Does the acorn that becomes an oak tree live the good life? Does merely fulfilling one's own nature qualify as the good life? Is the good life built on logic? Does the good life use recurring pleasure to balance out recurring pain? In this paper, I will examine what the good life means to mankind. Primarily, I will be comparing the life led by the Stoic with the pursuit of the good life as presented by an Epicurean lifestyle. I will show how these two concepts of the good life differ and will then provide my own view of what it takes to have the good life.
Stoicism is a philosophy that is fundamentally very simple. It can be broken down to a basic logical argument form. The pursuit of truth is virtuous and passion is what clouds the truth, one can conclude that passion is the cause of being without virtue. The implied premise is that “One ought to live a virtuous life.” This is quite a loaded statement. To begin unpacking this basic argument, I will start by defining the concepts. Passion is used in this context as pleasure or pain, where as one is polar opposite from the other. Such as the ditch that runs along each side a road. To abstain from either ditch is to keep sure-footing on the road. Virtue is a vague term but for the sake of this paper a virtuous life is the same as the good life. Stoic ethics teach that liberation from passion is attainable through reason. In addition, Stoics would argue that the good life is one free from the troubles that are tied to making brash and emotionally driven decisions. Stoics understand that a decision made in anger is one that will cause the most regret and they further contend that a life filled with regret is not the good life. So because a life with many regrets is not the Stoic good life, the good life sought by a Stoic would be one that strives to put an end to regret. Reason and logic are the primary methods that a Stoic uses to make good life decisions. The goal of the Stoic life is to achieve clear and reasonable judgment. By using reason, logic and self-reflection, one can more easily maintain very clear judgment throughout a lifetime.
In a sense, the Stoic good life would appear to others as a life divided. The Stoic elects to compartmentalize each aspect of his life into its own realm. This dramatically simplifies life allowing the Stoic to easily accomplish his objective through a mastery of reason and logic. As an example, one's career choice would be the obvious conclusion of a standard argument form with each premise being input from the Stoic's life. If I enjoy gardening and I am a good gardener then I ought to be a professional gardener. A Stoic will find happiness and contentment in this choice because he uses logic to make a well-defined life decision. His judgment is not clouded by irrational thoughts or passions.
In contrast, an Epicurean's primary goal is to attain tranquility through knowledge of the world. There are several ways this can be accomplished, beginning with the liberation from one's fears by understanding the physical world and identifying the causes of pain in day to day life. Combining the mastery of fear with the abolishment of earthly pain will therefore lead to the highest form of happiness. On the surface this would seem like a fairly cut and dry philosophy. One who is afraid of death would learn to master that fear by the understanding that death is natural and necessary in order to complete the worldly circle of life. With this primary fear understood as the end to all pleasures and all pains, death is held in a unique regard, neither yearning nor fearing it. So it would appear that the Epicurean exists in a struggle between fearing death and yearning for death. This is, however, very much untrue. A wise Epicurean neither seeks to escape life nor fears the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him nor does the absence of life seem to be any evil (179 ethics). Epicureanism is a moderate balance between knowing that life is the sensation of things both good and evil and that death is the end to all sensation. Therefore death ought not to be feared or welcomed, but held in a neutral position. A good Epicurean life would be one that is always exploring the many sciences of the world. Using science to identify the harmful factors of life and to explore an accurate knowledge in all worldly things seems as though it would make for a very good life.
