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What is happiness
Aristotle’s Understanding of Happiness
Aristotle's virtue and happiness in ethics
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A formal definition of happiness can be approached from several perspectives. It can mean the common feeling of living well or flourishing. Happiness is a feeling of completeness and sufficient good. This implies that happiness is desired for itself and not for the sake of anything else. Nowadays happiness is something everybody wants to achieve but has different views on what elements happiness should consist of. Happiness satisfies all the desires and does not have any evil in it and it is, therefore, stable. In one of his many theories, Aristotle mentions a life full of pleasure and comfort, a life characterized by money making, a philosophical life and a life of action as not being the ways to happiness. Aristotle had his own idea about …show more content…
Aristotle uses the word “Eudaimonia” as a term for happiness. He makes some assumptions on how a human soul behaves. It means human flouring. It does not mean pleasure or a mental state because he claimed that happiness is a form of life. Aristotle divided it into one part that reasons, a part that is guided by reason, and one more part that is unresponsive to reason. He, therefore, implies that there are virtues that will have a reason as their substance while reason will guide others as their subject. For instance, the some country in the middle-east gives the announcement to the residents that civil war has no remains anymore. All residents must be happy and starts having new life from now on. In fact, they would not say that they will live in a happy life. It just something that people desired for its own sake. Aristotle claims that not real happiness but people just desired for its own. Human being tries everything to pursue the happiness, and believes that it will be completed. He concludes that virtues are soul’s habits by which one acts well for the sake of what is noble or
The meaning of eudaimonia, etymologically, is ‘good spirit’ and it is generally translated as ‘happiness’; in Aristotelian terms, ‘happiness’ represents the highest human good and it is also the representation of the soul’s virtues. The identification of the soul parts as the contributors and main elements for the function of the most important human activity (reasoning), marks the inevitable psychological asset of Aristotle’s thinking; specifically, the classification of human virtues derives from the analysis of the soul’s types, attributing to human beings the ability of reasoning which distinguishes human beings from the rest of ‘natural bodies.’ Indeed, reason exists in two parts of the soul, namely the rational and the appetitive (desires or passions), and so it expresses within two different virtues, the moral and intellectual ones.
Aristotle insists that our happiness depends on our wants, our desires, using reason to govern our irrational desires. This comes from our inner self, but in order to achieve such state we need to, in essence, act on our political animal that he describes. In book one, Aristotle lays down two provisions that happiness needs to be satisfied. He states happiness must be perfect and that it must be self-sufficient. Not by himself, as he describes as being solitary, but by the means of parents, siblings, spouse,
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.
To start, according to Aristotle, the end of every action aims at a good (1094a1-10). He goes on to say that the highest good is the most complete, that it is good in itself and is not chosen to gain something else. Aristotle believes that the highest good that every action aims for is happiness, because it is self-sufficient (1097b1-10). For example, why does a person want a high paying job? So they can earn money. Why does a person want money? So they can get things. Why does a person want to get things? So they can become happy, or believe that it would give them happiness. Aristotle comes to this conclusion by taking into account the opinions of people, realizing that almost everyone is trying to obtain happiness (1095a10-20). In addition, Aristotle believes the means for achieving happiness are through the excellence of one's being. The term Aristotle uses here is aretê, or virtue. Essentially, virtue is the excellence of something, in this case moral action (1095b20-30). Virtue leads to happiness because it "seems to be more durable even than the kinds of knowledge" (1100b10-20). Earlier, Aristotle came to the conclusion that happiness is something that is not changed easily. If ...
For Aristotle happiness is the criteria through which the natural goal or telos of a man is assessed (Roberts and Sutch, 2004: 51). Although the Greek word commonly translated as “happiness” is eudaimonia, it is a far more intricate concept than physical pleasure. Barnes describes Aristotle’s highest human good, eudaimonia, as ‘the activity of the soul in accordance with excellence’ (Barnes, 1982: 78). However, it begs the question as to how one becomes virtuous or excellent. In this way, there are disagreements as to what constitutes eudaimonia and the role of the political participation in order to attain it (Duvall and Dotson, 1998: 23). By establishing happiness as an inadequate translation for eudaimonia, this essay seeks to establish that happiness or eudaimonia does not entirely depend ‘upon citizenship or full membership of political society’ (Roberts and Sutch, 2004: 53).
Happiness is a goal every human pursues, yet the ways in which it is pursued differs amongst people. Some believe prosperity will bring them happiness. Others believe material, power, fame, success, or love will bring them happiness. No matter what one believes is the right way to conquer this goal, every person will take their own unique path in an attempt to find it. But what is happiness? Happiness is often viewed as a subjective state of mind in which one may say they are happy when they are on vacation with friends, spending time with their family, or having a cold beer on the weekend while basking in the sun. However, Aristotle and the Stoics define happiness much differently. In Aristotle’s
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.
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...
Happiness can be understood as the moral goal of life or can be unpredictable and is something we create from ourselves and by ourselves. The idea of happiness was known as something we nurture on our own and is a state of emotion. Completing our everyday goals will soon bring us happiness, which seems to be very important to most humans and is what makes life worth living, but this is not certain. This conception of Eudemonia was common in ancient Greece as it is currently today. Aristotle had what he thought was an ideal activity for all those who wanted to live life to the fullest, be happy, and have purpose.
Happiness is the ultimate goal for everyone in life. Aristotle's definition of " happiness is happiness is the activity of the soul in accord with perfect virtue. To become a better person, we must practice virtuous acts regularly. After a while, these acts will become a habit and so the virtuous acts. part of our every day life and the person will be leading a virtuous life.
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
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.
According to Webster dictionary the word Happiness in defined as Enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy. People when they think of happiness, they think about having to good feeling inside. There are many types of happiness, which are expressed in many ways. Happiness is something that you can't just get it comes form your soul. Happiness is can be changed through many things that happen in our every day live.
I believe that happiness is the key to living a good and prosperous life. Through all of the sadness and hate in the world, happiness gives me hope. It gives not only me, but others hope and joy. Happiness gives us something to hold onto, therefore we cherish it as much as we can.
...that happiness is not found in amusement for it is too incongruous to end in amusement, and that our efforts and sufferings would be aimed at amusing ourselves. A flourishing life—a happy life, is one that consists of numerous requirements having been fulfilled to some degree. These include those things that preserve and maintain physical welfare such as, a certain level of material wellbeing, health, satisfaction, good familial and friendship bonds, and a comely appearance. Additionally, certain intellectual and moral needs ought to be met as well. It is a well-ordered and just state and community that preserves the freedom to have such a life. Thus, eudaimonia—happiness—for Aristotle is an inclusive notion consisting of life in accordance with intellectual and moral virtues, rational contemplation, and securing certain physical needs, such that one is flourishing.