The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters

by Thomas Hurka

For centuries, philosophers, theologians, moralists, and ordinary people have How should we live? What makes for a good life?

In The Best Things in Life , distinguished philosopher Thomas Hurka takes a fresh look at these perennial questions as they arise for us now in the 21st century. Should we value family over career? How do we balance self-interest and serving others? What activities bring us the most joy? While religion, literature, popular psychology, and everyday wisdom all grapple with these questions, philosophy more than anything else uses the tools of reason to make important distinctions, cut away irrelevancies, and distill these issues down to their essentials. Hurka argues that if we are to live a good life, one thing we need to know is which activities and experiences will most likely lead us to happiness and which will keep us from it, while also reminding us that happiness isn't the only thing that makes life good. Hurka explores many four types of good feeling (and the limits of good feeling); how we can improve our baseline level of happiness (making more money, it turns out,
isn't the answer); which kinds of knowledge are most worth having; the importance of achieving worthwhile goals; the value of love and friendship; and much more. Unlike many philosophers, he stresses that there isn't just one good in life but pleasure, as Epicurus argued, is indeed one, but knowledge, as Socrates contended, is another, as is achievement. And while the great philosophers can help us understand what matters most in life, Hurka shows that we must ultimately decide for ourselves.
This delightfully accessible book offers timely guidance on answering the most important question any of us will ever How do we live a good life?

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 26, 2010

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly written, intermittently funny, survey by a Canadian philosopher of basic questions about what makes a good life. Conclusions seem unamazing (there is more than one way to have a good life; pleasure is not the only good, but knowledge and achievement and friendship and love are important too; there are different kinds of knowledge, not all equally valuable; etc.) but the verbal fluency and methodical reasoning involved in getting to them are impressive.

Reminds me a little of the writing of the late philosopher Robert Nozick, who was one of the smartest people I ever met. I'm always ambivalent reading this sort of thing -- 50% "why are you deploying such a huge amount of brainpower to laying out in detail the basis of conclusions that are either obvious or, if not, then seemingly arbitrary?" and 50% "wow, these guys are really leading the life of the mind; this is fantastic stuff". Reaction probably varies mostly as a function of whether I'm able to follow the particular chapter I'm reading.

[Plato · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book for my ethics course. I disagreed with it so much that it helped formulate my opinions better and gave me a million paper topics. It's not bad, but for sure for normies. The discussion on the value of achievement was interesting. Also in that section he discusses sports and games and briefly mentions in a utiopa that everyone would be playing games which I never heard about before.

[Carlos Apodaca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philosopher Thomas Hurka brings a fresh perspective to how we should perceive, define, contemplate, and engage with our ultimate good in our lives as this age old ontological question pertains to our current historical moment.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how the title relates to the book, but it is really Hurka's personal moral philosophy and how said philosophy directs one to live and what to value. He draws a lot of varying schools of ethics, particularly Bentham and Utilitarianism, but also utilizes Kant and Aristotle in making his case for how we should value things in a modern world, and how those values interplay with our decision making. Hurka is very good at using analogies and thought experiments to make his points, and I thought that this was a strength of his book - it could be read by someone who has no idea who Bentham, Kant, or Aristotle were, let alone their particular thoughts on ethics. Interesting read, provides good material for intellectual digestion and internal dialogue.

[Will Corvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid advice on how to live a good life. At the same time, it came off more as a self-help book than philosophy, and I did not feel that any of the claims made were all that profound.

[Kramer Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very good introduction to value theory, for two reasons. Firstly, the writing is extremely clear and accessible, even for those who have no philosophical background (I imagine).

Secondly, and more importantly in my view, the pluralistic conception of values that Hurka outlines here is surely what value pluralism amounts to - or at least something very close to it - if value pluralism is true at all. I have previously been sceptical of value pluralism on the basis that often value pluralists endorse values that seem to be a mish-mash of seemingly unconnected phenomena. This sort of pluralism is far too lacking in simplicity and parsimony for me to ever find it very plausible. But the pluralism that Hurka endorses is not like this at all. Essentially, there are three kinds of fundamental value for Hurka. These are the values of experiences, having the right relationship with the world, and having the right relationship with other values. Other values, such as those of friendship and love, derive from these more fundamental values.

I'm sure many philosophers will not be happy with Hurka's taxonomy of values, particularly because he holds that relationships of friendship and love are not intrinsically valuable. But even if Hurka is not quite right in the details (which I am not claiming), surely he is right in the general strategy: demonstrate how value pluralism can be simple and parsimonious.

[Imlac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hurka has a good discussion of pleasure, at least to the extent of offering a comprehensible and somewhat convincing framework for thinking about this intractable topic. It incorporates insights from the ancients (Plato and Aristotle) and the moderns (Bentham and Mill), but makes its own original suggestions. That, however, is the extent of the value of this lamentably superficial book. Once he expands into the deeper areas of knowledge, achievement, and especially virtue, love and friendship, Hurka quickly gets in over his head. His treatment of these topics is mechanical and singularly unconvincing. He draws almost exclusively from contemporary popular culture (and his own apparently confined experience) to propose correspondingly vulgar and shallow accounts. The crassness of his discussion of love, in particular, is not to be believed.

One particular irritant: In the first 3/4s of the book, Hurka - in keeping with contemporary illiterate trends - switches randomly between male and female pronouns, in an (unnecessary) effort, apparently, to make his discussion applicable universally. But in his chapter on love, all of a sudden the pronoun becomes exclusively female, and therefore quite obviously particular. It's almost as though Hurka wants to make absolutely certain the reader is fully apprised of Hurka's undeviatingly heterosexual proclivities.

[John Reis · Rating 1 out of 5]

He proposes to defend two claims in this work: 1) there isn’t just one ultimate good, there are many. The second claim is that there isn’t a single best human life, but many kinds of good life. Underlying some of his discussion is an egalitarian, Benthamian altruism.

It is nice that he’s discovered achievement. But of course, one of the major achievements he uses as an example is equalizing everybody’s income, but if everyone’s income is equalized, as Nozick showed, there is no incentive to do anything. Ambition comes to an end; improvement comes to an end. So I guess in the end a suitable achievement, although ironic, would be to overcome this egalitarian society.

Chapter 6 covers virtues. The author seems to think that virtues are our proper attitude towards some value. So, it is virtuous to feel compassion for someone else’s pain. That seems awfully strange to me: Aristotle saw virtues as excellences. Ultimately, he concludes that virtues are a lesser good.

He never gives a definition of “good.”

[Adam Ehlert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guuuuuhhhh. It makes me very upset that the (to me) very attractive philosophical theories of perfectionism and objective list theories of well-being has to be championed by a philosopher that's /such/ a bad writer.

NB that I read a Swedish translation of this book, translated by Anders Hansson from Ad Hoc. I've been very impressed with his previous translations, so I assume that the reason that this book reads so poorly has little to do with Hansson's work.

The conclusions in this book are of two types: either I agree with them, or they are trivial. So far so good. But the argumentation is lost in the jumbled mess of writing on every single page. I keep wondering if there's any /reason/ for the sentences to be so messy. I also realized maybe a bit too late that this book is aimed at a more general audience, and not at academics. I'm fine with that, but that easily explains the lack of rigor and depth in the argumentation. But even granted the intent of the book, it is still hard to understand what Hurka wants to do - sometimes, it feels like he wants to write a slightly philosophically informed self-help book, and at other times, just an explanation about his perfectionist theory of well-being.

[Mike Cross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough, quick introduction into happiness and emotions. I especially enjoyed how the author compared and contrasted differing ideas and asked more questions than gave answers. This book will make you think, a lot!

[Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interesting insights, but somewhat dense. Definitely requires rereading.

[Nepu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good as an introduction

[Minha Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The kind of book all undergrads should read...It's fantastic as an intro to philosophy, but there's some juicy bits for the more experienced.

[Martin Genet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful text with essay I am writing about well-being

[Sunrise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoiler, you can live many equally good lives.

[Disha · Rating 4 out of 5]

So often, we tend to seek 'happiness' and confuse it with 'pleasure'. However, this book casts a light on other aspects of happiness. Knowledge, for one gives us a hierarchical understanding of how world works and allows us to process the world systematically. Thus, this allows us to have a better understanding of what constitutes as happiness. The processing of information also differentiates us from animals who process happiness differently.

Also, aiming for bigger achievements creates a ripple effect of "happiness". For example, an invention of a sustainable business provides for better utilization of existing resources while empowering local community.
This book also touches upon other arenas of life, eg love and friendship. I particularly liked the fact that love involves understanding which creates happiness among couples and friends. Also, when you start building a history with someone the quirkiness and uniqueness of that individual fills up the "knowledge" part of that person which allows one to love them more as it allows them to know and appreciate what makes them unique.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it provides a fresh perspective on life, events and people - all of which provide for our purpose and happiness. Highly recommend to anyone who would like to question or critically analyze/compare their own thoughts!

[dwpage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to a value pluralist view, and is worth reading for both professionals and lay people. It engages other views that have been defended, is informed by both the historical and contemporary philosophical literature, and it is also written in a clear and almost colloquial style. Hurka claims that the fundamental values are pleasure (which he also calls 'happiness' and 'feeling good'), knowledge (of a certain sort), achievement, virtue, and perhaps also love. He also considers the value of different sorts of lives, with respect to both overall shape and extent. While I don't agree with all of his conclusions, I found every chapter illuminating.

[Venkat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this books via getabstract. This book deals with things that make life good and meaningful. Individual right balance on pleasure, happiness, knowledge, achievement, virtues, love and friendship makes a life good.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stopped before finishing. Hurka tried to look at happiness from almost a mathematical point of view, and tried to compare different types of happiness and what makes one kind of happy better than another in a quantifiable way. Interesting theoretically, but not for the duration of a whole book.