quarry.) Flourishing, in the eyes of Goethe, is not something that happens apart from the resources we happen to have to hand. The mantra of happiness tends to invite us to be poor – to tell us that we already have far too much, and that money, things etc are not ways of being happy. It plays up to inner bolshevism: the idea that a human being really doesn’t need all that much by way of material resources. But, if one thinks, as I do, that every person deserves to live in a city as gracious as Bath, or with as rich a culture as Edinburgh, that many more people need the time to think for themselves and the stimulus and guidance to cultivate their inner lives; that we all need a lot more dinner parties, and many more leisurely conversations in which our minds can meet – then really we are saying that we need two things: we need more material prosperity, we need more resources but we also need to use those resources in a more enlightened way – as architects of our own flourishing.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1188/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> Written by John Armstrong, Philosopher, University of Melbourne. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-deficit-of-the-soul-or-why-being-rich-wont-make-australia-happier-1188">The Conversation</a>.

Mind

What is the true meaning of life?

Tom Cronin is a meditation teacher, life coach and writer. He is the founder of The Stillness Project, a global movement that aims to help people on their journey towards calmness and fulfilment. Do you ever stop to ask yourself what your life’s purpose is? Do you ever wonder what you’re doing here or whether or not you’re making a tangible difference? If you do, you aren’t alone. In fact, it’s quite human to ponder and pine for the true meaning of life. In fact, we’ve been philosophising on the meaning of life for hundreds of thousands of years, and guess what? We still don’t have any concrete answers. Perhaps that’s because ‘meaning’ is all relative. In fact, we can choose to give meaning to the various people, situations, places, and things that we encounter throughout our lives. For instance, think of one of your friends. Think about the first time you met that person. At that time your friend was a stranger to you. You might not have placed any significance on your interactions. But now, think about the time you’ve spent with that person. Somewhere along the line you recognised that you enjoy that person’s company, you value his or her opinion, and you want to preserve the relationship. Whether unconscious or conscious, you made a choice to give those various meanings to your relationship with your friend. Had you never decided to place value on the relationship you have with that person, he or she would have remained an acquaintance. You have tremendous power to choose the various meanings you want your life to have. If you don’t believe that the people and events that you encounter are worthy of meaning, then your life will have no meaning. If you are ready to give meaning to your relationships with others and if you see the things you do as meaningful then your life, in turn, will have meaning. It’s that simple. The following are just a few of life’s many pleasures that have the ability to make your life more worthwhile: Spirituality The gift of spirituality is something that is in general, poorly understood. So many of us go through life failing to recognise our capacity as divine beings. But in the midst of suffering, we often find ourselves searching for a crutch – something to help us explain what we are going through and understand the bigger picture. That’s when spirituality comes into the forefront. But you needn’t wait until you experience something major to start cultivating a healthy and meaningful sense of spirituality. Through Stillness, you can get started today. Love & relationships It has been said that “A life without love is a life not worth living.” It’s perhaps true that the relationships we will have throughout our lives have the most potential to enrich our lives with profound meaning. As humans we are social creatures. We need to interact with and learn from others in order to survive. The film Into the Wild, which is based on the true story of a man who rejects societal values and chooses a life of solitude in Alaska, is a powerful reminder that a life devoid of relationships is an empty one. Prior to his death Christopher McCandless, the main character of the film, writes a journal entry stating that “Happiness is only real when shared.” Good health It takes as little as a common cold or flu to make you realise how important your health is. Spending one or two days down with an illness is enough to help anyone recognise just how wonderful it is to live a healthy life. If you think that your health is out of your hands, you’re wrong. Only you have the power to improve the quality of your own life by engaging in healthy habits. By exercising regularly, eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, managing stress, and taking care of yourself, you show your gratitude for good health and reduce your risk of contracting an illness or falling prey to a disease. Written by Tom Cronin. First appeared on <a href="http://stillnessproject.com/" target="_blank">The Stillness Project</a>. Related links: <a href="/health/mind/2016/08/how-to-build-self-discipline-in-10-days/">How to build self-discipline in 10 days</a> <a href="/health/mind/2016/08/bad-habits-that-are-actually-good/">7 “bad” habits that are actually good for you</a> <a href="/health/mind/2016/08/4-proven-ways-to-worry-less/">4 proven ways to worry less</a>

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