Ask most people what ‘the good life’ involves, and they will likely rattle off a list of goods. Maybe those goods are simple pleasures like food, laughter, sex, or money; maybe they’re more refined goods like art, music, friendship, parenthood, or a fulfilling career. Philosophers, you may be surprised to learn, are people too, and often put together similar lists as constituents of the good life. Even Aristotle, who believed that the key to eudaimonia, or ‘flourishing’, is the cultivation and exercise of virtue, still thought certain goods were either prerequisites for happiness (e.g. health) or were goods that came to the virtuous (fame, wealth, friendship).
If we’re comparing how happy or flourishing various people’s lives are, it seems natural to look for certain goods, and compare who has more…
