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Learning Module 02: THE GOOD LIFE
LEARNING
MODULE 02:
The Good Life
GEC 1203
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY
Prepared by:
RICHELLE ANN M. EDISAN
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Learning Module 02: THE GOOD LIFE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title
Learning Outcomes
3
Time
Allotment
(minutes)
15
What is Meant by A Good Life?
4
200
12
46
12
70
12
13
14
16
16
30
20
20
10
60
What is the Ultimate Goal of a Good Life?
What is the Role of Technology in Achieving The Good
Life?
Summary
Table of References
Rubric
Activity
Assignment
Page
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Course Learning Outcomes (CLO)
CLO 1. Articulate the impacts of
science and technology on
society, specifically Philippine
society.
Module Learning Outcomes (MLO)
Topic Learning Outcomes
(TLO)
CLO 2. Explain how science and
technology affect society and the
environment and its role in
nation-building
CLO 3. Analyze the human
condition in order to deeply
reflect and express philosophical
ramifications that are meaningful
to the student as part of the
society.
CLO 4. Define and demonstrate
the impact of science and
technology as well as social
media on the students’ life and
Philippine society in general
TLO3.Explain what is
good life
MLO 1. Examine what is
meant by good life
MLO 2. Identify how
humans attempt to attain
what is deemed to be a
good life
TLO4.Identify the
different schools of
thought which aim for a
good and happy life.
TLO5. Enumerate the
ways we can
understand what is
meant by good life.
.
CLO 5. Imbibe the importance of
science and technology in the
preservation of the environment
and the development of the
Filipino
CLO 8. Creatively present the
importance and contributions of
science and technology to
society
CLO 9. Examine shared
concerns that make up the good
life in order to come up with
innovative and creative solutions
to contemporary issues guided
by ethical standards
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Learning Module 02: THE GOOD LIFE
INTRODUCTION
Many philosophers have attempted unlocking the old philosophical question
“What is good life?” “How should one live well?” “What does it take to live
fruitfully?”. In this module, these questions will be answered as we understand
all about achieving the good life, what every individual strives throughout
his/her life.
DISCUSSION
What is Meant by a good life?
According to Westacott (2018), there are three ways by which we can understand
what is meant by “a good life” or “living well”. These are the Moral life, Life of
Pleasure. And Fulfilled Life. Read the full article below.
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What is the Good life?
The various meanings of living well
By Emrys Westacott
What is “the good life”? This is one of the oldest philosophical questions. It has
been posed in different ways—How should one live? What does it mean to
“live well”?—but these are really just the same question. After all, everyone
wants to live well, and no one wants “the bad life.”
But the question isn’t as simple as it sounds. Philosophers specialize in
unpacking hidden complexities, and the concept of the good life is one of those
that needs quite a bit of unpacking.
The Moral Life
One basic way we use the word “good” is to express moral approval. So when
we say someone is living well or that they have lived a good life, we may
simply mean that they are a good person, someone who is courageous,
honest, trustworthy, kind, selfless, generous, helpful, loyal, principled,
and so on.
They possess and practice many of the most important virtues. And they
don’t spend all their time merely pursuing their own pleasure; they
devote a certain amount of time to activities that benefit others, perhaps
through their engagement with family and friends, or through their work,
or through various voluntary activities.
This moral conception of the good life has had plenty of champions. Socrates
and Plato both gave absolute priority to being a virtuous person over all other
supposedly good things such as pleasure, wealth, or power.
In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, Socrates takes this position to an extreme. He
argues that it is much better to suffer wrong than to do it; that a good
man who has his eyes gouged out and is tortured to death is more
fortunate than a corrupt person who has used wealth and power
dishonorably.
In his masterpiece, the Republic, Plato develops this argument in greater
detail. The morally good person, he claims, enjoys a sort of inner
harmony, whereas the wicked person, no matter how rich and powerful
he may be or how many pleasure he enjoys, is disharmonious,
fundamentally at odds with himself and the world.
It is worth noting, though, that in both the Gorgias and the Republic, Plato
bolsters his argument with a speculative account of an afterlife in which
virtuous people are rewarded and wicked people are punished.
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Many religions also conceive of the good life in moral terms as a life lived
according to God’s laws. A person who lives this way—obeying the
commandments and performing the proper rituals—is pious. And in most
religions, such piety will be rewarded. Obviously, many people do not receive
their reward in this life.
But devout believers are confident that their piety will not be in vain. Christian
martyrs went singing to their deaths confident that they would soon be in
heaven. Hindus expect that the law of karma will ensure that their good deeds
and intentions will be rewarded, while evil actions and desires will be punished,
either in this life or in future lives.
The Life of Pleasure
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was one of the first to declare, bluntly,
that what makes life worth living is that we can experience pleasure.
