It’s your funeral. No, um, actually, you’re – you’re dead. Your loved ones are all sitting around, reminiscing
about your life. What are they saying? How will you be remembered?
Did you have a good life? How would we know?
What constitutes a good life? The first thing to consider is whether the value of a life is determined by the liver of that life, or by other people. What if your last thought before you died
was that you had a perfect life – but when your loved ones sit around and discuss it,
they all decide that your life was kinda awful? Is that possible? Could they be right about
your life, and you be wrong? Or, run it the other way: what if everyone else
thinks your life was amazing, but you die miserable,
feeling your life was a total waste? Who’s right? And which of these two
options would you prefer? We have reached the end of Crash Course Philosophy,
and it’s time to examine your own life. And that means asking yourself some big questions,
like: Are you living the way you think you should? Are you working toward goals you actually
care about? How important are these things to you? Right now, the choices you make, the way
you spend your time, these things are
shaping the type of life you’ll lead. So think about what matter, because, as Socrates
said, the unexamined life is not worth living. [Theme Music] The 20th century French philosopher Albert Camus
recounted the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus. You’ve probably heard of it. Due to various transgressions he’d committed,
Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to roll
a boulder up a mountain. And when he reached the top, the boulder would
roll back down and then, Sisyphus would have
to start all over again. This was the entirety of his existence.
He couldn’t do anything else. It was just up and down the hill, in a never-ending
cycle. And you know what Camus said about that? He said, “we must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Really?
“Happy”?! Well, Camus was an existentialist, and he
thought that each one of us basically is Sisyphus. Nothing that any of us does is inherently
important, because stuff just doesn’t have
any inherent meaning. We’re all just rolling boulders up hills. But! We can choose to give meaning
to what we do. After all, we decide what to value, so when
we throw ourselves into a task, it becomes
filled with meaning – meaning we give to it. Some people find this story of Sisyphus to
be really depressing, because, on the one hand,
it’s kind of saying that nothing you do matters. But on the other hand, it’s saying that
anything that you do matters, provided you
choose to imbue it with value. Become a doctor and save lives. Be a stay at home parent and create a beautiful
childhood for your kids. Be an amazing best friend. Find a career that gives you the space in
your life to pursue a hobby you adore. Volunteer your time promoting a cause you
care about. Put your energy into amassing a great deal
of wealth. Become a champion Scrabble player. Feed squirrels. It doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is that it’s meaning-making
for you. The existentialist message is that your life
is in your hands. You and only you have the power to make your
life great, and only you can evaluate its greatness. Contemporary American philosopher
Joanne Ciulla encourages you to think
about the philosophy of your work. She reminds us that, for most of your life,
you’re going to spend more of your waking
hours at work than anywhere else. So find a job you love. If you don’t love it, find a different one,
even if it has less status. The highest paying job is not always the best
job. Basically, existentialists tell us that our
lives are in our hands. So if you’re unhappy, change it. Now, let’s head over to the Thought Bubble
for our final Flash Philosophy. 20th century American philosopher Robert Nozick
asked us to imagine that scientists have developed the
ultimate innovation in virtual reality, known as
the Experience Machine. This machine allows you to have any experience
you like, for as long as you like – an hour, a day, two years, even for the
rest of your life, if you want. Your body will rest comfortably in a bed, tended
by scientists, and nourished through feeding tubes. Meanwhile, your mind will experience the best
your imagination has to offer. You can achieve fame and fortune, cure cancer, climb mountains, date Beyonce – whatever you choose. And the simulation is so complete that while
you’re in the machine, you’ll be convinced that
these experiences are really happening. It will feel as real as the experiences you’re
having right now. There will be no way to tell it’s a simulation. Now, Nozick himself had no interest in entering
such a machine. And he thought most of us wouldn’t either because the experiences it gives us don’t correspond with reality. Even though you might feel like you’re having
meaningful relationships in the machine, in the actual world, those people would be out living their own lives, without you, while you’re lying in a bed having simulated experiences of being with them. And if having an actual impact on the real world is
important to you, well, that’s one thing the Experience
Machine wouldn’t be able to give you. However, if you’re a hedonist – that is, a person
who believes the good is equal to the pleasurable – then simply having whatever experiences
you desire is what you’re after. So it might be hard to see why you shouldn’t
take the old Experience Machine for a spin. After all, it could let you experience things
you could never have otherwise. So what do you say – you want to go in there? Thanks, Thought Bubble! Now, of course, the ancient Greeks had their
own ideas about what a good life was. Socrates cautioned the people of Athens to
avoid complacency. He said you should be critical of your own
life. Don’t wait for someone to come along and
save you; save yourself. And if this study of philosophy has taught you
anything, it’s that things are not always as they seem, and great good can come from looking deeper, challenging the status quo, and being willing to question everything – including how you live. Remember eudaimonia? Back when we talked about Aristotle and virtue
theory, I brought this up. It describes a life of flourishing, a life in which a person is constantly striving for self-improvement, to be more virtuous, more wise, more thoughtful and self-aware.
