Overview
Robert Spaemann wants us to question the idea of a life well-lived. In Happiness and Benevolence, he explores the tension between the spontaneity of life, which inevitably heads towards its own satisfaction, and the reflection of reason, which is also necessary for a meaningful human life.This work follows the gravity of this inclination and shows the necessity of complementing Aristotle (the search for happiness) with Kant (the benevolence owed to the other). Spaemann argues, not without parallels in Levinas, that the eudaimonistic theory of ethics going back to Aristotle's foundation of ethics upon a pursuit of self-fulfillment is insufficient to account for the whole depth of obligation which comes from the encounter with the other. It needs to be complemented by an ethics of Kantian obligation, or better, an ethics of benevolence and the acknowledgment of that validity of the claims of the other which are independent of one's own needs. In this sense, an ethics based on happiness and benevolence is a matter of combining Aristotle's "idealism" with Kant's "realism".
Happiness and Benevolence is accessible not only to the philosophical expert, but to the educated layperson as well, and is an excellent resource for scholars of the "life well-lived".
Synopsis
Robert Spaemann wants us to question the idea of a life well-lived. In Happiness and Benevolence, he explores the tension between the spontaneity of life, which inevitably heads towards its own satisfaction, and the reflection of reason, which is also necessary for a meaningful human life.
This work follows the gravity of this inclination and shows the necessity of complementing Aristotle (the search for happiness) with Kant (the benevolence owed to the other). Spaemann argues, not without parallels in Levinas, that the eudaimonistic theory of ethics going back to Aristotle's foundation of ethics upon a pursuit of self-fulfillment is insufficient to account for the whole depth of obligation which comes from the encounter with the other. It needs to be complemented by an ethics of Kantian obligation, or better, an ethics of benevolence and the acknowledgment of that validity of the claims of the other which are independent of one's own needs. In this sense, an ethics based on happiness and benevolence is a matter of combining Aristotle's "idealism" with Kant's "realism".
Happiness and Benevolence is accessible not only to the philosophical expert, but to the educated layperson as well, and is an excellent resource for scholars of the "life well-lived".