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The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters

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The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really MattersFor centuries, philosophers, theologians, moralists, and ordinary people have asked: How should we live? What makes for a good life? In The Best Things in Life, distinguished philosopher Thomas Hurka takes a fresh look at these perennial questions as they arise for us now in the 21st century. Should we value family over career? How do we balance self interest and serving others? What activities bring us the most joy? While religion, literature,

For centuries, philosophers, theologians, moralists, and ordinary people have asked: How should we live? What makes for a good life?

In The Best Things in Life, distinguished philosopher Thomas Hurka takes a fresh look at these perennial questions as they arise for us now in the 21st century. Should we value family over career? How do we balance self-interest and serving others? What activities bring us the most joy? While religion, literature, popular psychology, and everyday wisdom all grapple with these questions, philosophy more than anything else uses the tools of reason to make important distinctions, cut away irrelevancies, and distill these issues down to their essentials. Hurka argues that if we are to live a good life, one thing we need to know is which activities and experiences will most likely lead us to happiness and which will keep us from it, while also reminding us that happiness isn't the only thing that makes life good. Hurka explores many topics: four types of good feeling (and the limits of good feeling); how we can improve our baseline level of happiness (making more money, it turns out, isn't the answer); which kinds of knowledge are most worth having; the importance of achieving worthwhile goals; the value of love and friendship; and much more. Unlike many philosophers, he stresses that there isn't just one good in life but many: pleasure, as Epicurus argued, is indeed one, but knowledge, as Socrates contended, is another, as is achievement. And while the great philosophers can help us understand what matters most in life, Hurka shows that we must ultimately decide for ourselves.
This delightfully accessible book offers timely guidance on answering the most important question any of us will ever ask: How do we live a good life?


Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 12/17/2010
ISBN: 9780195331424
Pages: 200
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.10w x 0.80d

Review Citations: Choice 06/01/2011
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SKU: 12165890266

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Belleville, US
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Easy peasy
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Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2026
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Kenneth J. Goodman Sr.
Houston, US
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Its good to have for electronics and kitchen items
I get the Insurance for certain Electronics and kitchen items.
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Annabanana
Cuba, US
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Quick and easy claim process. My refund was processed the same day that I shipped back the product.
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LadyG
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All Gotchas, Gimmicks, and Grief
My husband broke the item in question, which was a Chemex coffee maker made of nothing but glass. It shattered full of coffee, so like a normal human he cleaned up the dangerous mess and threw it away. I put in a claim, and it said that I had to ship back the product. Believing that the Asurion process was as simple as stated, and reading the agreement that does mention that sometimes they'll require shipment of the item, but that they will review cases and use reasonable judgment, I contacted their chat, explaining that the requirement that I mail them a wet pile of shards of glass soaked in coffee (and a little bit of blood) was unsafe and unreasonable. I don't even know how I could do that in a way that would be safe for the people opening the packaging, or even to take it to the store. The shards of glass might puncture any plastic, and the wetness would soak through, plus there's the biohazard issue. Seems silly for a $47 product replacement to me. I figured any human would understand. First chat associate closed my case without even responding to me. I had to reopen it. The second one told me, "Yes, that is how your warranty works" as an answer to my "Hello, the last chat closed without me talking to anyone." I tried to explain the situation, and was told "If you call the hotline, maybe they'll help you." I call the hotline. The first person tells me tough, I have to mail it. I say it was thrown away. He says "AHA then it's lost! Your warranty doesn't cover lost things!" I say no, it's not lost, it was disposed of properly as shards of glass should be. I finally ask can I speak to someone else or a supervisor. He lies and says yes. I sit on hold for 20 minutes, never any wait time or any sort of indicator of when someone will talk to me. The phone call quality finally gets very horribly staticky, so I hang up and try again. Hallelujah, I get a decent human being who immediately says, "Oh, no, that's not reasonable! That is an unsafe thing to have to mail. I'll send it to the override department who should approve this because it's obvious that's not a normal thing to expect." Today I get an email that says: We can't approve your claim. We reviewed your NO SUPPORTING MANUFACTURER COFFEE MAKER claim. The product in your claim is not covered by your plan. As a result, we're unable to approve your claim. Nothing about the requirement to mail a biohazard, just the item isn't covered even though the item is absolutely covered. While I understand that loss prevention is important, this is a very small potatoes return and it isn't like I made this up. It would be easy to make me happy. I'm sure it has cost them more money to deny it than they would have lost covering the Chemex. I've bought multiple of their product replacement policies before. I never will again. They didn't offer for me to send a picture or anything. They just wasted hours of my time and sent a clearly AI-based answer, rather than treating me like a valuable customer.
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Lisa R.
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Fast!
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Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2026

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