Many films explore the question, “What makes a human life good?” everybody’s favourite schmaltzy Christmas classic, takes on the task directly, with both predictable and unexpected results. Start with the predictable ones: the old question whether a life that is morally good is also good in the sense that it makes you happy is answered in the affirmative. The James Stewart character, George Bailey, achieves the title’s wonderful life by sacrificing his own plans and ambitions for the sake of his family and the poorer members of his community. According to the movie, what’s good about the morally good life is the way it connects you to people.
But at a slightly deeper level, the movie raises the question whether Socrates’ famous claim – that the unexamined life is not worth living – might be true. For what saves Bailey from suicide is the chance to examine his life, by the philosophical device of a thought experiment: “You’ve been given a great gift, George. A chance to see what the world would be like without you.” The movie suggests that if he had not been given that chance, he might well have killed himself. But if he had done so, believing it would have been better if he had never been born, would we, the audience, still judge that he had a wonderful life? And if we would not, then does the movie show us that a human life cannot be good unless the person who lives it thinks about it and knows that it is good?
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