For as long as humans have pondered philosophical issues, they have
contemplated "the good life". Yet most suggestions about how to
live a good life rest on assumptions about what the good life
actually is. Thomas Carson here confronts that question from a
fresh perspective. Surveying the history of philosophy, he
addresses first-order questions about what is good and bad as well
as metaethical questions concerning value judgments.
Carson considers a number of established viewpoints concerning
the good life. He offers a new critique of Mill's and Sidgwick's
classic arguments for the hedonistic theory of value, employing
thought experiments that invite us to clarify our preferences by
choosing between different kinds of lives. He also assesses the
desire- or preference-satisfaction theory of value in detail and
takes a fresh look at both Nietzsche's Ubermensch ideal and
Aristotle's theory of the good life.
In exploring foundational questions, Carson observes that many
established theories rest on undefended assumptions about the truth
of moral realism. Arguing against this stand, he defends the view
that "good" means "desirable" and presents a divine-preference
version of the desire-satisfaction theory. In this he contends
that, if there exists a kind and omniscient God who created the
universe, then what is good or bad is determined by His
preferences; if such a God does not exist, what is good or bad
depends on what we as rational humans desire.
Value and the Good Life is the only book that defends a
divine-preference theory of value as opposed to a divine-command
theory of right and wrong. It offers a masterfully constructed
argument in answer to an age-old question and willstimulate all who
seek to know what the good life truly is.
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