Aristotle argues that the goal of life is Eudaimonia. Aristotle find what a good life is by asking humans. Aristotle in the book “Nicomachean Ethics” states that “it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise” (Aristotle 2). All people do actions for the result of being happy. However, there is a misunderstanding of what happiness is. Some people may associate happiness with pleasure, but that is not the goal of humans. The overall goal of humans is Eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is a process of happiness of flourishing and doing well. If we can achieve this type of happiness, we fulfill our function and goal in life. …show more content…
Aristotle shows that virtue is not passion because we are not judged as good or bad based on our passions. We are not blamed for our feeling or faculties because we are not blamed for our faculties. Aristotle shows that this eliminates it down to the state of our character. However, it is dependent on the means of our own character. Aristotle shows how a virtuous action lies in a mean by stating that “a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate (Aristotle 14). This is shown in the virtue of courage, as the vice of two much courage is cockiness and foolish, and a lack of courage is cowardly. Our state of character relative to our means is
Aristole’s Nichomachean Ethics is a critically acclaimed piece of literature that has laid the framework for philosophy as we know it today. It is considered to be a historical piece that was the first to address ethics in a unified, clear, and concise manner. The book was translated by F. H. Peters with an introduction by Hye-Kyung Kim. Aristotle was one of the great early philosophers who ventured to speak to humans about how they conducted themselves as they related to others; however, some of Aristotle’s ideologies were debated by his counterparts for hundreds of years. Aristotle’s plethora of ideas was and has been adopted by past and present philosophers as they approached subject matter that had very few definitive answers. Aristotle was born in circa 384 B. C. and died in 322 B.C.
To begin with, Aristotle tells us his meaning of virtues and vices. They are not just any habits that we experience, but the outcome of what we feel as pleasure or pain. A virtuous person feels pleasure at the most beautiful action. A person who is not virtuous will feel their pleasure misleading. the definition of virtue is a behavior showing high moral standards or good characteristics. Virtues comes as a consequence of following the right habits. There are two different types of virtues: Intellectual and moral. To have virtues you have to have intellectual morals. This means you ethically do things on your own, you comprehend what doing, and realizing why you doing it. Aristotle says we can describe virtu...
In the book Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle uses his collection of lecture notes in order to establish the best way to live and acquire happiness. Aristotle says, “Virtue, then, is a state that decides consisting in a mean, the mean relative to us,.. .It is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency.” The virtues that Aristotle speaks about in Nicomachean Ethics are: bravery, temperance, generosity, magnificence, magnanimity, and mildness. According to Aristotle, in order to live a happy life you must obtain these virtues and be morally good. Living a virtuous life is not an activity, but a predisposition. This means that you are genuinely inclined to act virtuously for the appropriate reasons.
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle lays a foundation of goods and supreme goods. “Every art”, he says, “and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared” (Aristotle, 46). The chief good is that “which we desire for its own sake” (Aristotle, 47). The chief good for humans is happiness, which people equate with many different things. The reason why happiness is the chief good is because it is sufficient in itself. Aristotle says “the general run of men…identify living well and doing well with being happy” (Aristotle 48). For example, it is thought that if one is happy with their job, they are more inclined to do a good job because they are content. As Aristotle continues on he defines the supreme good in yet another way, saying, “…Human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue” (Aristotle, 55). For Aristotle, a rational human being is also a happy and virtuous one as well. Rationality distinguishes humans from animals. At this point, it is suggested that one’s life can only be examined as a whole and not as he or she lives. “One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day”, says A...
He stated, “So virtue is a provisional disposition… virtue is a mean; but in respect of what is right and what is right and best, it is an extreme (Aristotle, 42).” Here Aristotle explains that moral virtue is determined by reason and that it avoids the states of too much, excess, or too little, deficiency. He believes that our soul is the principle of living because it is inside of us. Therefore, for Aristotle the soul was morally which is where we are given the right reason. He believes that, “there are two parts of the soul, one rational and one irrational (Aristotle, 145).” The rational part, which is how he believe we should do our actions upon, consists of possessing reason, part that can think and command, and intellectual virtues, which are virtues that come from time and experience. Courage is a moral virtue. When having courage, you either have too much fear, which makes you a coward, or you have too little fear, where you’d be considered rash or fool hardy. Generosity is also a moral virtue. When you are generous, you are either giving too much, which makes you profligate, or you are giving too little which would consider you as a stingy person. Moral virtues lead you to happiness because of their intermediate state that is by
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).
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.
A conduct can't be either great or insidiousness, however an individual can have great or awful character qualities. Aristotle said that all individuals are made out of a consolidation of bad habit (awful character qualities) and ideals (great character characteristics). He utilizes this idea to illustrate the postulation: Virtue is a demeanor concerned with decision.
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).
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...
The virtues defined by Aristotle consist of two extremes or vices, the excess and the deficiency. The mean or the intermediate between the excess and the deficiency is the virtue. One virtue Aristotle explains is bravery, with its vices being rashness and cowardice. Each aspect of these is contrary to the others, meaning that the intermediate opposes the extreme. Similarly, one extreme opposes the mean and its other extreme. The implications of this are that the excess opposes the deficiency more than the mean. This causes the mean to sometimes resemble its neighboring extreme. Obtaining the mean involves the challenge of being excellent. The challenging part, however, is “doing it to the right person, in the right amount, at the right time, for the right end, and in the right way” (Nicomachean Ethics 1109a28-29:29). Fortunately, one can steer themselves to the mean if one is conscious of the extreme they are naturally inclined to go towards. Since everybody is uniquely different the means by which one steers themselves in the right direction is different for each individual. In addition, Aristotle names three requirements for an action to be a virtue. First one must be cons...
He claims that virtue of thought is taught and that virtue of character is habitually learnt. Either way, virtues do not “arise in us naturally” (216, 1103a20). He argues that humans have the capacities for virtues, but they must act on them (216, 1103a30). Thus, a person must learn to use the capability of being virtuous, meaning someone needs to teach them those virtues (217, 1103a10). To be virtuous, it is not just the action that matters, but the reason behind the action too. Aristotle says that a person should be consciously acting virtuous because this would result in him living a happy life (221, 1105a30). This takes time and a person must constantly repeat these actions to achieve the end goal of being virtuous (221,
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.
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
...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.