PDF Summary:The Master Guides: What Makes a Good Life?, by Shortform

In our complicated world, we’re bombarded with messages about how we should live our lives. But is there a single “best” or “right” way to live? Is that question even possible to answer? If so, what would a good life look like?

In our Master Guide to what makes a good life, we’ll examine different answers to these questions from significant philosophers and spiritualists like Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics) and Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra). We’ll distill their complex arguments into three main perspectives on what a good life looks like: living according to reason, dedicating yourself to a larger project or goal, and abandoning any fixed idea of “goodness” altogether. Our exploration of each perspective explains why its proponents consider it the best way to live, and we’ll outline how to apply their “good life” principles in your own life.

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Perspective #2: A Good Life Is Dedicated to Something Greater

The second perspective on a good life emphasizes dedication to a project, concept, or ideal larger than yourself as an individual. This understanding of a good life is based less on your internal development—improving and following your reasoning skills, for example—and more on your interactions with the external world.

In this section, we’ll explore two versions of this philosophical perspective: living a good life by dedicating yourself to society and living a good life by dedicating yourself to the universe.

Dedicate Yourself to Society

Many philosophers believe that, to live a good life, you must dedicate yourself to the larger project of contributing to and improving your society. In the Analects, ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius says you can do this by respecting your superiors and fulfilling your obligations to family and community.

With family, this means respecting and obeying your elders and putting duties and responsibilities to family before anything else. Confucius emphasizes the importance of obeying and respecting your parents, arguing that you should try to avoid directly contradicting them or voicing strong disagreement with them.

In the context of the community, this means following cultural traditions, obeying and being honest with your superiors, and working as hard as possible to be productive.

Dedicate Yourself to the Universe

Other scholars take a cosmic perspective on what it means to be part of something larger than yourself. Spiritualist author Alan Watts (The Book) argues that the best way to live is by viewing yourself as one with the universe. He explains that every living being, object, and idea in the universe exists in relation to others—in other words, any individual being, object, or idea only exists as a result of interacting or contrasting with the things around it.

For example, you only exist as a result of eating, breathing, drinking, and touching things in your environment. In addition, you only understand yourself as “tall” or “short” in relation to other things. Therefore, you need other objects in the universe to be born, live, or even define yourself in any meaningful way. You and the universe are interconnected.

Watts believes the best way to live is by acknowledging and embracing this interconnectedness. In practice, this impacts both how you think and how you act.

Interconnected Thinking

By understanding that you’re interconnected with the universe, you spend less time worrying about your own problems and desires. Personal wants and problems matter much less when you’re thinking on a cosmic scale. Instead of worrying, you spend this time finding joy in the present and appreciating the complexities of the universe.

Interconnected Actions

By understanding that you’re interconnected with the universe, you also compete less and do less harm to the people and world around you. You know there’s no point competing with someone else when they’re part of the same whole as you. In addition, you’re less inclined to destroy people or things around you, because this means harming yourself—you and whatever you harm are part of the same whole.

Perspective #3: There Is No Good Life

Unlike the previous philosophers discussed, some authors argue that you shouldn’t worry about living a good life at all—they either believe a good life doesn’t exist, or believe it’s impossible to know what a good life is. These authors believe the best way to live is by rejecting any fixed standard of “good” or “bad.”

19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and 20th-century French author Albert Camus offer two different perspectives on why you shouldn’t pursue goodness and how you should live instead:

Goodness Doesn’t Exist

Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) argues there’s no universal standard of a “good” life. To him, morality is all relative—what’s good to one person might be evil to another, and it’s impossible to get around this. Nietzsche argues that, rather than worrying about morality, the best people contribute the most to the evolution of mankind.

In his argument, Nietzsche refers to evolution in the Darwinian sense—certain people survive and reproduce more due to naturally selected traits, and this pattern changes the nature of the species. According to him, social conformity and mediocrity cause mankind’s evolution to stagnate, putting the whole species at risk—if everyone is doing the same things and not pushing any new boundaries, mankind won’t be able to change and adapt to future challenges.

Therefore, he argues, the best possible person is unique, individualistic, and naturally skilled. These people reject social norms and morals, dedicating themselves to their passions and developing personally beneficial traits like strength and joy. This single-minded devotion allows them to develop remarkable intellect, strength, and talent for their passions, which they’ll then pass on to the next generation of humanity.

Goodness Is Unknowable

Instead of claiming that a good life does or doesn’t exist, some philosophers believe it’s pointless to debate the question at all. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus argues it’s impossible to understand the purpose or meaning of human life. This is because the answer to this question lies beyond the scope of human experience. For example, if God exists and provides humanity with purpose, then we still wouldn’t know that our lives have purpose because we can’t concretely know whether or not God exists. Since we can’t know the purpose of human life, we have no frame of reference to say what kind of life is “good” or “bad.”

Camus calls this uncertainty “the absurd,” and believes the best way to live life is by being aware of and accepting the absurd. This means recognizing that everything in your life might be pointless, but choosing to live on regardless—and finding pleasure in doing so by seeking new experiences and living in the moment. Since the only thing you can be sure of is the life you have, you should make the most out of it instead of worrying about the possibility of an afterlife or a greater unknowable purpose.