The Good Life

-Aristotle-
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:
1. Explain the concept of good life as posited by Aristotle;
2. Define the good life in their own words; and
3. Examine shared concerns that make up the good life to come up with the
innovative and creative solutions to contemporary issues guided by ethical
standards.
Work includes natural philosophy to logic and political theory, and attempted to explain what good is.
 Nicomachean Ethics 2:2
All human activities aim at some good. Every art and
human inquiry, and similarly every action and
pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this
reason the good has been rightly declared as that
at which all things aim.
 Aim = good
Good life = happiness

….both the many and cultivated call it happiness,

and suppose that living well and doing well are
the same as being happy.

Nicomachean Ethics 1:4

Eudaimonia is an ancient Greek word of the
concept of living well and doing well

Eu means good
Daimon means spirit
 Happiness defines good life.
❑ not from sensate pleasures
❑ but comes from living a life of virtue, a life of excellence
It is the activities that express
virtue that control happiness,
and the contrary activities that
e.g. Eating healthy control its contrary.
food, Nicomachean Ethics 1:10
Taking care of the
environment

This requires discipline and practice.

 Virtue
o constant practice of good
o excellence of character
 Virtue comes about by choosing a mean
between vicious extremes according to the
right principle.

Intellectual virtues

Rational part
Contemplative part
(Intellectual)
Deals with eternal
truths of science and
mathematics.
Right reasoning
corresponds to truth.
Soul
Irrational part
Calculative part
(Moral)
Deals with the practical
matters of human life.
Right reasoning
corresponds to proper
deliberation that leads to
making the right choice.
Intellectual virtues = know what is just and admirable.
= learn through instruction.

Knowledge is useless without action.

Moral virtues = do just and admirable deeds.

= learn through habit and practice.
“ Aristotle is telling us that having one’s heart in the right
place is not good enough: being a good person requires a
kind of practical intelligence as well as a good
disposition.
”
Is it possible to master intellectual virtue without moral virtue?
Is it possible to master moral virtue without intellectual virtue?
Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral,
intellectual virtue in the main owes its birth and
growth to teaching (for which reason it requires
experience and time), while moral virtue comes
about as a result of habit.

Nicomachean Ethics 2:1

 Aristotle believes that all living things exist to fulfill some
telos, or purpose. This telos is determined primarily by what
makes that living thing distinctive.

Humans are distinctively rational animals, our telos must be

based in our rationality.
So what then is the connection of
science and technology to
good life and virtue?