Aristotle Happiness Summary

1419 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Aristotle's idea on happiness

This paper will analyze Aristotle’s view of Happiness from Book 1 chapters 7-12 and Book 10 chapters 1-8 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Aristotle greatly believed in virtues, which he asserted led to happiness. The usage of virtues meant to him the action of achieving moderation and balance. Aristotle spoke on the process of achieving happiness that is not based on an emotional state. The idea is only that if a person lives in a given way that reaches his/her full potential through blooming or flourishing, one can display the best and right version of his/her personality and the best that he/she can be. In the world of Aristotle, it was the action of living in moderation and balance that brought the best and the highest level of pleasure. Chp 7-12
Aristotle was clear not to stress the action itself, but to explain how happiness is achieved in the way of life of a given person. It is this particular differentiated way of life that leads to the greatest and most fulfilling long-term value rather than the element of just a passing and fleeting amusement. Aristotle held that contemplation is the highest activity humans could engage in their lifetime. Contemplation, according to Aristotle, is the prime activity that discovers and refines virtues. When contemplation is carried out continuously, it allows a person to reach his/her full potential. It is the activity of the highest power in us, the intellect. It gives the purest and most continuous pleasure, which is absolutely final and ultimate.
Aristotle asks a fundamental question in his personal lectures regarding what could be the ultimate purpose of human existence in this world. Aristotle asks himself what is that goal or the end for which each person should dir...

... middle of paper ...

...quinas, endeavoring to persuade someone with too much sensitive emotional appeal with the subject matter might leave them sad than happy. This is because emotions have a way of either making someone happy, sad or completely indifferent about a given subject matter.
However, persuading someone with a detached emotional appeal who was not expecting to hear the persuasion might leave him or her happier than before. These two scenarios depict that Aristippus is right on the former Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and also Aquinas is right on how Aristotle influenced his perspective of happiness. Aristotle, Aristippus and Aquinas’s works continues to be translated by modern intellectuals and other established distinguished scholars. However, up to this day, Ostwald has the most inspiring and closely related without many disparities translations of the Nicomachean Ethics.

Show More
Related

  • Happiness and Impossible Standards in Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics

    550 Words  | 2 Pages

    Humans, throughout recorded history, have searched for a proper way of living which would lead them to ultimate happiness; the Nicomachean Ethics, a compilation of lecture notes on the subject written by Greek philosopher Aristotle, is one of the most celebrated philosophical works dedicated to this study of the way. As he describes it, happiness can only be achieved by acting in conformity with virtues, virtues being established by a particular culture’s ideal person operating at their top capacity. In our current society the duplicity of standards in relation to virtue makes it difficult for anyone to attain. To discover true happiness, man must first discover himself.

    Read More

  • The Nichomachean Conception of Happiness

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    Happiness, to Aristotle, is a term for which much exactitude must be made. He understands that, "Happiness both the refined and the few call it, but about the nature of this Happiness, men dispute." As such, he goes to great lengths to attain a fairly accurate accounting of what he sees as Happiness. He begins by illustrating that Happiness is an End, establishes what he finds the work of Man to be, sets conditions on being happy, and then explains where in Man the cultivation of Happiness is to be sought. The result of all these ideas is his fully developed sense of Happiness, an understanding vital to his conception of Ethics.

    Read More

  • Aristotle Wins Ethically: A comparison between John Stuart Mill and Aristotle on happiness

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, Aristotle’s elucidation of happiness is based on a ground of ethics because happiness to him is coveted for happiness alone. The life of fame and fortune is not the life for Aristotle. Happiness is synonymous for living well. To live well is to live with virtue. Virtue presents humans with identification for morals, and for Aristotle, we choose to have “right” morals. Aristotle defines humans by nature to be dishonored when making a wrong decision. Thus, if one choses to act upon pleasure, like John Stuart Mill states, for happiness, one may choose the wrong means of doing so. Happiness is a choice made rationally among many pickings to reach this state of mind. Happiness should not be a way to “win” in the end but a way to develop a well-behaved, principled reputation.

