What is the good? How do we know what the good is? How do we attain the good? What are the major obstacles in attaining the good? These questions have a great practical importance for individual as well as collective life. However, disagreements emerge when it comes to answering these questions. Throughout history, philosophers, theologians and other thinkers have tried to resolve these disagreements by providing their own and ‘new’ understanding of what is Good? In this essay, I will explain how Aristotle and Augustine have understood this ideal and how they have answered these questions. In the first two parts of the essay I will look into the conceptual framework of these two philosophers and try to explain how they have answered the above mentioned questions. In the last part, I will try to answer this question: which of the two philosophers I agree with and why?
We pursue different goals in our life i.e. wealth, knowledge, honor etc. All these goals could be called good, but in “raising this question—what is the good? —Aristotle is not looking for a list of items that are good.” His aim is to establish a standard for the good that could be called the highest good, in other words he is looking for the form of the good. In his first book in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes that the Good is something “for whose sake everything else is done.” This shows that he considers the good as the first principle for all our actions. He mentions, “happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of the action.” So he identifies happiness as the highest good to which all others goals are subordinated. “From this, we could identify three characteristics of the highest good: “it is desirable for itself, it is...
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... the person is a king or a peasant working in the fields. So for Augustine, the highest good could be attained by every human if he directs all his love to God. The possibility that every person has the potential to become fully human is one of the characteristics that distinguishes this framework from that of Aristotle.
Works Cited
Kraut, Richard, "Aristotle's Ethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition),EdwardN.Zalta(ed.),forthcomingURL.
Ross, David (1925). Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics: Translated with an Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283407-X.. Re-issued 1980, revised by J. L. Ackrill and J. O. Urmson.
Chadwick, Henry (2008). Saint Augustine: Confessions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-953782-8. (Translation into English)
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Translated by Terence Irwin. Second Edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 1999.
Aristotle develops his virtue ethics by first considering ends and goods. He claims that “every action and decision, seems to seek some good” (Shafer-Landau 2013, 615). Aristotle states that we pursue certain things because of the benefits it brings itself and other consequences it may bring. Aristotle suggests that this is the same for goodness. We must pursue what is good for good itself and for any other benefits it may bring. Furthermore, Aristotle suggests that through pursuing the good, we are able to determine the best way of life (Shafer-Landau 2013, 615).
I chose to write about Aristotle and his beliefs about how the virtuous human being needs friends from Book VIII from Nicomachean Ethics. In this essay I will talk about the three different kinds of friendship that (Utility, Pleasure, and Goodness) that Aristotle claims exist. I will also discuss later in my paper why Aristotle believes that Goodness is the best type of friendship over Utility or Pleasure. In addition to that I will also talk about the similarities and differences that these three friendships share between one another. And lastly I will argue why I personally agree with Aristotle and his feelings on how friendship and virtue go hand in hand and depend on each other.
Simply defined, happiness is the state of being happy. But, what exactly does it mean to “be happy?” Repeatedly, many philosophers and ideologists have proposed ideas about what happiness means and how one attains happiness. In this paper, I will argue that Aristotle’s conception of happiness is driven more in the eye of ethics than John Stuart Mill. First, looking at Mill’s unprincipled version of happiness, I will criticize the imperfections of his definition in relation to ethics. Next, I plan to identify Aristotle’s core values for happiness. According to Aristotle, happiness comes from virtue, whereas Mill believes happiness comes from pleasure and the absence of pain. Ethics are the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior which are driven by virtues - good traits of character. Thus, Aristotle focuses on three things, which I will outline in order to answer the question, “what does it mean to live a good life?” The first of which is the number one good in life is happiness. Secondly, there is a difference between moral virtues and intellectual virtues and lastly, leading a good life is a state of character. Personally and widely accepted, happiness is believed to be a true defining factor on leading a well intentioned, rational, and satisfactory life. However, it is important to note the ways in which one achieves their happiness, through the people and experiences to reach that state of being. In consequence, Aristotle’s focus on happiness presents a more arguable notion of “good character” and “rational.”
Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. David Ross, trans. J. L. Ackrill and J. O. Urmson, revisions. Oxford World’s Classics paperback, 1998.
Aristotle’s goal in, “The Nicomachean Ethics,” is to argue that there is such thing as a chief good
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).
Gakuran, Michael. "Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy | Gakuranman • Adventure First." Gakuranman Adventure First RSS. N.p., 21 May 2008. Web.
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.
Why does St. Augustine seek God? Through his Confessions we come to understand that he struggled a great deal with confusion about his faith, before finally and wholeheartedly accepting God into his life. But we never get a complete or explicit sense of what led Augustine to search for God in the first place. Did he feel a void in his life? Was he experiencing particular problems in other relationships that he thought a relationship with God would solve for him? Or perhaps he sought a sense of security from religion? A closer analysis of the text of St. Augustine’s Confessions will provide some insight into these fundamental questions.
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.
17, No. 3, p. 252-259. Urmson, J.O., (1988). Aristotle’s Ethics (Blackwell), ch.1. Wilkes, K.V., (1978). The Good Man and the Good for Man in Aristotle’s Ethics. Mind 87; repr.
Roth, John, et al. Ethics: Volume Two. California: Salem Press, Inc., 1994.Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, c. 350 B.C. Book VIII: Translated by W.D. Ross
Aristotle’s thoughts on ethics conclude that all humans must have a purpose in life in order to be happy. I believe that some of the basics of his ideas still hold true today. This essay points out some of those ideas.
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