Essay On Happiness Depends On Ourselves

“Happiness depends on ourselves.”
Aristotle

Many Philosophers consider happiness as the highest purpose of an individual. Happiness is an activity of the soul expressing complete virtue. Aristotle believes that happiness is the central purpose of life and a goal within itself. To obtain this happiness goals need to be met and as a result happiness is an end to this goal. To reach a goal something good has to occur and when deciding what good is we come to find that happiness is the chief good. Therefore happiness is always an end in itself. Happiness also is dependent on the cultivation of virtue. It is the value of your life up to this point. Here Aristotle uses deontology to look at what one ought to do and why. Overall, happiness is the end goal that encompasses your life as a whole and the reason we live.
To consider happiness as a good we must first understand what is good. The good of every action and decision consists in the fulfillment of its functions. For example, an ear fulfills its function if it hears. This is different than listening because hearing is simply the act of perceiving sound while listening you consciously choose to do. Most people agree about what good is and they call it happiness. Therefore the highest of all goods relation to action is happiness. Good is happiness, but people may disagree over what constitutes happiness. Common people may equate happiness with sensual pleasure while other say that receiving honors is the greatest good. We are more concerned on being good then knowing or clarifying what it is. Happiness is the highest good because we choose happiness. Whatever you consider happiness, as it is still the end goal. There can be ...

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...inking we have virtue thought, wisdom, comprehension and intelligence. Here reason applies to our logic. There is also two parts of the soul, irrational and rational. The irrational soul has two aspects. The vegetative aspect, which deals with nutrition and growth and has little connection to virtue and the appetitive aspect, which governs out impulses. Virtue is critical to achieve happiness through some sort of learning and reasoning.
Some may argue that happiness requires some external prosperity however this paper has proven that happiness is a good in itself. There may be perplexity as to whether happiness comes to be through divine allotment or even through chance however it is something that can be gained through learning or habituation. It is a way of life and is the ultimate end and purpose of human existence. Happiness is the perfection of human nature.