scholarly journals Personal Utopia: The “Good Life” in Popular Religion and Literature in Contemporary Sweden

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-150
Author(s):  
Daniel Enstedt ◽  
Kristina Hermansson
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Religion And Literature ◽  
Literature And Religion ◽  
Culturally Based ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Individual

This article examines the discourse of the “good life” in popular religion and literature in contemporary Sweden. The results indicate thnew spiritual movements (e.g. mindfulness and the Enneagram) situate traditional transcendental goals within the individual, immanent self and the utopian ideals (e.g. individual wellbeing and happiness) expressed in popular literature are to be achieved through changing individuals’ attitudes rather than their material and structural circumstances. Furthermore, this understanding of the individual relies on a culturally based discourse in which medicalized, therapeutic language, what Michel Foucault called “bio-power”, defines humanity and the human condition. This cultural discourse centers on the individual’s potential and responsibility to change dysfunctional habits, situations, and relationships, whereas structural, contextual, and situational solutions are ignored. The Swedish popular literature and religion examined here both express this discourse and constitute an important new form of authority when it comes to articulating new utopian ideals to relate to in everyday life, at work, and in family life.

A Critique of Raz’s Liberal Perfectionism: Morality and Politics

1996 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-364
Author(s):  
Bi‐Hwan Kim
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Objective Knowledge ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Joseph Raz ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Liberal Perfectionism

Joseph Raz Has Long Been Well Known as a Legal philosopher and theorist of practical reason. But it is only in the last decade that he has come to be widely identified as the most prominent defender of a distinctive interpretation of the liberal tradition. Raz wholeheartedly endorses the communitarian view that the individual is a social being, who needs society to establish his/her self-identity and to gain objective knowledge of the good, rather than a self-contained subject abstracted from any specific social experience. Unlike neutralist liberals, such as Rawls and Dworkin, he rejects ‘the priority of right over the good’, stressing the interdependent relationship between right and the good. Yet he remains very much a liberal in his commitment to the value of autonomy (or freedom) and argues powerfully for the desirability (or necessity) of incommensurable plural conceptions of the good life for the well-being of people, as well as for the liberal virtue of toleration, and for their attendant liberal democratic political institutions.

scholarly journals AUGUSTINE ON THE DANGERS OF FRIENDSHIP

2015 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 836-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer Nawar
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Keen Observer ◽  
The Human Condition

The philosophers of antiquity had much to say about the place of friendship in the good life and its role in helping us live virtuously. Augustine is unusual in giving substantial attention to the dangers of friendship and its potential to serve as an obstacle (rather than an aid) to virtue. Despite the originality of Augustine's thought on this topic, this area of his thinking has received little attention. This paper will show how Augustine, especially in the early books of the Confessiones, carefully examines the potential of friendship to lead us astray. In particular, friendships may prove an impediment to virtue by: derailing our practical reasoning (rather than aiding it); fostering vices (rather than virtues); and misdirecting our love. Augustine's investigation of the murky depths of friendship shows an original philosopher and keen observer of the human condition at work.

Positive Psychology: Past, Present, and Future

2009 ◽  
pp. 6-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed Diener
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Functioning ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

This chapter briefly reviews the history of positive psychology, and the endeavor by scientists to answer the classic question posed by philosophers: What is the good life? One piece of evidence for the growth of positive psychology is the proliferation of measures to assess concepts such as happiness, well-being, and virtue. The chapter briefly reviews the importance of C. R. Snyder to the field of positive psychology. Several critiques of positive psychology are discussed. One valid critique is that there is too much emphasis within positive psychology on the individual, and too little focus on positive societies, institutions, and situations. We can profit from considering the various critiques because they will help us to improve the field. Positive psychology has important strengths, such as the number of young scholars and practitioners who are entering the field. The Handbook of Positive Psychology is an outstanding resource for all those who are working in this discipline, and also for others outside of the area, to gain broad knowledge of the important developments that are occurring in our understanding of positive human functioning.

