Indeed, though one objection, and I mean no offense, but wrapping a word in quotes makes it suspiciously imprecise. Either someone is forced to live by having been born, or they aren't; "forced" is questionably ambiguous, IMO. — darthbarracuda

But see isn't this your argument. I am making the case in another thread that life is indeed a "forced game". Whether or not the contestants are happy playing it or not, the injustice lies in forcing another to play the game of life at all (or opt out and commit suicide). You are arguing that people will never come to a conclusion as to what the objective side of a "good life" is, just like you are arguing over my forced game argument now. Thus it points to more evidence that people can never know "the good life" or if they have it.

All your argument needs is the recognition of doubt as to what a good life is. My argument is a little harder to prove because now I have to demonstrate via analogies, anecdotes, generalized logic of what a game is, and what forcing a game onto someone is, and how this is indeed an injustice in all cases. I think the evidence is strong but it requires more robust argumentation. Your argument simply needs to meet the threshold of "there is doubt".

@darthbarracuda, I added more.

You are arguing that people will never come to a conclusion as to what the objective side of a "good life" is, just like you are arguing over my forced game argument now. Thus it points to more evidence that people can never know "the good life" or if they have it. — schopenhauer1

Your argument simply needs to meet the threshold of "there is doubt". — schopenhauer1

Yeah, my argument rests on the absurdity of someone having a good life when they don't recognize it as such. The very possibility of doubting the goodness of life ipso facto demonstrates that life is not intrinsically good; only those with the privilege of understanding the good life can have a good life, and the rest are shit out of luck. It is as the Buddha said in the Dhammapada:

Just as one upon the summit of a mountain be-holds the groundlings, even so when the wise man casts away heedlessness by heedfulness and ascends the high tower of wisdom, this sorrowless sage beholds the sorrowing and foolish multitude.

[...]

Heedful among the heedless, wide awake among the sleepy, the wise man advances like a swift horse leaving behind a weak nag.

[...]

As upon a heap of rubbish in the roadside ditch blooms a lotus, fragrant and pleasing, even so, on the rubbish heap of blind wordlings the disciple of the Supremely Enlightened One shines resplendent in wisdom.

The irony is that the "good life" is characterized by the deep understanding that life is not good.

Why is it so difficult to pin down what makes a life good? Why is it the case that countless pages have been written on this topic (in philosophy, poetry, literature, psychology, self-help handbooks, spiritual guides, etc)? Does a person really need to go read so many different and contradictory books to find "the meaning of life", happiness, success, etc?

Just as the common skeptical objection to religion posits that, because there are so many different religions that are mutually exclusive to each other it is more likely that all of them are wrong than one of them right, it can be said that every attempt to define what a good life is has failed to accomplish just that. Who is right? The Stoics, the Epicureans, the Christians, the Buddhists, the Transhumanists, ...?

After years of reading this sort of literature, I have come to the conclusion that, while many of these traditions can be helpful in alleviating burdensome parts of life, no single tradition has been successful in demonstrating that actual possibility of a good life.

For life in general to be good, it should not be necessary to read all of these books to learn that this is the case. The process of doing so is not a search for answers but a search for a solution, as life is not a question but a problem/predicament to be fixed. Only when life is viewed as an essentially burdensome problem does the search for solutions make any sense.

I mean perhaps reading all those books you mention could help. They likely wouldn't hurt.

As for me, it looks to me as if the "answer" to the issue is straightforward, in a sense. Life is very complicated. If it were easy, then all we would need is to find that one book that gives you the solution to this problem. Thousands of years later, there is no clear answer.

If an issue persists for this long, it implies that there are too many variables. We can speak of good tendencies or habits in quite general terms. But beyond that, every person is an entire world to themselves.

I'm late to the party (anti-party?) so as regards the initial post I'll just say that my thoughts are broadly aligned with those of DingoJones and others, including the last post by Manuel.

Only when life is viewed as an essentially burdensome problem does the search for solutions make any sense. — _db

I take this to say that our tendency to write these books etc. reveals that life is "an essentially burdensome problem", but I fail to follow the causality here. Maybe we are constantly looking for meaning out of the sheer pleasure of doing so? Maybe we are doing it simply for aesthetic value? Maybe what we really like about it is to "disprove the old ways", to get those 15 minutes?

Most likely, these are only a few of the reasons that we "search for solutions". As others here have said, it's about people in the end. Is it all fake, then? Are we "getting somewhere"? I don't know. That's the heart of the matter. Some people say the journey matters more, so the question is moot. Other people say you need a goal to orientate yourself. As far as goals go, finding the good life seems like a fair choice. Yes, it's been done before. But not by you.

