What is a Good Life?

This is a difficult question. To answer it, you need to make sure you’re asking the right question in the right way.

The Essential Parts of a Good Life

Consider any part of what you might traditionally (or stereotypically) think of as being essential to living a good life: wealth, property, success, family, love, confidence, popularity, freedom, power, status, productivity, etc., etc. These are the things that most people aim for. You will have your own list.

Perhaps there is only one thing that, for you, needs to be on this list: ‘happiness’.

Perhaps some of these might seem obvious, barely worth thinking about: it goes without saying that ‘wealth is good’, ‘success is good’, ‘popularity is good’, etc., and therefore that we should aim for them. Surely it goes without saying that ‘happiness is good’, doesn’t it?! Add all these ‘good’ things together and you will get a ‘good’ life, right? Because a life is just the sum of its parts, surely? And if the parts are good, then the life is good, isn’t it?

So if I want to live better, I just need to go and get as much of these good things as I can, don’t I?

But it’s not so clear. Socrates is always pointing out that there’s no point asking the easier questions until you have made some attempt to answer the more difficult questions on which any good answer depends. You can’t know whether or not ‘fighting in armour’ is good for ‘courage’ if you don’t know what ‘courage’ is, for example. You can’t know whether it’s pious to try to please the gods if you don’t know what ‘piety’ is.

If you want the right answer, you need to make sure that you’re asking the right question.

Socrates’ Question

Looked at in that way, it’s clear that Socrates’ question can be asked of any of these parts of a supposed good life: how can we know whether, e.g., ‘wealth’ is a good thing or not if we don’t yet know what it is to live a good life? We need to first ask the right question, the harder question – what is a good life? – before we can answer the easier questions and come to know whether any of these things are an essential part of a good life.

Once we go down that route, we very quickly (and easily) discover that we were wrong to think that it was so obvious.

Consider a straightforward example: wealth. Almost everyone would agree that, on the face of it, wealth is a good thing. It’s better to have money than not! Money enables you to do more things, have more things, have more opportunities; these are all good, surely? And when it comes to good things, more is better, isn’t it? So wealth must be a good thing.

But what if someone puts their wealth to bad use? What if they use their wealth to exploit the vulnerable, or coerce young people into non-consensual sexual acts: is that a good thing? What if someone uses their wealth to buy up a load of property or land that they don’t need or use, depriving people of the chance to live there: is that a good thing? What if having wealth gives someone the opportunity to gamble, or buy recreational drugs, leading to an addiction that ruins their life: is that a good thing? What if wealth makes you lazy? Or insensitive? Or selfish? What if wealth makes you privileged and entitled? What if wealth makes you look down on other people? What if wealth makes you incapable of finding value in the simple things? What if wealth leads to intolerable inequality? What if wealth drives an excessive consumerism that ends up needlessly killing the planet?

Wealth in itself isn’t a good thing; it’s only a good thing when it’s used well.

Consider another example: popularity. Almost everyone would agree that, on the face of it, popularity is a good thing. We’d rather be popular and well liked than not! Popularity and being liked makes us feels good, enhances our self-esteem, makes life more fun. Being popular can help you get ahead in the world. These are all nice and good, surely?

But what if you are popular with a bad crowd? What if they only like you for the wrong reasons? What if you have achieved your popularity only by bullying the less popular (like every high-school drama ever)? What if your popularity with that crowd depends on a lifestyle that is slowly killing you?

Popularity is only a good thing when it’s among the right people and for the right reasons.

Consider another example: power. Almost everyone would agree that, on the face of it, power is a good thing. We’d rather have power than not! Power enables you to do more things, have more opportunities, it enables you to exert your will over the world and get what you want. These are all good and useful, surely?

But what if someone misuses or abuses their power? What if someone’s use of power leaves another powerless? What if power is used to take from the innocent, to protect the guilty, to reinforce injustice? The list of potential misuses of power is too long and obvious to bother writing. Power in itself isn’t a good thing; it’s only a good thing when it’s used well.

You will find you can run the same line of reasoning for any example you care to think of – Socrates and I are pretty confident of that. This can even be said of ‘happiness’, as it is commonly understood to mean ‘feeling good’ or ‘content’. Is it good to be an evil and abusive tyrant, but happy? Regardless of how good they might feel, can we call such a person really happy?

Even the seemingly unconditional good of love – Socrates’ ‘divine madness’ – is vulnerable to this line of reasoning, because even love has its corrupt and counterfeit forms like infatuation, lust, or those many forms of ‘love’ that are merely veiled forms of coercion due to power inequalities. Love might be unconditionally good, but only when it’s real love, and we only know what real love is when we have made some attempt to ask and answer the harder questions about what it is to love well.

Anything that you care to list as being an essential part of a good life will only actually be good if it is used well. In themselves, these goods do not have the power to make a good life. And so they are only part of a good life if that life is lived well. Being wealthy is good, but only if you are living well; being popular is good, but only if you are living well; being powerful is good, but only if you are living well; being happy is good, but only if you are living well. The goodness of every seemingly good thing depends on living well. And so we say:

The goal in life is not to have more of what is good but to be more of what is good.

Virtue is Necessary for Happiness

The attempt to answer our question about what it means to have a good life by referring to various good things in life leaves us no better off with regard to our original question. The conclusion is clear: since ‘living well’ is what makes seemingly good things good, those good things cannot define what it is to have a good life. It’s the other way around. Good things don’t make for a good life; living well is what makes good things good. Living well makes wealth, power, success, property, popularity, freedom, confidence, etc., etc., good. Living badly makes wealth, power, success, property, popularity, freedom, confidence, etc., etc., bad. As such, everything depends on living well.

Because of this, it’s foolish trying to find the answer to the question ‘what is a good life?’ by looking at supposedly good things like wealth, success, power, etc. Any judgement of those things will depend on the answer to the original question. You’ll end up going round in circles. Instead, you need to start by asking what it is to live well, then ask whether wealth, success, power, etc., are a part of that picture. First ask the right question.

Once you ask that question and face it square on, Socrates thinks you will realise that being virtuous, by which he means being ethically excellent, is the only thing that really matters. Since the value of all things depends on their ethical virtue, this kind of ethical virtue is all we really need in life. Without virtue, everything is made bad; with virtue, everything is made good. And so everything depends on virtue and we need nothing else.

In sloganized form: Virtue is sufficient for happiness.

Read more: Think Well, Live Well: A Free Introduction to Philosophy