The Quest for the Good :: Essays Papers

The Quest for the Good Is the Good something concrete to be obtained, or is it a way of life unique to individuals? This question is asked most assuredly in a biased manner, directing us along a path to the answer. It raises many logical questions of how, exactly, the Good is framed, and what it means to live a good life. To do this, an understanding must be found of what exactly the Good is. The questions of how the Good is structured and what the Good is are intricately tied together, and as such both shall be explored. The most important step in terms of the Good is the quest, as shall be found, because it is only by actively seeking the Good that one can find any understanding of it. As such, the quest for the Good shall be explored in The Republic by Plato, Confessions by Saint Augustine, and Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. These works will help give a full understanding of what the quest for the Good is, and how it is difficult to define because it is so multiplicitous. Also, an outside framework will be explored, to be able to look at a world conception that includes many o f the themes explored by the authors, and the opposites which tend to be left out. Overall we will find the Good and the quest. To understand the breadth of the answer, the meanings of the question must be understood. The important questions are: can the Good be concrete? Can the Good be obtained? Is the Good a way of life? How is it unique? A concrete Good would be an immutable, unchanging Good. This would be a Good that exists in an abstract realm, something of a Platonic Form of the Good. If there were a less abstract Good, one more easily attained, we would all know it explicitly. Therefore, if there is an exact idea of what the Good is, it is hard enough to find that philosophers exist. The corollary to this question is, can the Good not be concrete? In other words, can the Good change or evolve, or is there always the same Good, forever? St. Augustine saw the Good as God, and saw God as non-physical and unchanging (Augustine, 4, ii(2)). As such, the Christian lifestyle, the Good life, would be a single path, the same throughout the ages.