    Read More

  • Aristotle: Ethics and the Virtues

    2252 Words  | 5 Pages

    Aristotle begins his ethical account by saying that “every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and every choice, is thought to aim for some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim” (line 1094a1). Though some things might produce higher good than others, Aristotle looks for the highest good, which he says we must “desire for its own sake” and our actions are not decided on some other goal beyond this good itself (line 1094a20-25).[1] This highest good is then realized to be happiness (line 1095a16-20).

    Read More

  • Aristotle and the Book of Nicomanchean Ethics

    2039 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Book I of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states that the ultimate human goal or end is happiness. Aristotle then describes steps required for humans to obtain the ultimate happiness. He also states that activity is an important requirement of happiness. A virtuous person takes pleasure in doing virtuous things. He then goes on to say that living a life of virtue is something pleasurable in itself. The role of virtue to Aristotle is an important one, with out it, it seems humans cannot obtain happiness. Virtue is the connection one has to happiness and how they should obtain it. My goal in this paper is to connect Aristotle’s book of Nicomachean Ethics to my own reasoning of self-ethics. I strongly agree with Aristotle’s goal of happiness and conclude to his idea of virtues, which are virtuous states of character that affect our decision making in life.

    Read More

  • Nicomachean Ethics

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    Through books one to three in Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between pain and happiness, clarifying the endless war that men face in the path of these two extremes. Man’s quest for pleasure is considered by the self-conscious and rational Aristotle; a viewpoint traditionally refuted in contemporary, secular environments.

    Read More

  • Aristotle and Happiness of the Soul

    716 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of Aristotle’s conclusions in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics is that “human good turns out to be the soul’s activity that expresses virtue”(EN 1.7.1098a17). This conclusion can be explicated with Aristotle’s definitions and reasonings concerning good, activity of soul, and excellence through virtue; all with respect to happiness.

    Read More

  • Does Aristotle’s Function Argument Offer a Convincing Account of the Human Good?

    1843 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Nicomachean Ethics, written by Aristotle, represents his most important contribution within the field of Ethics; it is a collection of ten books, covering a variety of interesting topics, throughout the collection. Aristotle tries to draw a general understanding of the human good, exploring the causes of human actions, trying to identify the most common ultimate purpose of human actions. Indeed, Aristotelian’s ethics, also investigates through the psychological and the spiritual realms of human beings. Without pretending to exhaust with too many references, it would be rather useful to focus on the most criticized part of the philosopher’s attempt, which is also the very starting point of his masterpiece, identified as eudaimonia (happiness, well being) and ergon (function), in Aristotelian terms.

    Read More

  • Aristotle's Ethics

    577 Words  | 2 Pages

    It was Aristotle’s belief that everything, including humans, had a telos or goal in life. The end result or goal was said to be happiness or “eudaimonia”. He explained that eudaimonia was different for each person, and that each had a different idea of what it meant. Further, he said that people must do things in moderation, but at the same time do enough. The theory, of “the golden mean of moderation” was the basis to Aristotle's idea of the human telos and concluded that living a virtuous life must be the same for all people. Aristotle maintained that the natural human goal to be happy could only be achieved once each individual determined his/her goal. A person’s telos is would usually be what that individual alone can do best. Aristotle described the humans as "rational animals" whose telos was to reason. Accordingly, Aristotle thought that in order for humans to be happy, they would have to be able to reason, and to be governed by reason. If a person had difficulty behaving morally or with ethics, he was thought to be “imperfect”. Moral virtue, a principle of happiness, was the ability to evade extremes in behavior and further to find the mean between it and adequacy. Aristotle’s idea of an ideal state was one where the populous was able to practice eth...

