According to the article entitled Pleasure and Happiness by Aristotle, there are several points of arguments that view by author about the main things in pleasure and happiness. Pleasure and happiness have an own definition and it distinguish by how people measure on itself. Aristotle was among the very greatest thinkers ever and for the term of pleasure and happiness he started come out with the question like what is the good life and how it related with happy life. Every human action aims at some good and the good which, chosen for its own sake and not as means to an end is the highest good. Thus, based on the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle set up the term of pleasure comprise produces a definition pleasure.
Based on the article, the review about doctrines of pleasure is Eudoxus held that pleasure was the good because he saw all the things, whether rational or irrational, make pleasure their aim (Randali, Buchler, & Shirk, 1873, p.373). He also argued that in all case that desirable are good and that most desirable is most good. A thing is in the highest degree desirable, if we not want it for any ulterior reason or with any ulterior motive and this is admittedly the case with pleasure. For example it’s about a one thing most great extent of desirable, and if we don’t have a desire for any hidden reason or hidden motive can classify the case with a pleasure. Aristotle detects that people generally agree that happiness is the best life for human beings. It comprises of honor, wealth, and pleasure and true happiness comes from attainment vision and growing into your best likely self.
One major difference is Plato separates pleasure from the good. “He disputes that feel just as much pleasure from his weak acts as the hero can from...
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...nd rational, not given to genuine concern for others, nor truly interested in collective existence (Sica, 2005). There are four distinguish able sources from which pleasure and pain are in use to flow and considered separately, they may be termed the physical, the moral the political, and the spiritual. All of this makes the pleasure and pains belonging to each of them are capable of giving a binding force to any law or rule of conduct and they may all of them be termed sanctions.
In conclusion, the value of a lot of pleasure or pain and how to measured it depends on the avoidance of pains are the ends which legislator has in view. Therefore, to understand their value the pleasure and pains are the instruments to tight them work together. According to the Jeremy, if the person considered by himself, the value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself (Sica, 2005).
Aristotle accepts that there is an agreement that this chief good is happiness, but that there is a disagreement with the definition of happiness. Due to this argument, men divide the good into the three prominent types of life: pleasure, political and contemplative. Most men are transfixed by pleasure; a life suitable for “beasts”. The elitist life (politics) distinguishes happiness as honour, yet this is absurd given that honour is awarded from the outside, and one’s happiness comes from one’s self. The attractive life of money-making is quickly ruled out by Aristotle since wealth is not the good man seeks, since it is only useful for the happiness of something else.
Every person in the world wants to be happy and what makes us happy? Well that would be pleasure. Pleasure is a feeling of happiness and satisfaction physically through our body and mentality in our mind. Everyone in the world will do anything for pleasure no matter what it is. But should every pleasure we seek be desired because not everything is free, but comes with a price? Is pleasure going to be our most important goal in life? Well to answer those questions, you should read Letter to Herodotus by Epicurus, who is a philosopher, and maybe he could answer that question. Epicurus will tell us how to live a full and successful life. Epicurus made Epicureanism where we will learn the important of pleasure and the decision that we made that will lead to happiness or the destruction of
Throughout Aristotle’s life and career as a philosopher, he modified and formulated many ideas that deal with the psyche and state of the mind and body. One of the most prevalent ideas that he studied was the quest for happiness. He had many theories about it, but most merged to become the Nicomachean Ethics
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.
From pursuing pleasure to avoiding pain, life seems to ultimately be about achieving happiness. However, how to define and obtain happiness has and continues to be a widely debated issue. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives his view on happiness. Aristotle focuses particularly on how reason, our rational capacity, should help us recognize and pursue what will lead to happiness and the good life.';(Cooley and Powell, 459) He refers to the soul as a part of the human body and what its role is in pursuing true happiness and reaching a desirable end. Aristotle defines good'; as that which everything aims.(Aristotle, 459) Humans have an insatiable need to achieve goodness and eventual happiness. Sometimes the end that people aim for is the activity they perform, and other times the end is something we attempt to achieve by means of that activity. Aristotle claims that there must be some end since everything cannot be means to something else.(Aristotle, 460) In this case, there would be nothing we would try to ultimately achieve and everything would be pointless. An ultimate end exists so that what we aim to achieve is attainable. Some people believe that the highest end is material and obvious (when a person is sick they seek health, and a poor person searches for wealth).
Epicurus states that pleasure is “the starting point and the goal of a happy life” which could be interpreted as pleasure being both the means and the end of living a happy life. He believes that in order to achieve the goal of happiness, we must first understand that pleasure is the underlying cause of happiness.
On Aristotle’s search to find the highest good of a human being, he first asked what the ergon, or task, of being human is. His main focus was mostly on what the purpose or goal of human existence should be. Aristotle said that everyone is trying to reach happiness, whether it is by having money, love, or being honored. However, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he believes that the good we are trying to reach is one ultimate level of experience and that it is “desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.” All the other good that we experience throughout our lives is just pushing us toward the one thing that will make us happy in the end. Although we may think of being happy as a state of mind, Aristotle thought of it as how you lived your life. In other words, the happiness will not come and go within a couple of minutes or hours. It is a goal that is reached “at the end of one’s life and is a measurement of how well one has lived up to their full potential as a human being” (Shields).
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
Happiness, for Aristotle, is an End in and of itself. "For (Happiness) we choose always for its own sake, and never with a view to anything further." This conception of Happiness is vital, as Aristotle seeks to establish Happiness as the Highest Human Good. For Aristotle, it seems obvious, as even when choosing honor, pleasure, or intellect, we choose them not only for themselves, but also for the Happiness that is derived from them. As an End, Happiness becomes more than a pleasure-state, but a complete notion of fulfillment, and the Good to which all humans strive.
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
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
The pursuit for happiness has been a quest for man throughout the ages. In his ethics, Aristotle argues that happiness is the only thing that the rational man desires for its own sake, thus, making it good and natural. Although he lists three types of life for man, enjoyment, statesman, and contemplative, it is the philosopher whom is happiest of all due to his understanding and appreciation of reason. Aristotle’s version of happiness is not perceived to include wealth, honor, or trivial
When talking about pleasure there needs to be a distinction between the quality and the quantity. While having many different kinds of pleasures can be considered a good thing, one is more likely to favor quality over quantity. With this distinction in mind, one is more able to quantify their pleasures as higher or lesser pleasures by ascertaining the quality of them. This facilitates the ability to achieve the fundamental moral value that is happiness. In his book Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill offers a defining of utility as pleasure or the absence of pain in addition to the Utility Principle, where “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 7). Through this principle, Mill emphasizes that it is not enough to show that happiness is an end in itself. Mill’s hedonistic view is one in support of the claim that every human action is motivated by or ought to be motivated by the pursuit of pleasure.
To Aristotle leading a good life, for the most part, means fulfilling one’s purpose in a way that is good by balancing life’s pleasures. In order to determine if an object fulfills its function in a good way, we must first consider the object. If we were to agree that a car should be reliable, then we could also agree that reliable car should be considered a good car. Similarly, animals, for example, possess certain traits like the power of locomotion, and the desire to seek nourishment and reproduce. According to Aristotle, an animal that is a fast runner, or a very successful hunter would be considered a good animal. Following this reasoning, Aristotle believed that in order for a human to be good, he or she must also fulfill their purpose. Yet, as an advanced species, we must go beyond fulfilling these animalistic functions like eating right and reproducing well. In order for a human to live the good life, he or she must first be good at using powers of intellect and reason, which Aristotle believed were unique to only humans and, as a result, constitute our purpose (McManaman). It seems that in addition to being a good human, Aristotle also recognized pleasure must play a role in the good life. Still, he recognized the importance of balance when indulging in acts of pleasure claiming that a life of only pleasure was too animalistic (Richter, 2008). In this way, Aristotle believed the key to a good life was to fulfill one’s function a good way, while balancing life’s pleasures in a way that allowed the...
According to Aristotle, the good life is the happy life, as he believes happiness is an end in itself. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle develops a theory of the good life, also known as eudaimonia, for humans. Eudaimonia is perhaps best translated as flourishing or living well and doing well. Therefore, when Aristotle addresses the good life as the happy life, he does not mean that the good life is simply one of feeling happy or amused. Rather, the good life for a person is the active life of functioning well in those ways that are essential and unique to humans. Aristotle invites the fact that if we have happiness, we do not need any other things making it an intrinsic value. In contrast, things such as money or power are extrinsic valuables as they are all means to an end. Usually, opinions vary as to the nature and conditions of happiness. Aristotle argues that although ‘pleasurable amusements’ satisfy his formal criteria for the good, since they are chosen for their own sake and are complete in themselves, nonetheless, they do not make up the good life since, “it would be absurd if our end were amusement, and we laboured and suffered all our lives for the sake of amusing ourselves.”