What different paths to the good life does Phil Conners explore and why do they fail until he happens on the last path?  I can count at least four or five

For this assignment you will first need to read Lecture 10, paying specially attention to the
discussion of Aristotle's virtue ethics and watch Groundhog Day.  One of the central aims of
this course is the development of our critical thinking skills.  Critical thinking involves a lot of
things.  It involves being able to carefully read and comprehend texts such as the works of
philosophy we are reading, but also contracts and work memos.  It means learning how to
distinguish between good and bad arguments, recognizing what sort of evidence supports a
conclusion and what sort of evidence does not.  It means being able to recognize, analyze, and
creatively solve problems.  It also means being able to interpret the cultural artifacts to explore
their deeper meaning and the messages they're conveying to us.
Let us recall, for a moment, the early weeks of the semester.  There we encountered Plato's
allegory of the cave.  One way of interpreting the allegory is as representing thought prior to
reflecting philosophically.  We learned that we are the prisoners in the cave endlessly staring at
the shadows on the cave wall.  The prisoners are not yet philosophers.  They passively accept
what they see on the cave wall as being what is real and true.  Then one prisoner escapes and
sees, for the first time, the patterns that cast these shadows.  She is on her way to becoming a
philosopher.  She now knows that there's a difference between the world of appearances and the
world of reality.  This would later become a fundamental principle of science.  On the one hand
there are the appearances or things that we see all around us.  The sun rises and sets.  The moon
waxes and wanes.  Mars and Neptune appear in certain places in the sky throughout the year.
These are the things we see all around us.  The scientist, who is just a sort of philosopher,
understands that there is a deeper truth and reality "behind" the appearances.  These are the
mathematical laws like Newton and Einstein's equations for gravity or the genetic code of a
species that govern these phenomena or appearances and that explain why they happen as they
do.  There's a code behind what we observe.  This is what our prisoner discovers as she gradually
escapes the cave, becoming a philosopher by discovering deeper and deeper laws governing the
shadows that appear on the cave wall.  She no longer takes appearances at face value but
understands there's a deeper truth behind them.
It is no different with the media all around us that we swim in like fish in water.  We live in a
world of video games, movies, YouTube videos, comic books, novels, and television shows.
Like the chained prisoners we often passively consume these things, playing this or that game,
reading this or that comic book, listening to this or that song, taking them at face value without
thinking much about the messages behind them.  We just find them amusing and entertaining
without nothing to wonder why Phil Conners in Groundhog Day is a weatherman rather than
some sort of other occupation, or what the insurance salesman is all about, or why they chose to
have him quote Checkoff, etc.  We think of these things as being irrelevant details, not as being
elements that contribute to the film persuading us to think about the world in a particular way.
Many films, comic books, novels, video games, and songs are actually making arguments
without us even realizing it!  One step towards becoming a critical thinker lies in us becoming
able to actively decipher these messages.

Prompt
Aristotle argues that all of us are pursuing what he calls "eudaemonia" or happiness; that is, an
excellent life or human flourishing.  We have many different pictures of what the good life is.
He says that some people hold that the happy life is the one where we attain honor or fame such
as in the case of the accomplished statesmen or the famous novelist or artist.  Others, he says,
argue that the good life is the life of pleasure where we enjoy good food, fine clothing, beautiful
homes, and luxuries of all kinds.  Aristotle argues that the truly happy life or life of human
flourishing is the life of virtue (this has a very specific meaning for him and requires you to read
lecture 10 to understand it).  While other interpretations are possible, I would argue that
Groundhog Day is a film about eudaemonia.  The film is trying to present or teach us what
eudaemonia is.  Why is it that poor Phil Conners repeats exactly the same day over and over
again throughout the film?  Is this simply an amusing plot device or is it saying something
deeper?  I would argue that Phil Conners repeats the same day over and over again because he is
on the wrong path.  When we pursue the wrong path to achieve eudaemonia or happiness we fall
into rote repetition.  Time does not seem to move.  It is only when we get on the right path that
the horizon of the future opens before us and time opens up, allowing for novelty and change.
For this discussion I would like you to explore the following questions in a 200+ word
comment:
 What different paths to the good life does Phil Conners explore and why do they fail
until he happens on the last path?  I can count at least four or five different visions of
the good life he explores throughout the film.  What might they be and why do they
fall short?  What is missing?
 What is different about the final form of the good life that Conners happens on?
What does it possess that the others didn't?  How has Conners psychologically
changed?  Here there are a few things worth thinking about such as his service to
others, his cultivation of his talents (sculpture, music, poetry), his relationships to
others around the town (not just Andie McDowell), etc.  You might also explore his
relationship to the futility of his actions yet the fact that he continues to do them.
What is it that finally makes Conners worthy of love?  How have his goals changed
between the beginning of the film and the end?  How has his outlook changed?
What's important to him now?
 What is the significance of the elderly homeless man and what Conners does for him
again and again?  What important lesson does he finally learn from this man that is
perhaps vital to achieving eudaemonia?

For this assignment you will need to use evidence from the film to support your interpretation.
That is, you must refer to particular scenes, events, and statements that occur throughout the
film to support your thesis.  That supporting evidence should be descriptive enough for us, your
readers, to know what you're referring to.  You don't need to respond to all of the bullet points
above (that would easily be a lengthy essays), these are just things to think about.