    Read More

  • Aristotle's Views Of The End Goal Of Happiness

    1231 Words  | 3 Pages

    1.) Aristotle begins by claiming that the highest good is happiness (198, 1095a20). In order to achieve this happiness, one must live by acting well. The highest good also needs to be complete within itself, Aristotle claims that, “happiness more than anything else seems complete without qualification, since we always…choose it because of itself, never because of something else (204, 1097b1). Therefore, Aristotle is claiming that we choose things and other virtues for the end goal of happiness. Aristotle goes on to define happiness as a self-sufficient life that actively tries to pursue reason (205, 1098a5). For a human, happiness is the soul pursuing reason and trying to apply this reason in every single facet of life (206, 1098a10). So, a virtuous life must contain happiness, which Aristotle defines as the soul using reason. Next, Aristotle explains that there are certain types of goods and that “the goods of the soul are said to be goods to the fullest extent…” (207, 1098b15). A person who is truly virtuous will live a life that nourishes their soul. Aristotle is saying “that the happy person lives well and does well…the end

    Read More

  • Aristotle On Happiness And Virtue Essay

    670 Words  | 2 Pages

    Aristotle once stated that, “But if happiness be the exercise of virtue, it is reasonable to suppose that it will be the exercise of the highest virtue; and that will be the virtue or excellence of the best part of us.” (481) It is through Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics that we are able to gain insight into ancient Greece’s moral and ethical thoughts. Aristotle argues his theory on what happiness and virtue are and how man should achieve them.

    Read More

  • Virtue and Happiness

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    Happiness is the goal of every human beings according to Aristotle, however what does happiness imply? It is in his attempt to define happiness and to find a way to attain it that Aristotle comes across the idea of virtue. It is thus necessary to explain the relationship between these two terms. I will start by defining the good and virtue and then clarify their close link with the argument of function, I will then go into more details in explaining the different ways in which they are closely related and finally I am going to give an account of the apparent contradiction in Book X which is a praise of the life of study.

    Read More

  • Aristotle's Theory Of Happiness Essay

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    Aristotle feels we have a rational capacity and the exercising of this capacity is the perfecting of our natures as human beings. For this reason, pleasure alone cannot establish human happiness, for pleasure is what animals seek and human beings have higher capacities than animals. The goal is to express our desires in ways that are appropriate to our natures as rational animals. Aristotle states that the most important factor in the effort to achieve happiness is to have a good moral character, what he calls complete virtue. In order to achieve the life of complete virtue, we need to make the right choices, and this involves keeping our eye on the future, on the ultimate result we want for our lives as a whole. We will not achieve happiness simply by enjoying the pleasures of the moment. We must live righteous and include behaviors in our life that help us do what is right and avoid what is wrong. It is not enough to think about doing the right thing, or even intend to do the right thing, we have to actually do it. Happiness can occupy the place of the chief good for which humanity should aim. To be an ultimate end, an act must be independent of any outside help in satisfying one’s needs and final, that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else and it must be

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Plato's Theory On Human Nature

    914 Words  | 2 Pages

    His philosophical theory was very simple and he wanted to teach people how to be happy. He stated “In all our activities there is an end, which we seek for its own sake, and everything else is a means to this end…Happiness is this ultimate end. It is the end we seek in all that we do.” What Aristotle means is that everything we do in our daily activities and actions is all leading up to the end result which is happiness. For example, I work and attend school full time and everything that I do is sub goals leading towards being a successful person which causes me to be happy. Aristotle says happiness is also found in our feelings. A personal example is I love my family and it makes me happy having people to care about and to support them. Sub goals on the way, such as making an A in a class or finishing college and getting a degree are self-awarding pleasures that create happiness. Those are a few examples that make me happy and doing well and succeeding is the key to happiness. For happiness to happen in general, people need to have a reason or virtue in our lives. That everyone has their strong suites about themselves and we need to express and share them with others to help others grow as well. What I understand from Aristotle’s theories of happiness is that our feelings and good actions and being able to control them is what makes us

    Read More

  • Aristotle's Theory of the Good Life

    961 Words  | 2 Pages

    Happiness can be viewed as wealth, honour, pleasure, or virtue. Aristotle believes that wealth is not happiness, because wealth is just an economic value, but can be used to gain some happiness; wealth is a means to further ends. The good life, according to Aristotle, is an end in itself. Similar to wealth, honour is not happiness because honour emphases on the individuals who honour in comparison to the honouree. Honour is external, but happiness is not. It has to do with how people perceive one another; the good life is intrinsic to the...

    Read More

More about Aristotle Happiness Summary

Open Document