What is the highest value in life?
Flourishing through right vices
The highest value in life is to intentionally embrace (suck up) the inevitability (adversity, change, and no straight things come out of a crooked branch of human behavior) with grace (resilience and gratitude), in achieving character (trying to be as straight as possible given the crooked branch of inevitability), serenity (minimal regret) and flourishing (unlocking new talents), while fulfilling spiritual needs (need of impartial spectator within us) and basic needs (body, mind, emotions) without compromising the cohesion of the golden mean of our flawed vices (virtues) given as (courage (right balance of fear and confidence), justice (knowing right things to do as vengences in not ours to take but still be fair and lawful grace and merciful), prudence (right balanace of Thoughtlessness and analysis paralysis), and temperance (right balancebetween extreme frugality and overindulgence). Thus creating freedom and free time to find awe in beauty, delight in the experience of joy, wrestle with learning and contemplation with curiosity and openness to reflect on virtues in solitude and with virtuous friends, making flourishing for oneself and others feasible with humility (always knowing that no one is better than you, and you are no better than anyone) and love (acceptance and forgiveness).
We must intentionally embrace the inevitables:
Adversity of life
Changes in life
We, humans, are sinful
The way we embrace these inevitables matters. We must embrace them with the grace of resilience and gratitude, because sinful beggars cannot be choosers.
We intentionally embrace the inevitables with grace for three reasons:
To find less noise (serenity), so as to minimize regret
To flourish, or to unlock a newer talent we would not otherwise know we had, as our knowledge of ourselves keeps updating
To satisfy two major needs: spiritual needs and basic human needs
Viktor Frankl noted that prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, living under the daily terror of selection, starvation, and the gas chambers, with death an unavoidable reality, turned deeply toward spirituality and discussions of basic needs. Therefore, I put these two as the major needs. There are more, but these are the absolute minimums.
I think spirituality is the need for an impartial spectator within us who wants to minimize remorse. The impartial spectator is an inner consciousness that knows the correct choice for minimizing regret, but won’t or can’t do anything other than feel a deep regret when our agency of choice does not align with it.
Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments explicitly defines the “impartial spectator” as a neutral “man within the breast” whose rejection of our selfish actions causes deep remorse. Similarly, the biblical book of Romans describes a universal conscience written on the heart that acts as a witness, actively accusing us when our agency fails to align with it. The Bhagavad Gita identifies the inner spirit (Stithpragya) as a silent, non-intervening spectator that merely observes our choices, leaving the ego to suffer spiritual agitation and regret when out of alignment.
We must satisfy at least these two needs in practical day-to-day life without compromising the cohesion of the virtues, the golden mean of our flawed vices. The classics point to four virtues, each a right balance of our vices, because humans are inherently crooked. We do not have virtues, only managed vices.
Courage: the right balance of fear and confidence
Justice: knowing the right thing to do, since vengeance is not ours to take, while still being fair, lawful, gracious, and merciful
Prudence: the right balance of thoughtlessness and analysis paralysis
Temperance: the right balance between extreme frugality and overindulgence
We engage in day-to-day life this way to achieve the ultimate goal: freedom and free time to find awe in beauty, delight in the experience of joy, and wrestle with learning and contemplation, with curiosity and openness, reflecting on the virtues in solitude and with virtuous friends. That makes flourishing for oneself and for others feasible, with humility (always knowing that no one is better than you, and you are no better than anyone) and love (acceptance and forgiveness).