Pleasure is enjoyable, it’s fun, it’s...well...pleasant! The view that pleasure is
the good, or, to put I another way, that pleasure is what makes life worth living,
is known as hedonism.
The word “hedonist,” when applied to a person, has slightly negative
connotations. It suggests that they are devoted to what some have called the
“lower” pleasures such as sex, food, drink, and sensual indulgence in general.
Epicurus was thought by some of his contemporaries to be advocating and
practicing this sort of lifestyle, and even today an “epicure” is someone who is
especially appreciative of food and drink. But this is a misrepresentation of
Epicureanism. Epicurus certainly praised all kinds of pleasures. But he didn’t
advocate that we lose ourselves in sensual debauchery for various reasons:
Doing so will probably reduce our pleasures in the long run since overindulgence tends to cause health problems and limit the range of pleasure we
enjoy.
The so-called “higher” pleasures such as friendship and study are at least as
important as “pleasures of the flesh."
The good life has to be virtuous. Although Epicurus disagreed with Plato about
the value of pleasure, he fully agreed with him on this point.
Today, this hedonistic conception of the good life is arguably dominant in
Western culture. Even in everyday speech, if we say someone is “living the
good life,” we probably mean that they enjoying lots of recreational pleasures:
good food, good wine, skiing, scuba diving, lounging by the pool in the sun with
a cocktail and a beautiful partner.
What is key to this hedonistic conception of the good life is that it emphasizes
subjective experiences. On this view, to describe a person as “happy” means
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that they “feel good,” and a happy life is one that contains many “feel good”
experiences.
The Fulfilled Life
If Socrates emphasizes virtue and Epicurus emphasizes pleasure, another
great Greek thinker, Aristotle, views the good life in a more comprehensive
way. According to Aristotle, we all want to be happy.
We value many things because they are a means to other things. For
instance, we value money because it enables us to buy things we want;
we value leisure because it gives us time to pursue our interests. But
happiness is something we value not as a means to some other end but
for its own sake. It has intrinsic value rather than instrumental value.
So for Aristotle, the good life is a happy life. But what does that mean?
Today, many people automatically think of happiness in subjectivist
terms: To them, a person is happy if they are enjoying a positive state of
mind, and their life is happy if this is true for them most of the time.
There is a problem with this way of thinking about happiness in this way,
though. Imagine a powerful sadist who spends much of his time gratifying cruel
desires. Or imagine a pot-smoking, beer-guzzling couch potato who does
nothing but sit around all day watching old TV shows and playing video games.
These people may have plenty of pleasurable subjective experiences. But
should we really describe them as “living well”?
Aristotle would certainly say no. He agrees with Socrates that to live the
good life one must be a morally good person. And he agrees with
Epicurus that a happy life will involve many and varied pleasurable
experiences. We can’t really say someone is living the good life if they
are often miserable or constantly suffering.
But Aristotle’s idea of what it means to live well is objectivist rather than
subjectivist. It isn’t just a matter of how a person feels inside, although that
does matter. It’s also important that certain objective conditions be satisfied.
For instance:
Virtue: They must be morally virtuous.
Health: They should enjoy good health and reasonably long life.
Prosperity: They should be comfortably off (for Aristotle this meant affluent
enough so that they don’t need to work for a living doing something that they
would not freely choose to do.)
Friendship: They must have good friends. According to Aristotle human beings
are innately social; so the good life can’t be that of a hermit, a recluse, or a
misanthrope.
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Respect: They should enjoy the respect of others. Aristotle doesn’t think that
fame or glory is necessary; in fact, a craving for fame can lead people astray,
just as the desire for excessive wealth can. But ideally, a person’s qualities and
achievements will be recognized by others.
Luck: They need good luck. This is an example of Aristotle’s common sense.
Any life can be rendered unhappy by tragic loss or misfortune.
Engagement: They must exercise their uniquely human abilities and capacities.
This is why the couch potato is not living well, even if they report that they are
content. Aristotle argues that what separates human beings from the other
animals is the human reason. So the good life is one in which a person
cultivates and exercises their rational faculties by, for instance, engaging in
scientific inquiry, philosophical discussion, artistic creation, or legislation. Were
he alive today he might well include some forms of technological innovation.
If at the end of your life you can check all these boxes then you could
reasonably claim to have lived well, to have achieved the good life. Of course,
the great majority of people today do not belong to the leisure class as Aristotle
did. They have to work for a living.
But it’s still true that we think the ideal circumstance is to be doing for a living
what you would choose to do anyway. So people who are able to pursue their
calling are generally regarded as extremely fortunate.
The Meaningful Life
Recent research shows that people who have children are not necessarily
happier than people who don’t have children. Indeed, during the child-raising
years, and especially when children have turned into teenagers, parents
typically have lower levels of happiness and higher levels of stress. But even
though having children may not make people happier, it does seem to give
them the sense that their lives are more meaningful.
For many people, the well-being of their family, especially their children and
grandchildren, is the main source of meaning in life. This outlook goes back a
very long way. In ancient times, the definition of good fortune was to have lots
of children who do well for themselves.
But obviously, there can be other sources of meaning in a person’s life. They
may, for instance, pursue a particular kind of work with great dedication: e.g.
scientific research, artistic creation, or scholarship. They may devote
themselves to a cause: e.g. fighting against racism or protecting the
environment. Or they may be thoroughly immersed in and engaged with some
particular community: e.g. a church, a soccer team, or a school.
The Finished Life
The Greeks had a saying: Call no man happy until he’s dead. There is wisdom
in this. In fact, one might want to amend it to: Call no man happy until he’s long
dead. For sometimes a person can appear to live a fine life, and be able to
check all the boxes—virtue, prosperity, friendship, respect, meaning, etc.—yet
eventually be revealed as something other than what we thought they were.
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A good example of this Jimmy Saville, the British TV personality who was
much admired in his lifetime but who, after he died, was exposed as a serial
sexual predator.
Cases like this bring out the great advantage of an objectivist rather than a
subjectivist notion of what it means to live well. Jimmy Saville may have
enjoyed his life. But surely, we would not want to say that he lived the good life.
A truly good life is one that is both enviable and admirable in all or most of the
ways outlined above.
From the above article, good moral would lead us to the good and happy life.
Throughout history, man has persistently struggled in order to attain human
flourishing and has given birth to different schools of thought, which aim for the good
and happy life.
Materialism
The first materialists were the atomists in Ancient
Greece. The atomists philosophers thought that
The universe and matter are only made up of
atoms “atomos” or seeds. The founder of this
theory was the Greek philosopher Leucippus and
his disciple Democritus (around 460-370 B.C.). This
belief aims that comfort, pleasure and wealth
Leucippus and Democritus
are the only highest goals.
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Hedonism
For hedonists, since life is limited, one must
Indulge itself with pleasures- “Eat, drink and be
merry for tomorrow we die”.
Epicurus
Stoicism
Stoicism is one of the schools of thought in
philosophy created for those who live their
lives in the real world. It was founded in Athens
by Zeno of Citium (early 3rd century BC). Stoicism
asserts that virtue is happiness and judgment
should be based acts on behavior rather than
words.
Marcus Aurelius, one of the
principal leaders of stoicism
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Theism
The ultimate basis of happiness for theists is the
communion with God. They believe that they can
find the meaning if their lives by using God as the
creator of their existence. Theism is a belief that one
or more Gods exist within the universe, and that Gods
are often omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent
(all-powerful), and omnipresent (all-pervasive). This
belief incorporates monotheism (belief in one God) and
polytheism (belief in many Gods). The Abrahamic faiths
such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as Hinduism
are all theistic religions.
Humanism
Humanism is another school of thought that affirms
that human beings have the right and responsibility
to give meaning and shape their own lives.
Further, humanists see themselves not only as the
stewards of creation but as individuals who have
Humanism logo
control for themselves as well as the world outside
them.
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What is the ultimate goal of a Good life?
“Aristotle was the originator of the concept of eudaimonia (from daimon-true
nature). He deemed happiness to be a vulgar idea, stressing that not all desires are
not worth pursuing as, even though some of them may yield pleasures, they would
not produce wellness. Aristotle thought that true happiness is found by leading a
virtuous life and doing what is worth doing. He argued that realizing human potential
is the ultimate human goal” (Boniwell 2008).
Boniwell (2008) emphasized that feeling good is not good enough for a good
life. Each person must realize his/her potentialities which would lead him/her to the
greatest fulfillment- daimon.
What is the role of technology in achieving good life?
According to Vergragt (2006), in his essay about how technology could
contribute to a sustainable world, technology will support and enhance a “good life”
for all citizens without compromising the earth’s ecosystem or the prospects of later
generations.
As Stutz (2006) stated, a good life requires essentially basic human needs are
met and aspirations for freedom, belonging, and self-realization are fulfilled as much
as possible.
Technology allowed us to tamper time and space. Social media as an
example has been very effective in doing this. Communications has been a lot easier
for people from different parts of the world. They can talk and see each other in real
time and send messages instantly without waiting for a letter mail to arrive.
Technology also allowed us to fiddle with our sexuality by injecting hormones in
order to alter the biochemical in our body. Whether, we use such technological
advancement or not, these are all in the pursuit of attaining a good life. It is the
question of how we decide of what kinds of technology to use or not to use as well
as the balance between the good life, ethics, and technology has to be achieved.
SUMMARY
All sorts of technologies were created for positive purpose- it is make a goof
life for the people. It only offers peope to make their lives more easier and
faster to perform tasks but the negative effects of the technologies it to be
blamed to the end users of the technologies.
