Summary Of Six Myths About The Good Life

In Six Myths about the Good Life, Kupperman argues that it is wrong to keep believing that pleasure is the main factor in living the “good life”. Many people intertwine pleasure and happiness which is causing this belief that pleasure coincides with our optimal level in life. Two arguments that I found interesting was his argument on the dependence of pleasure on frustration and the inability of pleasure to increase. The first argument is that pleasure is too dependent on frustration (9). Simply, when people crave something, they become unsatisfied or depressed if what they crave for is not given to them. Also, even through all the frustration to fulfill a desire, you still might not receive what you want. Human desires are so intense that we all seek pleasure instead of focusing on the other important aspects of living a successful life. We become obsessed, and when not fulfilling our desires, we become frustrated which results in what Kupperman called “the scarcity of joy”. This never ending circle of episodes of suffering and rare moments of pleasure proves that pleasure cannot by itself lead to the good life.
If pleasure is supposed to lead to the good life, theoretically, the quality of the good life would increase if your pleasure increases. However, I have never felt an increase in pleasure throughout my entire life due to Kupperman’s belief that adaptation stifles the growth of pleasure. Once people get used to a higher standard in life, it requires more than before to please them. I like playing video games, for example, and every new video game I buy is fun to play at first. Sadly, I will eventually get bored of playing the new game after a few days due to adaptation. Pleasure is stagnant which according to the belief of the status quo means life never improves so the idea of the good life being based on pleasure is again