Shamil Chandaria - Eudaimonia And Human Flourishing: Ancient Wisdom Through A Modern Lens - Summary 🔗

Below is my summary of the video ‘Eudaimonia And Human Flourishing: Ancient Wisdom Through A Modern Lens’ by Shamil Chandaria, quoting and paraphrasing the content.

Eudaimonia 🔗

A eudaimon life – a good life – is doing well and living well.

• Good / Well Spirit
• Happiness
• Welfare
• Well-Being
• Human Fullfilment
• Human Flourishing
• The Highest Human Good

Aristotle And Human Flourishing 🔗

• A plant flourishes when it uses its capacities well and fulfils its potential
• A human flourishes when they use their human capacities well

Plato’s Tripartite Model Of The Human Soul 🔗

Human psyche is made of parts:

• Reason => Wisdom
• Spirit => Courage
• Desire => Self-Control

Harmony => Justice

• Virtue
• Psychic Harmony
• Reasons deliberates and chooses the wisest action, and the soul concurs
• A life filled with actions most conducive to flourishing
• Happiness

Aristotle’s Model Of Human Capacities 🔗

• Reasoning Part
  • Theoretical Reasoning => Theoretical Wisdom (Sophia)
  • Practical Reasoning => Practical Wisdom (Phronêsis)
• Non-Rational Part
  • Desires & Emotions (can ’listen’ to reason) => Virtues of Character (Courage, Justice, Self-Control)
  • Nutritive, Perceptive, Locomotive (not unique to humans)

Some Aristotelian Virtues 🔗

Practical Wisdom 🔗

“Any one can get angry – that is easy – or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)

The Path To Virtue - Habits 🔗

Pleasure And The Flourishing Life 🔗

• A life simply devoted to physical pleasure is vulgar
• Pleasure certainly is a part of a good life
• Best pleasure arises as a result of exercising the virtues

John Stuart Mill 🔗

• Highest pleasures ensure from a flourishing virtuous life
• Happiness ensues if virtue is pursued
• Pleasure arising from the exercise of virtue is superior to vulgar hedonism

Epicurus 🔗

• Pleasure is the ultimate end of life
• Not vulgar hedonist
• Highest pleasure is a peaceful and tranquil mind (Ataraxia)
• Virtues are instrumental

The Role Of External Goods 🔗

External goods like money, health, friendship are necessary for human flourishing but not sufficient.

The Role Of Luck 🔗

Flourishing is not immune from bad luck.

The Stoics: Virtue Is Sufficient 🔗

• The fully virtuous person can be happy in the most difficult external circumstances
• Epictetus: the only thing that is fully within our power is the judgement of our impressions (Prohairesis)
• Maintain equanimity
• Live according to nature
• Love Fate (Amor Fati)

Beyond Ancient Philosophy: Developing A Modern Conception Of Eudaimonia 🔗

The Euthyphro Dilemma 🔗

• Do I desire X because X is good?
• Is X good because I desire X?

Questions:

• What is the Good life?
• What is Human Well-Being?
• What is Human Flourishing?
• What makes life go well?

Objective answers:

• Virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, self-control
• External goods: economic, health, friendship
• Specific states of mind: pleasure, tranquility

Subjective answers:

• Getting what I want
• Getting what I want if I am fully informed
• Getting what I want to want

Other: happiness.

Desire Satisfaction Theories Of Well-Being 🔗

• Preference Satisfaction
• Fulfilment of our goals and desires
  • Our informed desires
  • Our second order desires
  • Our counterfactual desires under idealised conditions

Hedonistic Theories 🔗

• Pleasure and avoidance of pain
• Positive emotional states
  • Good mood
  • Opposite of chronic anxiety and depression
  • Consistent contented optimistic mood states
• Life satisfaction
• Subjective well-being = positive affect - negative affect + life satisfaction

Eudaimonistic Objective List Theories 🔗

Aristotle:

• Internal Goods (human virtues)
• External goods (conducive to flourishing)

Maslow’s Motivation Model:

• Physiological
• Safety
• Belonging and loving
• Esteem
• Cognitive
• Aesthetic
• Self Actualization
• Transcendence

Psychological Well-Being:

• Autonomy
• Environmental mastery
• Personal growth
• Positive relations
• Purpose
• Self-acceptance

Emotional Well-Being:

• Positive affect
• Negative affect low
• Life satisfaction

Social Well-Being:

• Acceptance
• Actualization
• Contribution
• Coherence
• Integration

PERMA Well-Being:

• Positive emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Achievement

A Schema For What Makes Life Go Well 🔗

Virtuous Traits:

• Self-control
• Courage & fortitude
• Equanimity
• Moral virtue
• Compassion & kindness
• Optimism
• Wisdom

External Human Good and Values:

• Moral and economic autonomy
• Authentic friendships and loving relationships
• Accomplishments
• Fulfilling wok through engaging with challenging tasks
• Earning the esteem of others
• Developing a deep understanding of ourselves and our world
• Aesthetic engagement
• Meaning and purpose; goals beyond one’s narrow self-interest
• Transcendence

Happiness:

• Pleasure and the avoidance of pain
• Positive emotional states: a good mood, lack of anxiety and depression, a contented optimistic state
• Life satisfaction

Desire satisfaction:

• Fulfillment of our goals and desires, or our informed preferences, or our second order desires or our counterfactual desires under idealised conditions
• Preference satisfaction

Conclusion 🔗

Human Flourishing is a complex causal network of …

• eudaimonistic factors (both states of the world and dispositional traits)
• positive mental states
• conative states

… which forms a virtuous cycle and requires development and practice.