Success and Flourishing in Singapore: The Impact of Laws and Policies on the Ethos and Character of a People

Abstract According to virtue jurisprudence, good laws can be conducive to virtuous living; poor laws can contribute to character vices and entrench prejudices. This article focuses on what lies beyond the strict categorization of virtue and vice simpliciter—the ethos and mindset of a people. Using a case study of Singapore, this article examines how law, conceived of in the broadest sense as including policies chosen in a legal regime that leaves the concretization of policies to government bodies, can diminish the capacity and desire of individuals to live examined lives in pursuit of eudaimonia or flourishing. Insofar as living examined lives in pursuit of flourishing is good according to virtue jurisprudence, such laws deteriorate the ethos of a society and, by and by, the character of individuals. Living unthinkingly in pursuit of a narrow conception of success because others do so is the counterfeit of living an examined and flourishing life. I examine how the ethos of pursuing the narrow conception of success emerged in Singapore’s phase of rapid nation-building. I consider how the government of the developed nation now regards such ethos as lacking and suggest how the nation can be purposefully redirected towards flourishing.