This blog post examines how modern society, under conditions valuing diversity and autonomy, has excluded the question of the good life, exploring its philosophical background and limitations.
Views on what constitutes a good life vary across societies and cultures, yet each society or culture possesses an ideal form of the good life that its members deem desirable. So, what makes our lives good within each society or culture? What are the criteria for judging a good life? This is a question related to so-called ‘strong value judgments’ and can be considered a moral issue in the broadest sense. However, the criteria for this strong value judgment, which gives meaning to life or sets its direction, is grounded in the ‘higher good’. The higher good is the highest value among various goods, possessing a value incomparably greater than our everyday goals or desires, and serves as the basis for various moral value judgments. The higher good is not formed by our own desires, inclinations, or choices; rather, it is given independently of them and serves as the standard for evaluating those desires and choices. In other words, the higher good is the moral source that grounds moral judgments.
The higher good, which serves as the standard for strong value judgments, is historically formed and established, and can vary across societies and cultures. For example, some societies hold filial piety as their supreme value, while others hold freedom. The supreme value of each society, whether explicit or implicit, serves as the backdrop for its members’ moral judgments, intuitions, and reactions. Therefore, identifying what that supreme value is allows for a proper understanding of the moral judgments and reactions occurring within that society. One of the main tasks of moral philosophy is precisely to explore and clarify the value behind these moral judgments—that is, the supreme value.
However, deontological and proceduralist moral theories have avoided addressing the question of the good life. This avoidance stems from the concern that, under the conditions of modern society characterized by pluralism and individualism, proposing a vision of the good life and demanding adherence to it risks being interpreted as interference in individual lives and undermining the values of diversity and autonomy. Consequently, such modern moral philosophy has made it its task to deal only with basic, universal moral rules or just procedures related to rightness, avoiding concerns about life’s purpose or meaning connected to the good life. This stems from the judgment that demanding more of the individual beyond the basic universal moral norms necessary to maintain society could infringe upon personal autonomy. By excessively narrowing the concept of morality and limiting its task solely to questions of rightness or procedural issues, this modern moral philosophy rendered it incapable of capturing the higher principles underlying moral beliefs.
From a broader perspective, the values or rights pursued or presupposed by this modern moral philosophy are by no means universal; they are specific constructs formed within the particular temporal conditions of modernity. That is, this modern moral philosophy itself was also formed against the backdrop of a specific higher principle of its era. For example, deontology was formed against the backdrop of moral ideals like freedom or universalism—that is, higher principles. Similarly, proceduralist moral theories were also formed against the backdrop of the higher principle of the autonomy of the rational subject. Therefore, since the moral rules advocated by this modern moral philosophy presuppose modern values or higher principles, the claim that these moral rules possess universality is not valid.
Another task of moral philosophy is to answer what constitutes a good life. When our lives or identities face confusion or crisis, moral philosophy must propose solutions and directions based on the higher ideals that serve as the source of moral judgment. However, proceduralist moral theory focuses solely on formal procedures for securing moral justification. For instance, one form of this, discourse ethics, deals only with the rational foundation of norms or the issue of just procedures, excluding substantive problems like the nature of a good life from rational discussion. Consequently, the answer to the question of a good life is entirely left to the individual, burdening them with the responsibility of finding the answer themselves. This attitude of abandoning the treatment of crucial issues like the meaning of life represents an excessive retreat within the tradition of moral philosophy.
Questions such as how to live well or what constitutes true self-realization should not be left solely to individual decision-making; they must be addressed by considering the higher principles that constitute the horizon of life within the society to which the individual belongs. If the problem of self-realization is left entirely to the subjective and existential decisions of the individual, we risk falling into selfishness or narcissism. The question of the good life can be rationally addressed based on a higher principle, and moral philosophy must contribute to this endeavor.
