Before We Ask How to Live
Before asking how we should live, we may need to ask a more fundamental question: what is the condition of our existence?
How should we live?
This is one of philosophy’s oldest questions.
But before we answer it, perhaps we need to ask a more fundamental one:
What is the condition of our existence?
Any answer to how we should live already presupposes some understanding of what human beings are. Our finitude, vulnerability, freedom, dependence on others, and relation to time shape how action and choice acquire meaning for us.
So “How should we live?” is not a self-contained question.
Before asking what we ought to do, we need to understand what kind of beings we are and under what conditions we exist.
Only from there can we return to the question:
How should we live?
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