WRITING COLLABORATIVE HAPPINESS

2022 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-29
Author(s):  
Catherine Kingfisher
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Joint Production ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The Individual

Abstract In this article, I discuss a collaborative research project with two urban cohousing communities: Kankanmori, in Tokyo, and Quayside Village, in North Vancouver. The project focused on the joint production of the good life in the two communities, both of which situate well-being as simultaneously social and subjective, thus expanding beyond mainstream approaches to happiness narrowly focused on the individual. In what follows, I describe the particular forms that collaboration took over the course of the six-year project and then provide a brief overview of the positive contributions cohousing can make to social and environmental sustainability.

God, the Good Life, and Pastoral Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-459
Author(s):  
Thomas (Tae Sung) Shin
Keyword(s):  
Practical Theology ◽  
Pastoral Theology ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Triune God ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Pastoral Practice

In this study, I emphasize that pastoral practice revitalizes the significance of spiritual life as an alternative way to negotiate the science of well-being. This article is written from the perspective of practical theology, which is framed as a way of “living well” in which it is doubtful for both the individual and community to fulfill the good life without spirituality. Such an approach entails a degree of a transformative and transcendent life created by new senses, attentions, knowledge, ontological understanding, and disciplines out of the experience of the triune God. This study responds to the vocation of practical theology according to Ruard Ganzevoort and Johan Roeland, who assert that, “In its focus on praxis, practical theology has evolved out of three historical different styles of theology with differing concepts of and methodological approaches toward praxis: pastoral theology, empirical theology, and public theology.” They suggest that pastoral practice should be something that contributes to the culture of well-being and that the roles of spiritual life in the formation and reformation of the good life should be clarified.

scholarly journals De la pulsión a la solicitud por el otro: Bases antropológicas para la “pequeña ética” de Ricœur

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-32
Author(s):  
Marie-France Begué
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Critical Remark ◽  
Paul Ricœur

The intention of this work is to trace in the most archaic human condition the anthropological roots that justify the foundation of an ethics, as conceived by Paul Ricœur in his book Oneself as Another. To do this, first I will try to expose the route that the creative image follows from its genesis in drives to its full semantics in the symbol, according to the dialogue that the author engaged with Freud in his work Freud and Philosophy based on his hermeneutic concerns. Second, considering a critical remark that Ricœur makes about Freud, I will explore the intentional orientation towards “the good life”, whose reflexive sense, “self-esteem”, integrates the symbolic dimension of action and sets the basis for the realization (épanouissement) of the human person.

Criminalization and Liberalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-52
Author(s):  
Stuart P. Green
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Criminal Offenders ◽  
Important Method ◽  
Liberal Neutrality ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Conception Of The Good

This chapter considers the concepts of criminalization and liberalism. Criminal sanctions are just one of a range of means by which society can respond to sexual misconduct, but they are a particularly important method in light of their stigmatizing effects and potential to deprive persons of liberty. The theory developed here assumes that it is intrinsically wrong to punish criminal offenders who are blameless and also wrong to punish blameworthy offenders more harshly than they deserve. One of the most important elements of blameworthiness is wrongfulness, which is understood to involve a violation of a victim’s rights. The approach followed here is liberal in the sense that it emphasizes the freedom of the individual. It recognizes that the government has an obligation to protect individuals from being harmed by others but also that government itself can pose a threat to liberty. A key feature of this approach is liberal neutrality, the idea that the state should not reward or punish particular conceptions of the good life but should instead provide a neutral framework within which citizens can pursue their own conception of the good.

