Since vanishing from my blog last year, I’ve been thinking a lot of very general thoughts about what the differences are between theories of obligation or duty, like Kant’s ethical thought, and theories of the “good life”, like Aristotle’s ethical thought. In particular, I’ve been sort of annoyed at how the word “ethics” seems to cover both of these areas. I’m afraid that calling both kinds of theories “ethical” theories leads to lots more confusion than there needs to be and makes the whole project of ethics tougher than it actually is.
So without any real argument yet, my suggestion is going to be that we call theories of what-our-obligations-are and how-we-get-them ethical theories and theories of what-the-good-life-is and how-to-achieve-the good-life theories of the good life. (Agent-focused theories of virtue ethics being an exception that I’ll get around to eventually.) This is a bit selfish since I’ll be calling Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics a “theory of the good life” and he seems to win the prize for using the term “ethics” first, but hey, my blog.
And before anyone gets too excited, of course what I’m calling theories of the good life are sometimes going to say that living the good life involves meeting obligations. Ethical theories are also going to have to answer some tough questions about the good life. But while both of these are true, I’m going to be evaluating the ideas that ethics and the good life are fundamentally different enterprises and that it’s enlightening to distinguish them.
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