Better. This was Aristotle’s idea of a life well
lived. He wouldn’t agree with Camus that we all
get to make our own meaning, and that there
are infinite ways to live a good life. And he certainly wouldn’t endorse the use
of the Experience Machine. Aristotle believed in a human essence,
that there’s a proper way to be a human being,
and that we’ll only flourish by finding that path. Aristotle said humans are the rational animal, so
living a good human life means seeking to know. Know your world, know yourself, and strive
to govern yourself through reason. Work to be the best, most virtuous version
of yourself. Underachievers, in this view, cannot live
good lives. Aristotle also believed that some ways of living
are definitely better – or worse – than others. So if you want to be a good human, what you
prefer has nothing to do with it. Choosing to be a couch potato, or to indulge one’s
pleasures, he said, is to live a not-good life. This stands in stark contrast to the picture
we get from Camus, who said that we are all
the determiners of the value of our own lives. So, a guy from ancient Greece and a guy from 20th
century France are sending you conflicting signals. What does that tell us? Well, in our very first episode, we talked about how philosophers are still grappling with many of the same questions that were first posed 2,500 years ago. And now, 46 episodes later, you can see that
they’re still disagreeing with each other. But at this point, hopefully you see that all
of the questioning and disagreeing isn’t some
character flaw that all philosophers have. It, in itself, is a deliberate, chosen way
to live. No matter what kind of philosophy they prefer. Some philosophers are theists, and others
are atheists. They’re dualists and materialists, utilitarians
and Kantians, libertarians and determinists. Some devote their lives to studying philosophy
and teaching it to others. But there are also plenty of lay philosophers out there, with different careers, who practice philosophy every day – not as a paying profession, but simply as a way of living whatever life they have chosen. You can see the philosopher in authors like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, in the movies of Christopher Nolan and the Wachowskis, in the humor of George Carlin and Margaret Cho, and many other entertainers. But people who practice philosophy are
also simply people who ask why, who are willing to challenge something that doesn’t
seem right, to listen to other people’s opinions, and to be ever-ready to accept new truths,
if the evidence is there. These are parents who talk with their kids about why they have to do things, rather than just issuing edicts, who even let their children have a hand in decision-making, when appropriate. These are enlightened employers, and mindful
workers. Philosophers actually make good bosses, and they make good employees, in whatever profession they choose, because philosophy teaches you to be creative, flexible, and holistic in your vision and thinking. To live as a philosopher means to never stop
questioning, and to never stop striving for Truth – to continue working to live better, to know more,
and to revise your position based on new evidence. Philosophers are convinced that this is the
best way to live a good life. Today we talked about what it means to live
a good life. We learned about the myth of Sisyphus and
Robert Nozick’s experience machine, and discussed Aristotle’s eudaimonistic
picture of a good human life, as well as the existentialists’ view that we
each determine the value of our own lives. Crash Course Philosophy is produced in association
with PBS Digital Studios. You can head over to their channel and check out a playlist of the latest episodes from shows like: The Art Assignment, Braincraft, and PBS Infinite
Series. This episode of Crash Course was filmed in
the Doctor Cheryl C. Kinney Crash Course Studio with the help of all of these awesome people and our equally fantastic graphics team is Thought Cafe.
In this video, John Greene contemplates what constitutes a “good life” using different philosophies. I really like his opening point detailing someone on their deathbed claiming they lived the perfect life while the people alongside them viewed it as an awful life, then he switches their perspectives making the dying patient have a negative outlook on their own life while their constituents view it as a great life, then he asks which scenario would you rather be in. This contemplation induces profound conclusions pertaining to your perspective’s relationship with an absolute reality. However, I believe the videos finest point is made by defining an Aristotle idea coined Eudaimonia describing a life of flourishing through self improvement, to be more virtuous, wise, thoughtful, and self aware. While I understand Camus idea that we hold the key to our own happiness by the way we view ourselves, I find a glaring flaw in this ideology that allows many historically evil and criminal people to have lived “good” lives. Eudaimonia speaks more to a foundation amongst civilized humans in which we have built and fought on in terms of government and law to uphold and progress as opposed to Camus’ idea that invites extremities that can easily oppose simple ideas of goodness.