The Good Life

My interpretation of the good life is many things. First, I believe we should all have a faith that there is something greater that just our life span out there. A person's life is so short and there have to be another beginning to this end. We all need some type of moral rules to follow. For example, the Ten Commandments, there is only ten, just the basics. A person needs guidance from the moment we are born. If we do not have guidance even as a baby we would die. Ethical relativism is something that had just started in the nineteenth century when a set of philosophers visited many other cultures around the world and noticed that every culture has some similarities but also many differences. A Person should tolerate the differences with the culture but only to an extent (Sommers & Sommers, 2010). We all have our differences in what we do and how we feel. For example, I may make my biscuits different than you make yours. We have our differences in how we feel about youth and growing old just as Cephalus explains that he feels at peace and calm in his age but many others his own age feel there youth has been taken from them and they feel pain anguish.

The same differences go for how we act in our own culture. Cultures have differences in how they act in certain situations. A person should tolerate these differences as long as it does not go again the few major moral rules that all cultures should follow. For example the number one moral rules in the divine command theory would be thou shall not kill. But it does not say anything about what we should do with the people who have killed many other people, a murderer. Would it be just and
explainable if a person killed someone that was harming and killing others? Would it not be moral to stop someone like that and it is a greater good for all other people because you are now protecting a society by taking a killer off the streets? Back to the initial thought of we should tolerate other cultures, I think the best decisions would be as the philosophers stated that we should tolerate other culture as long at it does not go against the greater of the moral rules.

I think the good life consists of in a sense what makes you happy as long as what makes you happy is not harming others. We should all have a belief of a higher authority over us; we should follow the basic rules of morality: do not kill, do not steal, keep love, light and happiness in our hearts. I do not know if a life of unjust is better than the life of just as Glaucan believes to be so. As in the example stated earlier with a murderer, in the life of being just and bringing justice one should think the lifer should be taken of the life taker or murderer. But if we follow our basic moral rules that are colliding with one another. In the life of being unjust, letting the murderer live would unfair to the victim of the person's life he or she has taken. To be unjust we fend for ourselves and we do not worry about what is or is not fair to others who surround us.

In the human search for meaning Victor Frankl spent three years in a concentration camp. I think anyone who has survived that would have much wisdom in him. The Nazis had taken everything away from him down to near his last muscles in his body, including is whole family. Through his talks he speaks about that they can take everything that they think they could take away except person's choices in every situation (Sommers & Sommers, 2010). We are faced with choices every second of every day and no matter what situation you find yourself to be in only you have the choice of what and how you will react and what path you will chose or what decision you will have to make (Sommers & Sommers, 2010). In my own beliefs on the good life what he has stated is so very true. How we live our life and how we make our life the good life is based on the choices and decisions we make. Just because we may make bad decisions in our life does not mean we are not leading the good life. We need to learn from the choices we make to make better choices in the future. These choices we make should not always be for our own self gratification either. We should always look to how we can better our existence and our world.

It is hard to say what way to live or what beliefs you should have. I think if we all keep in mind that number one we only live once, kindness is a virtue, we should not harm other people, and we should tolerate differences to an extent as long as it does not being harm to other human beings. We should educate ourselves, because with education comes knowledge and different ways of thinking. Respect your elders, with age comes wisdom and knowledge, not always but most of the time our elders can teach us so much. They have been were we are and they may have a whole new light on how things can be done differently or better than they had accomplished. Treat other as you want to be treated. If you would not want someone mentally or physically harm you then why would you do so to someone else other than for your own pleasure. Live a good life.

References:

Sommers, C., & Sommers, F. (2010). Vice & Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth