ABSTRACT
A flourishing life is one filled with successful and whole-hearted engagement in worthwhile activities and relationships. It has to be, on the whole, successful, since repeated failure in our projects and liaisons clearly detracts from our well-being. It has to be whole-hearted because, again, it is hard to see how dragging ourselves through even the most valuable pursuits in a tired, listless, merely dutiful or uncommitted way can make our life go well. What counts as worthwhile is partly dependent on our biology: we would not prize sexual intimacy if we reproduced, amoeba-like, by fission. But it is mainly a cultural matter. In Britain and other countries, we are heirs to a remarkable efflorescence, especially over the last few centuries, in new forms of art, personal relationships, public service and other occupations, as well as hosts of further activities that add richness to our lives. Although these are culturally determined, in that if it were not for the history of the last 400 years we may now well be without them, they are not culturally relative. Bach’s music may have been the product of a Protestant devotional world, but its aesthetic power has not diminished as that world has been left behind.
