Customer Reviews

Six Myths About the Good Life: Thinking About What Has Value

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I was looking for a text on virtue ethics to have my high school philosophy students read and stumbled upon this. I was also reading and thinking about Borgmann's work on excellence and focal practices and Csikszentmihalyi's work on flow. This brings together the best work from psychology and eastern and western views on the good. The text is the best middle-road philosophy text I've ever come across. The arguments are precise and detailed which take it above the scale of non-philosophical book, but they are clear and concise which also keep the text in the real of non-philosophers. It allows the arguments to work their way deep into your thinking, and I can honestly say that the text has formed a permanent part of my worldview. Given how broad the topic, its effects are far-reaching.

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When I first began embarking upon research on hedonism, I decided to pick this book up in order to look at a differing viewpoint. However, after the first chapter I was disillusioned. Kupperman's presentation of hedonism is hopelessly vague and in some cases just plain wrong. The arguments he presents are weak and not well thought out.
The rest of the book is more of the same. It may be a decent book for the beginner looking for a general background in value theory/axiology, but if you are actually interested in argumentation-LOOK ELSEWHERE!!!