Where does the idea of “the good life” come from?
The question of what it means to live a good life has been central to ethical thought for centuries. In ancient Greece, Aristotle argued that the good life—what he called eudaimonia, or human flourishing—comes not from wealth or pleasure alone, but from cultivating virtue, practicing good judgment, and participating in civic life. Around the same time, Epicurus emphasized meaning, friendship, and moderation, suggesting that a good life is rooted in thoughtful choices rather than excess.
Later thinkers expanded the conversation beyond individual character to social responsibility. John Stuart Mill, for example, connected the good life to ethical decision-making that considers the well-being of others, arguing that our choices gain meaning in the context of a shared society.
While these perspectives differ, they share a common insight: the good life is not a single destination or formula, but an ongoing practice shaped by values, relationships, and responsibility to others. This series continues that long tradition—exploring how the idea of the good life takes shape in lived experience today.
Additional Readings on the Good Life
American college students’ understandings of the good life: a grounded theory
‘What is the good life?’ Few empirical studies explore how American college students answer this important question. This study analyzed the responses of 276 American college students in two phases. In the first phase, we examined responses from 109 students at 10 different universities. In the second phase, the study added interviews with an additional 167 students at one of the universities. The study found students’ visions of the good life were comprised of 24 unique ingredients; the most common being having a stable or passion-inspired career, being married, having children, continuing advanced learning, and being financially stable. It also discovered that eight distinct clusters of ingredients accounted for three-fourths of student responses. The clusters included American dreamers, happy strivers, comfort, and stability seekers, ECL (enjoy work, have comfort, limited family) students, family cultivators, singular career strivers, moral strivers, and God-followers.
First-Person Experiences: I Hope College Has Changed Your Life
The article presents college as a transformative experience that goes far beyond career preparation. It argues that college helps students understand themselves and the world more clearly by exposing them to different ideas, cultures, and ways of thinking. Through intellectual challenge and human connection, students develop perspective, empathy, and the confidence to engage with complexity rather than avoid it. The author emphasizes that a college education—particularly in the liberal arts—prepares people to think critically, keep learning, and contribute meaningfully to society by helping them become thoughtful, adaptable, and fully human.
Truth telling in a post-truth world
The choice is clear: truth, justice, freedom or lies, injustice, bondage? The good life and a just society depend on truth telling, but perhaps we are more comfortable with lies and fake news? How can we recognize the truth when everyone does "what is right in their own eyes"? When we accept and expect lies, how is civil society possible? How can we decide what is true, good, and right? If everyone has their own moral compass, is there any compass at all? This book addresses the skepticism about our capacity to know anything for sure and the inevitable consequences of moral relativism. The author says that skepticism and relativism cannot provide effective barriers against the drift by democracies into authoritarianism--characterized by the heavy use of state power to impose the culture of one kind of Me on us all. In the past religion provided a beacon of hope and as the bedrock for our society and its laws. Now, religion is confined to the private and often silent recesses of the person. How then can we speak of God, truth, power, and justice as a society? These are some of the questions that the book takes up. Long begins by saying that truth and freedom promote human flourishing and concludes by pointing us to how we can discern and practice truth telling as private citizens and as people of faith.
Engaging Students in the Good Life of Learning
Amid growing concerns about student disengagement in higher education, this article argues that the problem is not merely pedagogical but existential. Rather than focusing solely on instructional techniques or “active learning” strategies, the author contends that meaningful student engagement emerges when teaching is oriented toward students’ flourishing and their search for purpose. Drawing on student experiences, interdisciplinary examples, and faculty development work at Duke University’s Purpose Project, the article outlines how educators across disciplines can connect course content to “big questions,” personal growth, and a culture of care and belonging. By reframing learning as part of the good life students seek—rather than simply preparation for future success—the article invites faculty to rethink the aims of undergraduate education and to cultivate classrooms where meaning, purpose, and learning are deeply intertwined.
Against the backdrop of rising anxiety, depression, and disengagement among undergraduates, this article examines the growing phenomenon of “good life” courses and their potential to foster student purpose and well-being. Drawing on a two-phase, multi-institutional study of 14 colleges and universities, the authors identify core pedagogical features—reflection, trust, new ways of thinking, space, and practical application—that distinguish effective good life courses. Survey and interview data from faculty and more than 400 students suggest that, when thoughtfully designed, a single semester-long course can meaningfully increase students’ sense of purpose while encouraging new habits, relationships, and ways of understanding uncertainty. The article offers an emerging evidence base for the impact of good life courses and provides guidance for educators seeking to design, scale, or adapt such courses to support undergraduate flourishing.
Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most
What makes a good life? The question is inherent to the human condition, asked by people across generations, professions, and social classes, and addressed by all schools of philosophy and religions. This search for meaning, as Yale faculty Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz argue, is at the crux of a crisis that is facing Western culture, a crisis that, they propose, can be ameliorated by searching, in one’s own life, for the underlying truth.
In Life Worth Living, named after its authors’ highly sought-after undergraduate course, Volf, Croasmun, and McAnnally-Linz chart out this question, providing readers with jumping-off points, road maps, and habits of reflection for figuring out where their lives hold meaning and where things need to change.