Life’s ‘Ultimate Questions’ and Why They Matter

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

- Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot

For Andy Wicks, thinking about big questions is part of his identity. In “Ultimate Questions,” his new book set for publication this summer, Wicks explores issues core to the human experience, with the hope that it will help others lead more fulfilling lives.

Based in part on the course he has taught as a business ethics professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, “Ultimate Questions” tackles four fundamental questions: Who are we? Why are we here? What does it mean to live a good life? How should we get along with others?

For Wicks, these aren’t just academic musings. They are part of everyday life – yet most people don’t recognize the questions or explore answers until someone asks them.

It is also especially personal to him given where he is in his life journey.

“I am staring squarely at my own mortality,” he writes in the preface.

A progressing neurodegenerative disease has forced Wicks, 61, to confront life’s biggest questions on profoundly personal terms.

“It is very fitting that this will be my last book and my last major publication,” he shared recently in an interview facilitated by his wife, Cathy. “It has been a tremendous joy. I didn't understand it when I started, but it is clear to me now that this was the thing that I was put on earth to do — not necessarily just to write this specific book, but to be invested in — and articulate — this path, this way of engaging with life, this way of living these questions.”

A Lifelong Pursuit of Inquiry

Wicks, the Ruffin Professor of Business Administration and Richard M. Waitzer Bicentennial Professor of Ethics, says he was “wired” for thinking about questions in a deep way. As a young boy, he would sit up at night struggling with such questions as: Does God exist? That curiosity led him to pursue a master’s degree and Ph.D. in religious ethics at UVA.

One of Wicks’ earliest heroes, when he started reading about philosophy, theology and applied ethics, was Socrates, the classical Greek philosopher.

In Plato's “Apology,” Socrates claims, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Indeed, that phrase has served as a North Star for Wicks over the course of his career and life.

“Socrates was definitely an inspiration for me and was very influential in college and grad school,” Wicks reflects. “When I submitted my packet for promotion to full professor, I built it around this idea that a well-lived life is one where you are willing to ask questions, to be aware, to be conscious, rather than to be deluded through life and float on a cloud and never ask hard questions.”

Wicks also begins the introduction of the book with the Socrates quote.

“Socrates isn’t asking us to become professional philosophers and read arcane texts; he is asking us to become aware of how we approach life and be willing to consider alternatives, especially when our current approach isn’t serving us,” he writes.

As a graduate student in religious studies, Wicks was headed down a path toward medical ethics or applied religious or philosophical ethics. But along the way, he met Darden Professor Ed Freeman, widely considered the father of stakeholder theory, who opened his eyes to what business ethics was all about.

The pair hit it off: Wicks became Freeman’s research assistant, and Freeman joined Wicks’ dissertation committee.

“Andy is absolutely one of my closest colleagues, and I’m very proud to say that he was one of my best ever PhD students,” Freeman says. “Andy lives his life with integrity and grace, and the book reflects that — it’s like having a conversation with Andy.”

After graduating, Wicks went on to teach at the University of Washington for a decade, before Freeman helped recruit him to Darden in 2002. The pair went on to write three books together, in addition to a number of papers.

Over the years, Wicks’ leadership roles across the school expanded to include director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, academic director of the Institute for Business in Society, academic adviser for the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics and director of Darden's Doctoral Program. 

“Andy’s very, very talented,” says Freeman.

From Classroom to Page: The Evolution of Ultimate Questions

Wicks was relaxing on a beach in Hawaii with Cathy, celebrating their anniversary, when, “like a bolt of lightning,” the outline for the book struck him. Within half an hour, he had sketched out what would become “Ultimate Questions.”

While the idea was born on a beach, it was the Darden classroom that allowed Wicks to fully explore these questions through his popular elective for residential and executive MBA students, “Ultimate Questions and Creating Value for Stakeholders.”

He says naming the class — and book — “Ultimate Questions” was deliberate and intended as “a jarring phrase” to “cut to the core” and grab attention.

