The Good Enough Life

by Daniel Miller

This book is a highly original exploration of what life could and should be. It juxtaposes a philosophical enquiry into the nature of the good life with an ethnography of people living in a small Irish town. 

Attending carefully to the everyday lives of these people, the ethnographic chapters examine topics ranging from freedom and inequality to the creation of community and the purpose of life. These chapters alternate with discussions of similar topics by a wide range of philosophers in the Western tradition, from Socrates and the Stoics through Kant, Hegel and Heidegger to Adorno, Rawls, MacIntyre and Nussbaum.

As an ethnography, this is a book of praise that reveals just how much we can learn from a respectful acknowledgment of what ordinary modest people have achieved. By creating community as a deliberate and social project that provides the foundation for a more fulfilling life, where affluence has not led to an increase in individualism, the people in this town have found a way to live the good enough life. The book also shows how anthropology and philosophy can complement and enrich one another in an inquiry into what we might accomplish in our lives.

280 pages, Paperback

Published January 23, 2024

Reviews

[Nallasivan V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting portrait of small town life where people are happy, contented and possibly also find meaning in things beyond consumerism/materialism. One half of the book is anthropological account of the town's people and the other half is the philosophical parallels. Somehow the two never make an interesting whole. The philosophical theories add nothing interesting to the anthropology

[Leah Hughes · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so dreadfully boring, I couldn’t take it. The subject matter was mildly interesting but the writing itself was a struggle for me.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Good Enough Life has an interesting idea behind it: using philosophy, especially that which attempts to make claims about the "good life" and see how these square with what people claim about their own lives through an ethnographical study. The place is a small town in Ireland, near Dublin. The author has some interesting things to note on the ethnography. For each chapter of the ethnographic study, Miller has a chapter presenting some philosophers whose works he knows something about as a kind of foil to place his people. Mostly, he fails. His discussions of the philosophy are not very engaging or depthful but of course, Miller isn't a philosopher. He suggests Cicero might make a good philosopher for this town but that is all Miller says -- no actual engagement or further development, just a few statements and then, on to the conclusion of the book. The ethnography was interesting; the philosophy was disappointing.

The book contains an acknowledgements section, an Introduction, 12 chapters, a Conclusion, a section of Notes, a section of References, and an Index.

I read this in an academic (professors') reading group. I can recommend it for the ethnography and the mildly interested attempt to line up the good enough life with some philosophical foundation but it was rather disappointing.