Self-Realization in Work and Politics: The Marxist Conception of the Good Life

1986 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Elster
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Ordinary Sense ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Marxist Conception ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Means Of Production

In arguments in support of capitalism, the following propositions are sometimes advanced or presupposed: (i) the best life for the individual is one of consumption, understood in a broad sense that includes aesthetic pleasures and entertainment as well as consumption of goods in the ordinary sense; (ii) consumption is to be valued because it promotes happiness or welfare, which is the ultimate good; (iii) since there are not enough opportunities for consumption to provide satiation for everybody, some principles of distributive justice must be chosen to decide who gets what; (iv) the total to be distributed has first to be produced. What is produced depends, among other things, on the motivation and information of the producers. The theory of justice must take account of the fact that different principles of distribution have different effects on motivation and information; (v) economic theory tells us that the motivational and informational consequences of private ownership of the means of production are superior to those of the various forms of collective ownerships.In the traditional controversy over the relative merits of capitalism and economic systems, the focus has been on proposition (v). In this paper, I consider instead propositions (i) and (ii). Before one can even begin to discuss how values are to be allocated, one must consider what they are – what it is that ought to be valued. I shall argue that at the center of Marxism is a specific conception of the good life as one of active self-realization, rather than passive consumption.

scholarly journals The good life: living for health and a life without risks? On a prominent script of nutrigenomics

2008 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rixt H. Komduur ◽  
Michiel Korthals ◽  
Hedwig te Molder
Keyword(s):  
Disease Prevention ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Scientific Journal ◽  
Health Anxiety ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Life Worth Living ◽  
The Individual

Like all scientific innovations, nutrigenomics develops through a constant interplay with society. Normative assumptions, embedded in the way researchers formulate strands of nutrigenomics research, affect this interplay. These assumptions may influence norms and values on food and health in our society. To discuss the possible pros and cons of a society with nutrigenomics, we need to reflect ethically on assumptions rooted in nutrigenomics research. To begin with, we analysed a set of scientific journal articles and explicated three normative assumptions embedded in the present nutrigenomics research. First, values regarding food are exclusively explained in terms of disease prevention. Health is therefore a state preceding a sum of possible diseases. Second, it is assumed that health should be explained as an interaction between food and genes. Health is minimised to quantifiable health risks and disease prevention through food–gene interactions. The third assumption is that disease prevention by minimisation of risks is in the hands of the individual and that personal risks, revealed either through tests or belonging to a risk group, will play a large role in disease prevention. Together, these assumptions suggest that the good life (a life worth living, with the means to flourish and thrive) is equated with a healthy life. Our thesis is that these three normative assumptions of nutrigenomics may strengthen the concerns related to healthism, health anxiety, time frames and individual responsibilities for health. We reflect on these ethical issues by confronting them in a thought experiment with alternative, philosophical, views of the good life.

Friendship

2020 ◽  
pp. 249-283
Author(s):  
Phillip Mitsis
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Individual Self

The surviving evidence for Epicurus’s view of friendship has given rise to divergent scholarly interpretations. For some, Epicurus recommends narrowly self-regarding relations with friends, while for others, he seems to recognize the commonly held opinion that reliable and rewarding friendships require us to treat our friends not solely as instruments to our own pleasure. Both of these views have been bolstered by larger considerations from within the wider theory, practice, and history of Epicureanism. Thus, some have made inferences from what they take to be Epicurean social practices, while others have tried to view friendship within the larger context of Epicurean social theory. Still others have posited various kinds of developmental accounts that see Epicurus’s original theory changing as later Epicureans confronted new practical and theoretical questions raised by their conception of the good life. A further question is raised by later Epicurean evidence about divine friendships, which are not based on mutual need. To what extent can humans, enmeshed in the practical demands of human friendship, hope to realize Epicurus’s injunctions to live a life worthy of the gods, and hence, perhaps, form friendships untainted by mutual need? Again the evidence seems muted, but Epicurus’s concerns about the nature of ataraxia, autonomy, and our invulnerability to chance puts questions about the relations among philosophical philoi at the very center of what we might call his high philosophical discourse about the nature of the individual self and the external requirements of hedonistic happiness.

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