“The questions are so fundamental and so inescapable that they really reside at the foundation of a lot of other questions we wrestle with in life,” says Wicks. “No matter how we live our lives, these questions are there for us. The only issue is: Are we going to pay attention?”

Like every Darden professor, Wicks taught the class using the case method, also known as the Socratic method, where the teacher facilitates and encourages robust discussion in the classroom by acting as a guide and resource.

“These are such hard questions that at the beginning of the class, my students would often say, ‘Wow, if I sit down and try to answer them, I really don't feel good about my answers — I have a lot of work to do to come up with better answers’,” Wicks recalls. “And that's part of the class — not to create shame, but to help students acknowledge how we often ignore things that really matter to us.”

Wicks explains that while people can grapple with big questions on their own, one of the most powerful ways to learn is through working with others.

When teaching the class, he would survey students beforehand and organize them into “salon groups” of five to six members, deliberately mixing students with different worldviews.

Over the years, he learned from his students what worked and what didn’t work in the classroom and found the insights broadly applicable. He has compiled them into an appendix at the back of the book called, “Guide to Having Hard Conversations.”

While deep conversations may feel uncomfortable at first, Wicks believes they're essential.

“Through the process of conversation, we come to a richer understanding of the questions, and build stronger, more resilient relationships,” he says.

The Four Core Questions

The book focuses on four questions, each covered in a separate chapter along with workshop activities:

Chapter 1: Who are we and who am I?

Chapter 2:  Why are we here and why am I here?

Chapter 3: What is the good life, and what is my good life?

Chapter 4: How should I get along with others?

“These questions apply to all of humanity, all the time,” says Wicks. “We are all answering those questions, even if we’re not sitting down and consciously thinking about them.”

While these aren’t the only ultimate questions, they serve as a structure to cover significant philosophical territory, he says.

“Part of what makes these questions special is that they are unavoidable,” Wicks writes.

The order of the questions is deliberate, starting with self-understanding, then defining one's purpose, and finally addressing social interactions. Wicks notes that our answers to these questions shape our perceptions of others and can influence our behavior, either fostering compassion or leading to cruelty. They also build on each other and extend from the individual to a larger communal context.

The Art of Inquiry

Wicks stresses that the book is not about providing answers, but about learning to ask better questions and choosing to “live them” intentionally. The power of asking questions, he says, lies in reminding ourselves to be humble and doubt things we know. That’s not to say, “don't believe,” but rather, to believe while retaining your humility and being open to new ideas, beliefs, and experiences.

The reason humility is important, explains Wicks, is that it allows us to see that our efforts are imperfect and that our answers may change.

So, what’s the key to asking better questions? There are two key principles:

First: Listen. “Part of what is required to ask a good question is to understand your audience, what their grounding is, what their experience is, what they’re wrestling with,” says Wicks.

Second: Challenge. “My job is to hold people’s feet to the fire,” he says. This means pushing people to think beyond their first answer.”

Wicks believes the process is not about finding definitive answers but about being conscious and using that awareness to think deeply about our identity and life goals.

A Journey of Reflection

“This book has been a version of me living my questions,” says Wicks, who sees parallels between his experience (and those of all people) and Homer's “Odyssey.”

In the epic poem, Odysseus returns home to Ithaca after facing many challenges and adventures during his long voyage back from the Trojan War.

“In a sense, like in the Odyssey, I’m returning to where I started,” he says. “Now that I am facing the end of my own life, it has been therapeutic for me to dig deeply into what I want to say and share with an audience. It has also helped clarify what's important to me and helped make me accountable to myself.”

Asked what he hopes readers will take away from the book, Wicks offers a simple phrase:

“Pay attention to your life.”

“It’s an invocation for the reader,” he explains. “It's not ‘here's the answer.’ It is really an invitation to wake up, to pay attention, and to be willing to ask those hard questions about your life, not because there's some external critic you've got to satisfy, but because it helps you have the kind of life that you would like to have.”