With all due respect, this is a terrible argument.

Premise 1 reduced the value judgement of lives to a dichotomy. On what basis? Can't there also be mediocre lives? I also agree with James Ridley, a bad life may still yield decent things. Many artists for example, like Vincent van Gogh arguably suffered enough to constitute a bad life. Should he never have existed? What if the person who cures cancer once and for all also had a bad life? Many people who suffer will often choose to suffer over not existing, there is a certain privilege, and honor in even getting to look at the sunrise. Would you rob this of the human beings yet to be (without asking them)?

Premise 2 is heavily contingent upon premise 1.

Premise 3. According to many religions there are rather measurable boundaries for a good life. It is true that they (and other, non-religious sources) present different, perhaps conflicting views about what constitutes a good life, but won't you consider the possibility that
a) There are multiple ways for a life to be good, not just one. There are multiple ways to travel from New York to Los Angeles, each with pros and cons with respect to cost, travel time, and safety. Does the existence of multiple paths make it impossible to travel from one place to the other? No.
b) The differences between different kinds of good lives are trivial. Even the stringent Catholics I grew up with often acknowledged that other religions were still doing things that contributed to fulfillment. I think it's also possible to do many of these things without religion.
Also if some lives are better than others, might it not be worth comparing the differences between these lives, and making an attempt to articulate the basis on which you qualify lives as better or worse than each other? Instead of doing what you do in premise 4, and basically make it a condition of your argument that it is not worth investigating the truth of premise 3.

Besides all this, from the outset, you limit your analysis to weather a life is good or bad. This is my biggest sticking point. What about words like fulfilling, honorable, interesting, vibrant, creative, productive, dignifying, enriching, challenging, variable, or enlightening (for instance), instead of something vague like good or bad? In myths, religions and stories, the human condition is often essentially articulated as a struggle. There is the clash of will against fate, the challenge of coming to terms with mortality, the question of integrating into a society or pursing one's own bliss, many similarly substantial and interesting questions that are powerful to explore can take place even if they are (somehow) qualified as something vague like "bad".

Don't you see? Like even if we just accept your argument can't we just make it in the opposite direction with equal merit?

1. A good life is worth living; conversely, a bad life is not worth living.
2. One should procreate if one cannot have reasonable knowledge that their offspring will have a bad life.
3. It has not been established what the possibility of a bad life is. The most that may be said is that there are lives, and that some lives are worse than others.
4. It is unlikely that such a possibility of a bad life will ever be established, given the lack of consensus so far.
5. Therefore, is it not possible to determine if ones' offspring will have a bad life that is not worth living.
6. Therefore, there is a possibility that ones' offspring will not and in fact cannot have a bad life.
7. Therefore, one should procreate.

Hopefully seeing your argument like this will help you see more of its errors. Like how between points 4 and 5 you just jump from it being "unlikely that such a possibility of a good life will ever be established" to saying that it's just "not possible to determine if ones' offspring will have a good life". What is the basis for this conclusion? Other than it sounds like you just want it to be true.

Again, I mean this with all due respect. Life can be difficult sometimes, I'll grant you that.

Agreed. Also, I don't think that one needs to read countless books in order to value one's life. Meaningful experiences might require rejuvenation (which can and is achieved in many cases!), yet they also possess an eternal resilience in terms of their capacity to appear in a new form, even when one has to face numerous odds. Those happy women in the slum didn't need to read Marcus Aurelius for the sake of discovering happiness; their cherished bonds acted as a source of unparalleled goodness with seemingly little effort. The Dhammapada also speaks about the possibility of genuine delight:

"A monk who with tranquil mind has chosen to live in a bare cell knows an unearthly delight in gaining a clearer and clearer perception of the true law."

(Dhammapada 373 / Müller & Maguire, 2002.)

I agree with the overarching idea that we should strive to reduce unnecessary needs, since that's probably the best way to attain an ineffably positive state of contentment that has immense worth.

Unlike religions, which seem to have differences on various matters, most people do seem to value their lives due to things such as love and beauty. The way they manifest themselves can certainly be different, which, in my view, only adds to the beauty of life. As you said, I do think that one can say one should procreate if a good life is likely. I don't think that ending all opportunity of the positives for the sake of preventing the negatives is justifiable. I do agree that life can be terrible in many circumstances, which is why I hope that we can work together to address issues such as rising inequality. We should also rethink mindless procreation, and also consider effectuating ideas such as a liberal RTD and transhumanism. Hope you have a wonderful day!