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TABLE OF REFERENCES
Reference/s
Prieto, N. Vega, V. et.al. (2019). Science, Technology
and Society. Lorimar Publishing Inc. Citation: The Good
Life
Westacott, E. (2018). What is the good life?
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-good-life-4038226
No.
1
2
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Criteria
Focus/ Main
Point
1
Support
Provides little or
no support for
the main point
Organization
and Format
Little or no
organization of
ideas to build
an argument
The essay
poorly
addresses topic
and includes
irrelevant ideas
2
The essay is
focused on
topic and
includes few
loosely related
ideas
Supports main
point with some
underdeveloped
reasons and/or
examples
3
The essay is
focused on the
topic and
includes
relevant ideas
Some
organization of
ideas to build
an argument
Organizes
ideas to build
an argument
Supports main
point with
developed
reasons
and/or
examples
4
The essay is
focused,
purposeful, and
reflects clear
insight and
ideas
Persuasively
supports main
point with welldeveloped
reasons and/or
examples
Score
Effectively
organize ideas
to build a
logical,
coherent
argument
Little or no use of
Some use of
Appropriate use Effective and
Language
elements of style.
elements of
of elements of creative use of
Use, Style
Many
errors
in
style!
Contains
style!
and
elements of
Uses
correct
grammar,
frequent
errors
Conventions
style to
grammar,
spelling, and
in grammar,
enhance
spelling, and
punctuation,
spelling, and
Meaning.
punctuation
makes reader’s
punctuation
with few errors Uses correct
comprehension
Very little
Sufficient
difficult
experimentation
grammar,
experimentation
No
to enhance
spelling,
with language punctuation
experimentation concepts
and usage to
throughout with
nor
enhance
very few errors.
enhancement
concepts
of concepts.
Distinctive
experimentation
with language
and usage to
enhance
concepts
No adherence to Does not exhibit
Applies basic Applies higher
Originality
the theme
creative skills to order thinking
creativity
relay ideas
and creative
skills to relay
complex ideas
RUBRICS FOR ESSAY WRITING
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Criteria
Craftsmanship
RUBRIC FOR ARTWORK
1
2
3
Demonstrates
No evidence of Demonstrates
some skills with strong skills
skill
media; with the media,
development in the
technically
the media; little technically
accomplished
proficient
technical
competency
Formal
qualities
Composition
lacking a
cohesive
appearance
Composition
lacking a
cohesive
appearance!
Some
integration of
elements and
principles of
design
Composition is
cohesively
unified!
Strong
integration of
elements and
principles of
design
Creativity
Does not
exhibit
innovative
thinking - very
little
experimentation
to enhance
concepts.
Does not
exhibit
creative
thinking skills
-uses unoriginal
or over-used
images and/or
approach
Exhibits
innovative
thinking
sufficient
experimentation
to
enhance
concepts.
Exhibits distinct
experimentation
and innovation
to enhance
creative
concepts.
Poor
interpretation
and
communication
of thematic
concepts due
to
inappropriate
or inadequate
images or
thoughts
Adequate
interpretation
and
communication
of thematic
concepts
Interpretation
of Topic
Some
visible
connection to
the theme
Score
Strong
apparent
connection to
the theme
Excellent
interpretation
and
communication
of thematic
concepts
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Name:
Course, Year and Section:
Date:
“As members of Academic Community, students are expected to
recognize and uphold standards of intellectual and academic integrity.
Philippine State College of Aeronautics assumes, as a basic and
minimum standard of conduct in academic matters, that students
should be honest and that they submit for credit only the products of
their own efforts.
______________________________
SIGNATURE OVER PRINTED NAME
ACTIVITY
Identification. Identify the following schools of thought and write your
answers on the spaces provided before each number.
______________1. A school of thought that affirms that human
beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape
their own lives.
______________2. This school of thought believe that the ultimate
basis of happiness for theists is the communion with God.
______________3. _____________is one of the schools of thought
in philosophy created for those who live their lives in the real world.
______________4. For hedonists, since life is limited, one must
Indulge itself with pleasures.
______________5. This belief aims that comfort, pleasure and
wealth are the only highest goals.
Research some pictures of the effect of the aid of technology in
attaining a good life then make a photo collage of it. Be as creative
as possible.
ASSIGNMENT
1. Define in your own words the meaning of a good life.
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
2. How can one achieve a good life according to the article,
“What is the Good Life?” by Emrys Westacott?
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
3. Can technology lead us to a good life? Explain your
answer.
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
4. Research and read The Concepts of the Public Good: A
View from the Filipino Philosopher by Rolando Gripaldo.
Write a reflection paper on how the topic relate to the
lesson about the Good Life. Support your stand.
_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
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