Introduction

In recent decades there has been a shift from what may be termed a politics of emancipation to a politics of life. In a post-traditional society, late modern people, young and old, are individualised and forced to lead a life on the basis of a reflexive lifestyle. Key aims for older people include those associated with positive health and successful ageing. In this chapter I present a moral lifestyle for later life as an alternative to the dominant neoliberal concept of the choice biography. The first part discusses the transition to a politics of life as a daily struggle for a life of one's own. I then show how current moral philosophy responds critically to this modern development. In the last part, I develop a lifestyle for later life. Through a moral lifestyle, older people will be better able to relate to the cultural dictates that confront them, and may together try to reappropriate their own lives.

From emancipation to life politics

Years of emancipation

In 1958, during the Cold War, social liberal Isaiah Berlin published ‘Two concepts of liberty’. He pointed at the great importance of moral directives for the development of Western culture, and focused on one of the most fundamental concepts of modernity: liberty. Among the many varieties of liberty, he distinguished between two central concepts: negative and positive freedom. Berlin understood negative freedom as non-interference:

Berlin's interpretation of the concept of positive freedom is characterised by the notion of self-direction, and produces an uncommonly striking description of late modern self-awareness: