Brad DeLong — Should-Read: Peter Hall: IDEAS AND INTERESTS

Aristotle dealt with this in Nichomachean Ethics, Book One.

Aristotle asserts as evident that every agent acts for an end that the agent perceives as being a good. Aristotle went on to say that agents disagree over what is perceived to be good. Then Aristotle examines various theories based on different conceptions of the meaning of "good."

"Good" means desirable. So this reduces to desire is the chief motivator. But desire is not homogenous. The ancients distinguished between base desires, noble desire, and desire based on wisdom, corresponding to the belly (senses), heart (virtues) and head (wisdom).

Aristotle examines the different theories about this. 

Hedonism, from Greek hedone meaning "pleasure," emphasizes sense gratification. Pursuit of the good in this view involves maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. This is essentially the view that Jeremy Bentham adopted that became the basis for the economic "calculus of utility." 

Higher than this are views that emphasize the virtues that are the basis of right action and sterling character. Heroism is its superlative. This is called sophrosyne in Greek and it is a form of wisdom

Higher still is the view that the summum bonum, or highest good, is wisdom. Wisdom is dividend into practical wisdom or prudence (phronesis), and theoretical wisdom (sophia). While sophia doesn't figure directly in achieving happiness in life since it is not practically oriented, it is the basis for being human and taking a rational approach to life, since it is based on reasoning. Homo sapiens identifies humanity as characterized by the rational element and its use.

 In the Greek vie, a primary and fundamental question with which aspiring and inquiring human beings face is what is the good for man (human being). This requires identifying and prioritizing various goods from base through noble to intellectual.

A related question is what does it mean to live a good life in a good society, since the ancient Greeks held it self-evident that civilized life is inherently social.

Approaching such questions is based on rational inquiry. Plato and Aristotle agreed that happiness results from a balanced life in which goods are prioritized in relative to the highest good.

The concept of the highest good persisted in the West until the Enlightenment, when tradition gave say to new methods of inquiry, scientific method in particular. Naturalism as a framework for doing science was taken to imply materialism. From a materialistic perspective, happiness seems to derive from maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain individuality. 

Maybe we would be well-advised to revisit the ancients?

Grasping Reality
Should-Read: Peter Hall: IDEAS AND INTERESTS
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley