Eudaimonia Problematic

The Eudaimonia Problematic:
Aristotle’s or Aristotelian?
Ray Ann Cagampang* & Maximo Gatela, O.P.
Human happiness or fulfillment has always been perplexing. Since

ancient times, the problem of human flourishing has bewildered peasants as
well as theorists, hoping to spell out the intricate components that underlie
such situations. Some have held that virtuous action is necessary and
sufficient for human fulfillment.1 Others have maintained that, important
though virtue is to man’s happiness, it is not all there is to it; external
conditions such as health, wealth and avoidance of disasters matter too. Still
others have thought that virtue is generally inimical to human happiness.2
*The author is Mentor in Philosophy at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of
Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines.
1
The sufficiency of virtue for happiness is asserted by Socrates and Plato in
Apology, Charmides and Crito, see Terence Irwin, Plato’s Ethics (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1995), 58-60. An ancient school of thought known as the Stoics held a simi-
lar point of view, however, they greatly vary in their application. The Cynic Antisthenes
(444-368 B.C.), for instance, insists that virtue alone yields happiness, but takes a narrow
practical view of virtue. The Cynics and Stoics go much further than any of the schools
of the West in reducing happiness to self-discipline and self-control, see V. J. McGill, The
Idea of Happiness (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1967), 51-54.
2
J.P. Griffin, “Happiness,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward
Craig, vol. 4 (London: Routledge, 1998), 227. This view of happiness is averred by the
Epicureans who repudiate military ambitions and the zest for honor and reputation, so
highly esteemed by the rest of the world; but they give all encouragement to desires for
gentle, amiable pleasures, see V. J. McGill, The Idea of Happiness, 227. The same view
is implied by the immoralist Thrasymachus who sought to discredit morality by arguing
that it prevents the achievement of happiness, see the Republic in The Collected Dialogues
of Plato: Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1989).
 PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009) pp. 505-544
506 RAY ANN CAGAMPANG & MAXIMO GATELA, O.P.
A traditional Hellenistic conception of happiness and the good

person finds the ideal life in a Homeric hero, displaying strength and
bravery in battle, leadership in political life and receiving honor3 as his
reward. The ancient Greeks call this life a eudaimōn life or eudaimonia.4
Although Homer’s5 ideals and those of the men he wrote for were, of course,
antiquated by the time of Plato and Aristotle, still the honorable life was
that which was to be envied – the most choice worthy. However, this life
is dangerous; success is precarious, liable to the sort of reversal of fortune
like those of Priam.6 Hence, the Greek moralists wanted to encourage
justice and concern for others as a virtue that is no less fine and admirable
than bravery and strength. This may require restraint on the single-minded
pursuit of success and honor as well as sacrifice for one’s own interest for
the sake of other people’s interest. To be just was to be highly desirable; to
be righteous was to be praiseworthy.7
Within this context, Aristotle discusses his treatise on eudaimonia.
He tackles the issue of human happiness in his discussion regarding the
final good of man that became a central concept in his ethical treatises.8
3
Honor (timê), as Homer conceives it, includes, primarily, other people’s good
opinion, and secondarily, the material and social honors that are both causes and effects of
this good opinion, see Terence Irwin, A History of Western Philosophy: Classical Thought
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 8.
4
Eudaimonia literally means “having a good guardian spirit,” see C.C.W. Taylor,
“Eudaimonia,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig, vol. 3 (London:
Routledge, 1998), 450.
5
Homer, the name traditionally assigned as the author of the Iliad and Odyssey,
the two major epics that have survived Greek antiquity. For further discussion on Homer
and his works, see “Homer,” Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2007, DVD (Redmond, WA:
Microsoft Corporation, 2006).
6
In Homer’s Iliad, Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War. As a young
man he fought with the Phrygians against the Amazons but by the time of the Trojan War,
he was too old to fight; anxiously watching his son, Hector, gruesomely slain by Achilles,
and the painful sight of the fall of Troy. Consequently, he was killed by Achilles’ son, Ne-
optolemus. See “Priam,” Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2007, DVD. In Book I of NE,
Aristotle made mention of Priam to exemplify the role of virtue and fortune in the happy
life, see Nicomachean Ethics, I, 10, 1101a6.
7
Terence Irwin, introduction to Nicomachean Ethics, (Indiana: Hackett Publish-
ing Company, Inc., 1985), xvii.
8
The ethical treatises of Aristotle include the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), the Mag-
na Moralia (MM) and the Eudemian Ethics (EE). This is a division classified by Sir David
Ross among the extant works of Aristotle; see Sir David Ross, Aristotle (London: Methuen
and Co., Ltd., 1923), 14-15. To facilitate the discussion, the above abbreviations will be
used in the succeeding notations.
PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

THE EUDAIMONIA PROBLEMATIC: ... 507
Like his predecessors, Aristotle examines the ordinary moral opinions of

his time; and the problems arising from these opinions influenced his view
of the important questions to be discussed. He was born in 384 B.C. at
Stagira in Macedonia but he spent most of his life as a student and teacher of
philosophy in Athens. For twenty years he was a member of Plato’s Academy
but later he founded his own philosophical school, the Lyceum, of which the
site’s colonnaded walk (peripatos) conferred on Aristotle and his group the
name “The Peripatetics.” During his lifetime, he published philosophical
dialogues, of which only fragments now survive. The “Aristotelian Corpus”
is probably derived from the lectures that he gave in the Lyceum and of
which contains contributions to many different disciplines including that
of ethics and the practical life. As one of the most important philosophers
of the ancient world, Aristotle was simply known as “The Philosopher” to
many generations of thinkers.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle begins his discussion of
eudaimonia by postulating that “all knowledge and choice aims at some
good,” and that political science9 aims at “what is the highest of all goods
achievable by action.”10 However, at the outset of his discussion in the
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is quick to warn his readers that ethics
cannot be an exact science. Whereas Plato pointed to a body of absolute and
certain knowledge about the good and the right, attainable at least by the
philosophers,11 Aristotle remarks that his discussion will be adequate “if it
has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of;” however, political
science and ethics, he says, “investigates actions and goods with regard to
which judgments vary and fluctuate so much.”12 We must be content then,
he said, to indicate the truth of such subjects roughly and in outline.13 He
then continues to purport that:
As far as its name goes, most people virtually agree [about what the
good is], since both the many and the cultivated call it happiness,
9
The supreme practical science – that to which all others are subordinate and
ministerial – is politics. Of this science ethics is but a part, and accordingly Aristotle never
speaks of ethics as a separate science, but only of the study of character or our discussions
of character. Aristotle’s ethics, no doubt, are social; and his politics are ethical. See Sir
David Ross, Aristotle, 187-188.
10
NE, I, 4, 1095a14-16.
11
See T. Irwin’s discussion of Plato’s Republic V-VII in Plato’s Ethics, 262-280.
12
NE, I, 3, 1094b15.
13
NE, I, 3, 1094b18-22.

and suppose that living well and doing well are the same as being
happy. But they disagree about what happiness is, and the many
do not give the same answer as the wise. For the many think it is
something obvious and evident, e.g. pleasure, wealth or honor…
and indeed the same person keeps changing his mind, since in
sickness he thinks it is health, in poverty wealth.… [Among the
wise,] however, some used to think that besides these many goods
there is some other good that is something in itself, and also causes
all these goods to be goods.14
Aristotle, thus, wants to answer the criticisms as well as to modify

the traditional virtues that make them irrelevant to a rational person’s
conception of human happiness or eudaimonia.15
“The word eudaimonia and the corresponding adjective eudaimōn
are derived from eu ‘good’, ‘well’ and daimon ‘spirit,’ giving the literal
sense ‘having a good guardian spirit,’ hence being blessed, having the life
of one who enjoys divine favor.”16 It is important to take into consideration
that Aristotle did not attach any religious meaning to it. “In Aristotle’s
usage it does not carry any such supernatural connotation, but it does
imply meeting an objective ethical standard.”17 “To possess eudaimonia is
to have a life which is objectively desirable and thereby to have achieved
the most worthwhile of conditions available to humans.”18 Although
generally translated as “happiness,” Aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia
overlaps substantially with the modern concept of happiness.19 In Book I
14
Aristotle, NE, trans. Terence Irwin, I, 4, 1095a16-27.
15
T. Irwin, introduction to NE, xvii.
16
C. C. W. Taylor, “Eudaimonia,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol.
3, 450.
17
Leslie Stevenson and David L. Haberman, “Aristotle: The Ideal of Human Ful-
fillment ,” in Ten Theories of Human Nature, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), 96.
18
C. C. W. Taylor, “Eudaimonia,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3,
450.
19
G.B. Kerferd, “Aristotle,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards,
vol. 1 (USA: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1967), 161. “Happiness” is a misleading ren-
dering of eudaimonia if we identify happiness with pleasure or with a state of mind, e.g. eu-
phoria. See T. Irwin, trans. NE, Glossary, 407. Kraut, however, defends the most common
translation (happiness), for the following reasons: it is not true, he maintains, that when
we, today, speak of happiness, we mean only a state of subjective and lasting contentment,
and it is not true either, he adds, that Aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia does not include also

of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle then briefly defines eudaimonia as the

“activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one
virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete,” and “in a complete
life.”20 Moreover, Aristotle also adds that the activity is accompanied by
pleasure and that there must be enough external goods and good fortune to
enable man to live out his life in some leisure and dignity.21 Hence, we could
infer that eudaimonia, for Aristotle, can aptly be translated as “living and
doing well,” or simply “human fulfillment” or “human flourishing” rather
than the misleading translation of “happiness.” “So to say that somebody
is eudaemon is the very same thing as to say that he is living a life worth
living.”22
However, Aristotle was not that clear in proposing what really is
the eudaimōn life or the fulfilled human life. Although Aristotle was clear
enough to delineate that eudaimonia is the highest or the final good for
which man seeks for its own sake and never for the sake of anything else,23
his discussion on the kind of life that man should lead to live happily is
ambiguous. He lists down three widely accepted lives that men usually
lead: the life devoted to pleasure, the life of the man of affairs; and the
life of study and contemplation.24 Nonetheless, in the first book of the
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle maintains that eudaimonia consists in a life
of activity in accordance with virtue or excellence,25 and if there are several
excellences, then in conformity with the best and most complete.26 But in
Book 10, he appears to divide this life in two: a life of contemplative activity
a subjective psychological state, in addition to an objective condition. See Richard Kraut,
“Two Conceptions of Happiness,” Social and Personal Ethics, ed. William H. Shaw, 3rd ed.
(USA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999), 225-231. In any case, it seems that Aris-
totle’s notion is rather close in meaning to what we would call today “human fulfillment”
or “self-fulfillment,” as in the expression “to find fulfillment,” which is accompanied also
by a sense of joy, but which is not the experience, for a limited period of time, of a sensa-
tion of intense contentment. Nonetheless, the terms “eudaimonia,” “human fulfillment,”
“self-fulfillment,” “human flourishing,” “self-actualization,” “self-realization,” and “hu-
man happiness” or “happiness” will be used interchangeably in this study.
20
NE, I, 7, 1098a17-18.
21
See Rhetoric, I, 5, 1360b14-18.
22
J.O. Urmson, Aristotle’s Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1988), 11.
23
See NE, I, 7, 1097b1-6.
24
See NE, 1, 5; EE, 1, 4.
25
Aristotle’s conception of virtue is wider than moral virtue. In some cases “excel-
lence” is the best rendering of aretē, see T. Irwin, trans. NE, Glossary, 431.
26
NE, I, 7, 1098a16-18.

that he calls perfect or final happiness, and a “secondary degree” happy

life of ethically virtuous activity in a political community.27 Furthermore,
a major part of the Nicomachean Ethics implies that good action is – or is
a major element in – man’s best life. It is only in Book 10, Chapters 7 and
8 that purely contemplative activity is said to be perfect eudaimonia; and
Aristotle does not tell us how to combine or relate these two ideas. The
Eudemian Ethics exhibits a similar indecision, although it is less elaborately
expressed. This is evident in the last part of the treatise where Aristotle
asserts that the choice or good that will most produce the contemplation
of god is best and the noblest standard. However, the foregoing discussion
stresses that nobility and goodness is perfect excellence.28
With this indecision and ambiguity with regard to Aristotle’s
discussion of eudaimonia, there have been two opposing views or conceptions
regarding the best life for man to lead – the eudaimōn life according to
Aristotle. In the compilation edited by Amelie Oksenberg Rorty entitled
Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, two conspicuous articles written by Thomas
Nagel and J.L. Ackrill both entitled “Aristotle on Eudaimonia” epitomize
these conceptions. The prior defends the intellectualist or dominant account29
while the latter deals on a comprehensive or inclusive account of happiness.
According to Thomas Nagel, “the Nicomachean Ethics exhibits indecision
between two accounts of eudaimonia – a comprehensive and an intellectualist
account.”30 The same line of thought is being endorsed by W. F. R. Hardie
in his article “The Final Good in Aristotle’s Ethics.” He claims that “the
confusion between an end which is final because it is inclusive and an end
which is final because it is supreme or dominant accounts for much that
critics have rightly found unsatisfactory in Aristotle’s account of the thought
which leads to practical decisions.”31 However, in the article “The Problem
of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics: The Human Good and the Best Life
27
NE, X, 7-8, 1177a12-1178a22.
28
See EE, VII, 15.
29
Some commentators would classify this view as “exclusivist,” see Lawrence
Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics: The Human Good and the
Best Life for a Man,” International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 21 (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1981), 278.
30
Thomas Nagel, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed.
Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 7.
31
W. F. R. Hardie, “The Final Good in Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Aristotle: A Collec-
tion of Critical Essays, ed. J. M. E. Moravcsik (London: University of Notre Dame Press,
1967), 302.

for Man,” Lawrence Nannery fairly concludes that though the inclusivist
views express some of the spirit of Aristotle, neither the exclusivist’s nor the
inclusivist’s conception takes into account Aristotle’s ideals of a happy life.32
Hence, with these two contending accounts of happiness, an ambivalent
tension has been created with regard to the interpretation of Aristotle’s
concept of eudaimonia. Since theoria or contemplation and virtuous ethical
action are both valuable forms of activity for Aristotle, the difficulty with
regard to the best possible combination of the faculties of man still remains
unresolved that the answer to the best possible recipe of human happiness
still remains elusive.
Taking into consideration the unresolved problem regarding
Aristotle’s account of the happy life in the Nicomachean Ethics as well as
in his two other ethical treatises, this study, therefore, is an exposition of
Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, aptly translated as human fulfillment or
human flourishing. By indicating the main elements of Aristotle’s profound
consistency on the subject of human happiness found in his ethical treatises,
this paper aims to provide a contribution to the debate with regard the
interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia – that is, with regard to
the best life for man to lead. It wishes to elaborate further the understanding
of the concept by taking into consideration the dynamic and integral aspect
of human living as suggested by Aristotle in his ethical treatises.
The Eudaimonia Problematic

At the beginning of chapter 4 of Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics,
Aristotle resumes the treatment of the final good from the point reached at
the end of Chapter 2. After considering that all knowledge and choice aims
at some good, he purports that men generally agree that the final and themost
desirable end is eudaimonia; but with regard to what eudaimonia is, the
general run of men and people of superior refinement virtually disagree.33
Thus, to say that the supremely desirable end is eudaimonia does
not settle what it is that is supremely desirable. Moreover, the solutions
32
See Lawrence Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics:
The Human Good and the Best Life for Man,” International Philosophical Quarterly, vol.
21, 278-282.
33
NE, I, 4, 1095a15ff.

proposed by the different contending views regarding Aristotle’s concept of

eudaimonia have not satisfactorily resolved the issue. Hence, the principal
question is thus stated: What could be a resolution with regard to the
interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia?
To further elucidate, we will examine the contending views regarding
the interpretation of Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia, the formal conditions
postulated and their implications, and the thought elements suggested by
him as expressed in his ethical premises.
There have been various contending propositions regarding
Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia. Some would argue that eudaimonia is
realized in the activity of the most divine part of man; while others would
claim that it essentially involves not just theoretical contemplation but
includes all the activities of human life done in excellence and virtue.
However, the debate remains unresolved.
To offer a contribution on the debate regarding Aristotle’s conception
of the eudaimon life, the present study proposes the following statement: A
dynamic and integral understanding of Aristotle’s account of a eudaimōn
life could be a resolution to the problem on the interpretation of Aristotle’s
concept of eudaimonia. This is the main issue this paper wishes to expound.
And to substantiate this claim, we will pursue the matter according to the
sub-problems we have enumerated above.
Exploring the Texts

We will involve ourselves with the interpretation of Aristotle’s
concept of eudaimonia based on his ethical treatises. This does not however
mean that we will compare Aristotle’s understanding of eudaimonia from
one treatise to another, as for instance, that of the Nicomachean Ethics from
the Eudemian Ethics; the treatises are taken as a whole comprehensive
account of Aristotle’s eudaimonia. Hence, the problem on the authorship of
the said treatises is not within the scope of this study. Moreover, we do not
endeavor to give a full account of the relationship between the Philosopher’s
account of human happiness with his Hellenistic predecessors as well as
subsequent philosophers; nor do we pretend to resolve the contending views

on Aristotle’s eudaimonia. Also, the arguments with regard to action and

virtue, akrasia (incontinence) and pleasure as well as friendship and theoria
(contemplation) which are key themes in Aristotle’s ethics are within the
range of our scope; however, they will not to be treated individually but
only in relation to the discussion on eudaimonia.
Furthermore, this paper primarily covers Aristotle’s textual data
on ethics, namely, the Nicomachean Ethics, the Magna Moralia and
the Eudemian Ethics. Although some topics in the Politics, Rhetoric,
Metaphysics and On the Soul are of significant value to his concept of
eudaimonia and are sometimes quoted or cited in this paper, the present
study will not engage these treatises beyond our objectives. On the other
hand, secondary sources such as commentaries and explanatory notes
from authoritative Aristotelian commentators and authors, including that
of St. Thomas’ Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics are reviewed and
analyzed to form the background of the study as well as to provide critical
support to issues that will be expounded and defended from the analysis of
the primary sources.
Since this writer has inadequate knowledge of Greek language, the
present study is limited to a reliance on the English translations of Aristotle’s
ethical treatises – the Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics and the
Magna Moralia – on which his treatment of the concept of eudaimonia
are primarily concentrated. Nonetheless, the English translations that
are being used in this paper are authoritative translations of eminent
Aristotelian translators and scholars, such for instance: W. D. Ross, St. G.
Stock, J. Solomon, B. Jowett and Terence Irwin. Some translations contain
extended and critical notes regarding the original texts; other translations
have divided Aristotle’s longer and more complex sentences, and makes
explicit the points that he conveyed by hints and allusions. Furthermore,
these translations are cross-referred and supplemented by vital secondary
sources on the topic.

Aristotle’s Outline In The Ethics34 And

The Two Accounts Of Eudaimonia
Time and again Aristotle’s inquiry starts with a review of what
his predecessors had to say on the subject to be discussed. Thus, before
presenting Aristotle’s outline discussion of eudaimonia in his ethical
treatises, primarily, in the Nicomachean Ethics, and before considering the
major contending views held by modern Aristotelian scholars with regard
to the nature of eudaimonia in his Ethics, it is but noteworthy to take into
consideration the conventional Greek beliefs of eudaimonia as well as
those held by ancient Greek thinkers who both had influenced Aristotle’s
conception of human happiness. Hence, this chapter will briefly discuss
at the outset the traditional Greek conceptions of eudaimonia as well as
the pre-Aristotelian development of its meaning brought about by the
moral theories of Greek philosophers, before presenting Aristotle’s outline
discussion. These two sections aim to provide the necessary information
and premises that would serve as a vital background in understanding the
present inquiry. Nonetheless, the arguments posited will be exposed by the
respective accounts as well as the limitation and objections posed to these
accounts. This discussion will clarify and illustrate further the unresolved
tension between these two conceptions of Aristotle’s eudaimonia; thus,
vindicating the present problem.
34
The Aristotelian Ethics would specifically include the two ethical treatises of
Aristotle: the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics; the Magna Moralia is simply
a collection of excerpts from the two other works. For further discussion on the relationship
between the two Ethics, see Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His
Development, 229-258. The oldest catalogue of Aristotle’s works (that of Diogenes Laer-
tius) refers only to one Ethics, to which assigns five books; this can only be the Eudemian
Ethics without the doubtful books. The next oldest catalogue contains only one Ethics, to
which it assigns ten books; this can only be the Nicomachean Ethics or Ta Ethika with the
doubtful books. See D. Ross, Aristotle, 15, 187-234; see also Anthony Kenny, The Aristo-
telian Ethics: A Study of the Relationship between the Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics
of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), chapters 8-9. The Nicomachean Ethics is also
often called “Aristotle’s Ethics,” (see T. Irwin, introduction to NE, xxi); however, in this
present work, the researcher will include, to some extent, the Magna Moralia among the
Ethics, though special reference are given primarily to NE and secondarily to EE.

The Term
The etymological background of the term ευδαιμονία (eudaimonia),
one of a constellation of closely related terms that includes eutychia
(lucky), olbios (favored), and makarios35 (blessed; happy; blissful). The
word ευδαιμονία (eudaimonia) and the corresponding adjective ευδαιμον
(eudaimon) are derived from the prefix εύ (eu) “good, well” and the noun
δαίμον (daimōn) “spirit, minor deity,” giving the literal sense “having a
good guardian spirit,” hence being blessed, having the life of one who
enjoys divine favor.36 It is basically the possession of a good daimōn, a good
guardian spirit, which is used by extension to mean one’s lot or fortune. In
colloquial terms, to be eudaimon was to be lucky, for in a world fraught
with constant upheaval, uncertainty and privation, to have a good spirit
working on one’s behalf was the ultimate mark of good fortune. “Even more
it was a mark of divine favor, for the gods, it was believed, worked through
the daimones, emissaries and conductors of their will…To fall from divine
favor – or to fall under the influence of an evil spirit – was to be dysdaimon
or kakodaimon – ‘unhappy’ (dys/kako=bad).”37 In the pre-Socratic world,
this was the key to happiness. Hence, in practice, ευδαιμον (eudaimon) was
the equivalent of ‘lucky;’ and even if some power were thought responsible
for the luck, whether Tuchē38 or the gods, it was too capricious to serve the
purposes of a moral philosopher, or anyone seeking what goods were in
his power: luck, as such, is not obtainable by any effort of man.39 The term
eudaimonia and its corresponding adjective, therefore, originally meant
“watched over by a good genius,” but in ordinary Greek usage the word
means just good fortune, often with special reference to external prosperity.
35
Makarios is especially closely associated with the life of the gods (see EE,
1215 10; NE, 1178b9), in which happiness is entirely stable and immune to the limitations
a
of the human condition. For further explanation, see also T. Irwin, trans. NE, Glossary, 388.
36
Taylor, “Eudaimonia,” Routledge, 450.
37
Darrin M. McMahon, “From the Happiness of Virtue to the Virtue of Happi-
ness: 400 B.C.-A.D. 1780,” Daedalus, ed. Steven Marcus, vol. 133, no. 2 (USA: American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2004), 7.
38
Tuchē is generally translated as “fortune” or “fate.” In the NE, tuchē is used
more broadly as a matter of fortune that benefits a subject outside his control. However, it is
not only involved in events entirely uncontrolled by a subject but also in processes initiated
by the subject in which something outside his control is needed for success. For further
discussion, see T. Irwin, trans. NE, Glossary, 402.
39
Stephen R. L. Clark, Aristotle’s Man, 146.

The Evolution of Meaning till Plato

The Greek culture was a culture of excellence, in the sense that young
men were widely encouraged to compete with one another in many areas
of life, including, of course, athletic, intellectual and aesthetic activity.40
Furthermore, it is also a fundamental principle in ancient Greek ethics,
shared by nearly all parties, that what people want most of all is to live
well, to lead a happy life. This goes by the name eudaimonia. No wonder,
eudaimonia is often identified with “living well” and “faring well.”41
A traditional conception of eudaimonia and the good person finds
the ideal life in a Homeric hero,42 displaying strength and bravery in battle,
leadership in political life and receiving honor as his reward. He is a ruler and
is wealthy, beautiful, excellent at fighting, excellent at counsel, excellent in
leadership, brave, strong, generous to friends and harsh to enemies, reverent
to the gods, aware of his worth and of his position in society, and anxious to
maintain and improve it. In popular usage the term has strong connotation
of material prosperity, regarded as one of the signal marks of divine favor.
However, this kind of life is dangerous; success is uncertain, liable to the
sort of reversal of fortune. Furthermore, the rapid change in Greek society
in the Archaic and Classical periods called for new conceptions of the ideal
man and the ideal human life.43 At the same time Greek moralists want
to encourage justice and concern for others as a virtue that is no less fine
and admirable than bravery and strength.44 This may require restraint on
the single-minded pursuit of success and honor, and sacrifice of one’s own
40
Roger Crisp, “Aristotle: Ethics and Politics,” Routledge History of Philosophy:
From Aristotle to Augustine, ed. David Furley, vol. 2 (London: Routledge Taylor and Fran-
cis Group, 1999), 110.
41
See NE, I, 4, 1095a19; MM, I, 3, 1184b7-9; EE, II, 1, 1219b1-5.
42
The Homeric moral outlook of the ideal life is most easily understood from its
conception of the ideal person as characterized by the heroes of a past age, like for instance
Achilles and Odysseus. The most admired Homeric man with the highest virtues displays
a certain narrow range of excellences suitable for an aristocrat and a warrior, see T. Irwin,
A History of Western Philosophy: Classical Thought, 6-19.
43
Richard D. McKirahan, Jr., Philosophy Before Socrates (Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), 358. The period from 750 to 480 B.C. traditionally is
called the Archaic Age because it was considered archaic or old-fashioned, in comparison
with the Classical Period (480-323 B.C.). See Thomas R. Martin, “Ancient Greece,” Mi-
crosoft Encarta 2007.
44
T. Irwin, introduction to NE, xvii

interests for the sake of other’s interests. When appeals to divine rewards
and punishments seemed unconvincing, moralists looked for some reason
to persuade someone concerned with his own happiness to be just and
virtuous.45 Greek moral philosophers, then, were concerned to map the
relations of eudaimonia and virtue.
Among these thinkers46 who tackled the relationship between
happiness and virtue is Pythagoras.47 Pythagoras taught the immortality and
transmigration of the soul and recommended a way of life in which through
ascetic practices, dietary rules and ethical conduct, the soul is purified and
is brought into harmony with the surrounding universe.48 “The practice
of silence, the influence of music and the study of mathematics were all
looked on as valuable aids in tending the soul.”49 Furthermore, Pythagorean
philosophers, drawing on musical theories that may go back to Pythagoras,
expressed the harmony of the universe in terms of numerical relations
which became for them the ultimate principle of all proportion and order
in the universe. Even ethical principles were assigned to definite numbers.
Thus Aristotle comments, “Pythagoras first attempted to speak about virtue,
but not successfully; for by reducing the virtues to numbers he submitted
the virtues to a treatment which was not proper to them. For justice is not a
square number.”50
45
Ibid.
46
The succeeding pre-Aristotelian schools of thought that will be discussed in this
paper are those of Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato. These schools are explicitly discussed
by Aristotle in the opening chapter of the Magna Moralia; see MM, I, 1.
47
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570-497 B.C) was an early Greek sage and religious
innovator. He developed one of the earliest moral philosophies from the Greek mystery
religion Orphism. Believing that the intellectual nature is superior to the sensual nature
and that the best life is one devoted to mental discipline, he founded a semireligious order
with rules emphasizing simplicity in speech, dress, and food. For a general discussion on
Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, see Hermann S. Schibli, “Pythagoras,” Routledge Ency-
clopedia of Philosophy, vol. 7, 855-860. See also “Ethics,” Microsoft Encarta 2007.
48
H. S. Schibli, “Pythagoras,” 855.
49
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy: Greece and Rome, vol. 1,
bk. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 31.
50
MM, I, 1, 1182a11-14.

After him came Socrates,51 who spoke better and further about the
subject. Socrates claims that if we want to live well and happily, as he
52
assumed we all want to do more than we want anything else, we must place
the highest priority on the care of our souls. That means we must above all
want to acquire the virtues, since they perfect our souls and enable them to
direct our lives for the better. If only we could know what each virtue is,
we could then make an effort to obtain them.53 This has the implication, as
radical then as now, that the person who performs a vicious action does so
out of ignorance. He believed that all vice is the result of ignorance, and that
no person is willingly bad; correspondingly, virtue is knowledge and those
who know the right will act rightly. Thus, for Socrates, knowledge, virtue and
eudaimonia were very closely related, and, indeed, were put dramatically
into practice. Given the chance to escape the death penalty imposed upon
him by the city of Athens, he chose to remain, believing virtue to be the
most precious possession a man can have.54 However, although his position
with regard to the ideal human life was tenable, even he was not successful.
For he used to make the virtues sciences, and this is impossible. For
the sciences all involve reason and reason is to be found in the intellectual
part of the soul. So that all the virtues, according to him, are to be found in
the rational part of the soul. The result is that in making the virtues sciences
he is doing away with the irrational part of the soul and is thereby doing
away also both with passion and moral character; so that he has not been
successful in this respect in his treatment of the virtues.55
51
Socrates (469-399 BC) is an Athenian Greek of the second half of the fifth cen-
tury B.C. who wrote no philosophical works but was uniquely influential in the later history
of philosophy. Most of what we know of Socrates is through the depiction of him in Plato’s
dialogues. His philosophical interests were restricted to ethics and the conduct of life, top-
ics which thereafter became central to philosophy. Most later Greek schools of moral phi-
losophy were derived from the teachings of Socrates. Four such schools originated among
his immediate disciples: the Cynics, the Cyrenaics, the Megarians, and the Platonists. For
a general discussion on Socrates, see John M. Cooper, “Socrates,” Routledge Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, vol. 7, 8-25. A detailed discussion on the relation of virtue and happiness
can be perused in Terence Irwin, Plato’s Ethics, 52-63; see also Gregory Vlastos, Socrates:
Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 200-232.
52
MM, I, 1, 1182a15.
53
J. M. Cooper, “Socrates,” 8.
54
See Plato, Crito in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, 27-39.
55
MM, I, 1, 1182a16-23.

Plato56 continued the Socratic tradition, identifying dikaiosune

(usually translated as “justice,” though the term covers morality more
broadly) with an ordering of the parts of the soul in which reason governs
desire and the emotions.57 According to Plato, good is an essential element
of reality. In his Dialogues, he maintains that human virtue lies in the fitness
of a person to perform that person’s proper function in the world. The
human soul has three elements — intellect, will, and emotion — each of
which possesses a specific virtue in the good person and performs a specific
role. The virtue of intellect is wisdom, or knowledge of the ends of life;
that of the will is courage, the capacity to act; and that of the emotions is
temperance, or self-control. The ultimate virtue, justice, is the harmonious
relation of all the others, each part of the soul doing its appropriate task
and keeping its proper place.58 Plato maintains that the intellect should be
sovereign, the will second, and the emotions subject to intellect and will.
Hence, the just person, whose life is ordered in this way, is therefore the
good and eudaimon person. For both Socrates and Plato, then, virtue was
an extremely necessary component in human happiness. However, for
Plato, eudaimonia, is not simply acquired through knowledge, it requires
the proper ordering of the soul: the rational part must govern the irrational
part, thereby correctly leading all desires and actions to eudaimonia and the
principal constituent of eudaimonia, virtue. “But after this he went astray.
For he mixed up virtue with the treatment of the good, which cannot be
right, not being appropriate. For in speaking about the truth of things he
ought not to have discoursed upon virtue; for there is nothing common to
the two.”59
56
Plato (427-347 B.C.) was an Athenian Greek of aristocratic family, active as a
philosopher in the first of the fourth century B.C. He was a devoted follower of Socrates,
as his writings make abundantly plain. Nearly all are philosophical dialogues – often works
of dazzling literary sophistication – in which Socrates takes center stage. For a general
introduction to Plato, see Malcolm Schofield, “Plato,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philoso-
phy, vol. 6, 399ff. A thorough discussion on Plato’s concept of virtue and happiness can be
examined in T. Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory; see also, T. Irwin, Plato’s Ethics.
57
Gilbert Ryle, “Plato,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 5 & 6, 329-331.
58
Ibid., 330.
59
MM, I, 1, 1182a25-29. Aristotle was alluding Plato’s concept of the Universal
Idea of Good.

Aristotle60 is most plausibly seen as working within the same

tradition, asking the same sorts of questions and employing the same sorts
of concepts, though his account is of course informed by the philosophical
apparatus he developed in other areas of his own thought. He wants to
answer the criticism of the traditional virtues that makes them irrelevant
to a person’s conception of happiness. He does not retain the traditional
views unmodified; but bravery, restraint of appetites, concern for honor and
other-regarding aims are all defended as parts of eudaimonia.61 Having thus
considered the popular opinions as well as those of the cultivated person,
Aristotle proceeds to give an account of his own idea of eudaimonia.
Happiness as the Highest Good and End of Human Life

Aristotle introduces his own theory with a teleological62 view on
the good. He says that every pursuit, art, science, action or choice aims
at some good.63 Thus, the good is an end – “that at which all things aim.”
But there is a difference in the ends aimed at: in some cases, the end is an
activity; in other cases, the end is some product beyond the activity. In cases
where the end lies beyond the activity, the product is naturally better than
the activity.64
Now, all other goods are desired for the sake of something else.
Even honor, pleasure, reason, and every virtue, Aristotle says, are chosen
60
Aristotle (384-322) of Stagira is one of the two most important philosophers of
the ancient world. He was not an Athenian, but he spent most of his life as a student and
teacher of philosophy in Athens. For twenty years he was a member of Plato’s Academy;
later he set up his own philosophical school, the Lyceum. During his lifetime he published
philosophical dialogues, of which only fragments now survive. The “Aristotelian corpus”
is probably derived from the lectures that he gave in the Lyceum. For a general overview
on Aristotle and his philosophy, see T. H. Irwin, “Aristotle,” Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, vol. 1, 414-432.
61
T. Irwin, introduction to NE, xvii.
62
Teleology (Greek telos, “end”; logos, “discourse”), in philosophy, is the sci-
ence or doctrine that attempts to explain the universe in terms of ends or final causes. In
Aristotelian philosophy, the explanation of, or justification for, a phenomenon or process is
to be found not only in the immediate purpose or cause, but also in the “final cause” – the
reason for which the phenomenon exists or was created. For a general discussion on teleol-
ogy, see “Teleology,” Microsoft Encarta 2007.
63
NE, I, 1, 1094a1-2; I, 4, 1095a13.
64
NE, I, 1, 1094a5.

for the sake of something else for though we would choose them for their
own sake, even if they did not serve any other end, yet “we choose them also
for the sake of happiness, judging that through them we shall be happy.”65
Aristotle here parts way with Plato and the Stoics, who say that virtue is the
highest good; and also parts way with the hedonists who say that pleasure
is the highest good.66 Virtue and pleasure are both good in themselves. They
lack however, the further qualification – that of not being chosen for the
sake of anything else. There is a good higher than virtue and higher than
pleasure, because these are chosen for it, while it is never chosen for them.
Men agree, Aristotle says, that this highest good is eudaimonia, happiness.
“Every individual man and all men in common aim at certain end which
determines what they choose and what they avoid. This end, to sum it up
briefly, is happiness and its constituents.”67 Thus every man and group of
men wants to be happy, seeks happiness continuously, and believes they
ought to.
Aristotle does not, of course, claim that such an argument would
prove that there is only one superlative good. Maybe there are several goods
that are desired for themselves but not for the sake of anything else. Aristotle
is cautious in approaching this question. He states that “if there is more than
one, the most final will be the one we are seeking.”68 He obviously believes
that there is only one final end, and he does give a reason for holding this
view, namely: all the candidates for the status of highest good (honor,
pleasure, reason and virtues) except happiness is not chosen, even in part,
as something instrumental to another end.69
The Definition of Happiness

We have seen that the highest or final good must be “desired for its
own sake, and never for the sake of anything else.” Aristotle asserts that
65
NE, I, 7, 1097b1-6.
66
V. J. McGill, The Idea of Happiness, 13.
67
Rhetoric, I, 5, 1360b4-5.
68
NE, I, 7, 1097a28-30.
69
Whether the existence of a single highest good can be proven or not, it has usu-
ally been asserted or taken for granted in the history of Western philosophy; and however
differently this highest good may be described, it is almost always called “happiness,”
or the near equivalent in other languages, though sometimes “welfare,” “well-being,” or
“felicity,” or their equivalents, are preferred. See V. J. McGill, The Idea of Happiness, 14.

it is happiness, and happiness alone, that meets this requirement. Honor,

pleasure and reason are desired for their own sake, but they are also desired
for the sake of other things; whereas we desire happiness for its own sake
only. Now he further clarifies his account of eudaimonia as the chief good
by considering the function of man. To Aristotle’s mind, all things have
specific functions or activities, and the “good” and the “well” reside in the
performance of these specific functions or activities. The flute player, for
instance, has a function different from that of the sculptor, or any expert for
that matter. Man, too, has a function. Just as the eye, hand, foot and every
other member of the body have functions, man also has a function apart
from all these; it is a function peculiar to man as man. To determine what
this function is, we need to know the nature and powers of the soul.70
Aristotle thinks that the soul is characterized by certain powers that
enable it to perform certain activities;71 and that it is composed of two parts
– rational and irrational. He then now asks which of the functions of the soul
is most peculiar to man. This function cannot be the life of nutrition and
growth which he also shares with the plants, nor is it the life of perception
which man shares with other animals. “There remains, then, an active
life of the element that has a rational principle; …and as this too can be
taken in two ways, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what
we mean; for this seems to be the more proper sense of the term.”72 The
function peculiar to man, therefore, for Aristotle, is “an activity of the soul
in accordance with, or not without, rational principle,”73 i.e., an activity
regulated by reason. The function, then, of the good man is the good, noble
and excellent performance of the activities regulated by reason.
70
For our purpose in this paper, we need only to point out some essential facts
concerning man’s soul. The two broad divisions in the human soul are the irrational and
the rational; the former includes the vegetative, over which reason has no direct control,
and the appetitive, partially amenable to rational guidance. The rational part includes the
calculative and scientific functions. Corresponding to each of these are various kinds of
excellence ranged under the two main types, moral and intellectual virtues. See Aristotle,
On the Soul, II, 1, 412a1ff; see also NE, I, 13, 1102a15ff. For a concise explanation on this
matter, see Masterpieces of World Philosophy: In Summary Form, ed. Frank N. Magill
(New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1961), 147-152; 157-162.
71
On the Soul, II, 2, 413b11.
72
NE, I, 7, 1098a1ff.
73
NE, I, 7, 1098a8

Thus for Aristotle, eudaimonia, briefly defined, is “activity of the

soul in accordance with excellence [virtue], and if there are more than one
excellence [virtue], in accordance with the best and most complete” and “in
a complete life. Neither one swallow make a summer, nor does one day; and
so too, one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.”74
Aristotle also adds that the activity is accompanied by pleasure, and that
there must be enough external goods and good fortune to enable a man to
live out his life in some leisure and dignity.75 A man is happy, then, if he
continues to function well in terms of natural teleology up to the end of his
life, provided he is furnished with sufficient external goods and does not
suffer great misfortunes.
This definition of happiness as “activity of the soul in accordance
with virtue” is repeated several times in Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics,
and occurs also in Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics.76 However, in
Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, the formula undergoes a change:
If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable
that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will
be that of the best thing in us. Whether it be reason or something
else that is this element which is thought to be our natural ruler and
guide and to take thought of it things noble and divine, whether
it be itself also divine or only the most divine element in us, the
activity of this in accordance with its proper virtue will be perfect
happiness. That this activity is contemplative we have already
said.77
In Book X, Aristotle might seem to be saying that it is contemplation

alone that yields eudaimonia; this is how he is often interpreted. We find
him arguing that, since theoretic reason is the most distinctive part of the
human soul, it is also the highest and best, and its proper virtue will be the
crown of human life. Moreover, “we think happiness has pleasure mingled
with it, but the activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest
74
NE, I, 7, 1098a17-19; see MM, I, 4, 1184b22-1185a1ff; EE, II, 1, 1219a28-39.
The bracketed word “virtue” and the bold emphasis on the definition is by the researcher.
75
NE, I, 8, 1099a31ff.
76
See MM, I, 4, 1184b35ff; EE, II, 1, 1219a28-39.
77
Aristotle, NE, in The Works of Aristotle, trans. W. D. Ross, X, 7, 1177a11-17.

of virtuous activities.”78 Philosophic activity, or contemplation, is also

more self-sufficient than the exercise of the moral virtues. It is true that the
philosopher, like other men, must have food, shelter, and the like, but once
these requirements are assured, he is independent of other men.
Happiness and Virtue

Since happiness is activity of the soul expressing complete virtue,
Aristotle examines virtue for he supposes that it may help the study of
happiness better.79 Aristotle recognizes two different kinds of virtues – the
intellectual and moral virtues. The former owes its origin and development
to teaching. For this reason, they acquire experience and time. The moral
virtues, on their part, are not innate in us; there are no special excellences
endowed at birth, but although moral virtues are not implanted in us by
nature, they are not opposed to nature; for we are equipped with the ability
to acquire and receive them. This capability is brought to perfection and
fulfillment by habit, i.e., by repeatedly doing something well. We become
just by doing just acts, temperate by exercising self-control, and courageous
by performing acts of courage.80 Thus, for Aristotle, moral virtues come as a
result of habit, i.e., by repeatedly acting well; in the same manner, vices are
acquired by repeatedly acting badly.
Furthermore, Aristotle contends that virtue or excellence gives
perfection to the thing itself of which it is the excellence and causes the
thing to perform its function well.81 For example, the excellence of the eye
makes both the eye and its function good. Likewise, the virtue of a man
will be the state of character which makes him good and enables him to
do his work well. More specifically, Aristotle says that virtue lies in the
mean. He purports that “in anything that is continuous and divisible, it is
possible to take more, less or equal amount and that, either in terms of the
thing itself or relatively to us.”82 Here, “equal” is the intermediate between
excess and defect. By the intermediate of the thing itself is meant that
78
Ibid., X, 7, 1177a24-25.
79
NE, I, 13, 1102a5ff. For Aristotle’s other discussion of virtue, see MM, 1185b13-
1204 18; EE, 1220a13-1234b13.
a
80
NE, II, 1, 1103a19ff.
81
NE, II, 6, 1106a16-20.
82
NE, II, 6, 1106a26-28.

which is equidistant from each of the extremes; this is the “absolute mean”
which is the same for all. However, the “mean for us” cannot be determined
in this way. The mean is relative to a man’s nature, position, wealth and
circumstances – that which is superfluous and deficient. A naturally timid
man and a naturally rash one should both aim at the mean of courage, but
need not reach the same point of excellence; one man’s virtue, since it must
be within his power, cannot and need not be the same as another’s.83
To Aristotle, then, virtue or excellence is a state of character
concerned with choice, lying in the mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this
being determined by a rational principle and by that principle by which
the man of practical wisdom would determine it. It is 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 excellence both finds and
chooses that which is intermediate. Hence, as far as its substance and the
account stating its essence are concerned, it is a mean; but as far as the best
and the good are concerned, it is an extremity.84
It is important to bear in mind that, for Aristotle, “where there are
things to be done the end is not to survey and recognize the various things,
but rather to do them; with regard to excellence, then, it is not enough to
know, but we must try to have and use it, or try any other way there may be
of becoming good.”85 We are not inquiring in order to know what excellence
or virtue is, but in order to become excellent and virtuous.
Happiness and Pleasure86

Aristotle disavows both the ideas of those who held that no pleasure
is good either in itself or coincidentally, that some pleasures are good but
most are bad and that even if all pleasures were good, pleasure could not
83
NE, II, 6, 1106a30-1106b35.
84
NE, II, 6, 1107a1-6.
85
NE, X, 9, 1179b1-4.
86
Aristotle discusses pleasure in two separate parts in the Nicomachean Ethics
(Book 7, Chapters 11-14 and Book 10, Chapters 1-5), but both are integrated here for clar-
ity sake.

be the supreme good.87 The main interest here lies in Aristotle’s discussion
of the relation between pleasure and eudaimonia. According to Aristotle,
pleasure (which includes intellectual pleasure) is not simply caused by lack
of pain or relief from pain. In fact, the use of pleasure solely as an antidote
to pain can lead to addiction and a worthless personality. Rather, pleasure
is a good. “The fact that all, both beasts and human being, pursue pleasure
is some sign of its being in some way the best good.”88 Moreover, pleasure
is an unimpeded activity. This is why all think the happy life is pleasant
and weaves pleasure into happiness, quite reasonably, since no activity is
complete if it is impeded and happiness is something complete.89 Pleasure
is certainly inseparable from eudaimonia or happiness. It is like satisfaction,
as a positive effect which reinforces an activity. It is a kind of glow which
completes and perfects an activity whenever it represents the unimpeded
and best use of our faculties. So intimate is the bond between pleasure and
the optimum use of our faculties that men, in desiring life and its activities,
must also desire the pleasure that completes them: “For they seem to be
bound up together and not to admit of separation, since without activity,
pleasure does not arise and every activity is completed by the attendant
pleasure.”90
While some pleasures lead to happiness, others do not. There are
good and bad forms of pleasure depending on the sort of activity they are
associated with. Since activities differ in degrees of decency and badness,
and some are choice worthy, some to be avoided, the same is true of pleasure;
for each activity has its own pleasure. Hence the pleasure proper to an
excellent activity is decent and the one proper to a base activity is vicious;
for, similarly, appetites for fine things are praiseworthy and appetites for
shameful things are blameworthy.91 Moreover, each kind of animal seems to
have its own proper pleasure, just as it has its own proper function; for the
proper pleasure will be the one that corresponds to its activity.
87
NE, VII, 11, 1152b8-11. For Aristotle’s other discussion of pleasure, see MM,
II, 7, 1204 19-1206a35.
a
88
NE, VII, 13, 1153b25-26.
89
NE, VII, 13, 1153b10-16.
90
NE, X, 4, 1175a20.
91
NE, X, 5, 1175b25.

Hence the pleasures that complete the activities of the complete and
blessedly happy man, whether he has one activity or more than one, will
be called the human pleasures to the fullest extent. The other pleasures will
be human in secondary and even more remote ways corresponding to the
character of the activities.92
The Place of Fortune and Worldly Goods

Solon’s93 saying that a man cannot be called happy until he is dead
cannot be true, Aristotle says, because happiness is an activity. Yet there is
some truth in it, for how could we say that a man had a happy life if after his
death his children are destroyed or disgraced? Aristotle’s answer could be
put as follows:
Now if we must see the end and only then can call a man
happy, not as being happy but as having been so before,
surely this is a paradox, that when he is happy the attribute
that belongs to him is not to be truly predicated of him
because we do not wish to call living men happy, on the
account of the changes that may befall them, and because
we have assumed happiness to be something permanent and
by no means easily changed, while a single man may suffer
many turns of fortune’s wheel…[But] success or failure in
life does not depend on these, but human life, as we said,
needs these as mere additions, while excellent activities or
their opposites are what determine happiness or the reverse.94
Reversals of fortune within a man’s lifetime, however, can crush
his happiness if they are great enough, “for they both bring pain with them
and hinder many activities. Yet even in these nobility shines through,
when a man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through
92
Aristotle, NE, trans. T. Irwin, X, 5, 1176a26-29.
93
Solon (638-559 B.C.) is an Athenian statesman and legislator who is consid-
ered to be the founder of Athenian democracy. In 594 B.C., Solon was elected archon, or
chief magistrate, to reform the oppressive condition. His regulations ranged over every
province of life, including marriage, adoption, clothing, farming and the calendar. For a
general outline on Solon, see “Solon,” Microsoft Encarta 2007.
94
NE, I, 10, 1100a33-1100b10.

insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness.”95 Since it is

activities that control life, Aristotle continues, no happy person could ever
become miserable, since he will never do hateful and base actions. For a
truly good and intelligent person, we suppose, will bear strokes of fortune
suitably and from his resources at any time will do the finest actions he
can, just as a good general will make the best use of his forces in war and
a good shoemaker will produce the finest shoe he can from the hides given
him and similarly for all other craftsmen.96 Virtue, thus, is not tantamount
to happiness, though it enables us to bear major reverses with dignity, for
fortune still affects human happiness. The happy person, then, is the one
who expresses complete virtue in his activities, with an adequate supply or
external goods, not for just any time but for a complete life. He who has and
will keep the goods mentioned is blessed, but blessed as a human being is.97
Friendship and Happiness

A human being, Aristotle claims, is a political animal in so far as
human capacities and aims are completely fulfilled only in a community;
the individual’s happiness must involve the good of fellow members of a
community. “In awarding the happy person all the goods it would seem
absurd not to give him friends; for having friends seems to be the greatest
external good…For no one would choose to have all [other] goods and yet
be alone, since a human being is political, tending by nature to live together
with others.”98 Aristotle does not mean that everyone always desires the
good of others as well as his own good. He means that someone lacks a
complete life, fulfilling human nature, without some concern for the good of
other people. If we are indifferent to the good of others, we deny ourselves
the relations of cooperation and mutual concern and trust that are necessary
for the fulfillment of human capacities.
To explain why concern for the good of others and for a common
good is part of the life that aims at one’s own happiness, Aristotle examines
friendship.99 All three of the main types of friendship (for pleasure, for
95
NE, I, 10, 1100b29-33.
96
NE, I, 10, 1100b34-1101a5.
97
NE, I, 10, 1101a15-20.
98
Aristotle, NE, trans. T. Irwin, IX, 9, 1169b10ff.
99
See, NE,VIII, IX; EE, VII.

advantage and for the good) seek the good of the other person. However,
only the friendship of the best type (friendship of good people with the same
virtue) requires concern for another person for his own sake; and when
we act on this concern, we are capable of concerns, achievements, and
cooperative activities that would otherwise be denied to us. By expanding
the range of one’s concerns, cooperative altruism expands the range of
one’s possible activities, and thereby allows one to achieve the good more
completely. Since eudaimonia requires a complete and self-sufficient life,
and since a solitary person with aims confined to himself cannot achieve
such a life, the happy life requires friendship.100
In the best sort of friendship, the friend is “another self.”101 Aristotle
infers that friendship is part of a complete and self-sufficient life. It involves
sharing the activities one counts as especially important in one’s life, and
specially the sharing of reason and thinking. Friends cooperate in deliberation,
decision and action; and the thoughts and actions of each provide reasons
for the future thoughts and actions of the other. “The cooperative aspects
of friendship more fully realize each person’s own capacities as a rational
agent and so promote each person’s happiness. Hence the full development
of a human being requires concern for the good of others.”102
The Role of Contemplation

In Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle takes up once
again the subject of happiness and the highest life. If happiness is activity
according to virtue, he says, it is reasonable that it should be according to
the highest virtue, but the highest virtue will be that of the highest part of the
soul, that is reason or understanding and the activity of which is here called
“contemplation.”103
The highest life and the true end for man is, then, the contemplative
life or the life of the philosopher. Indeed this is not only the highest life,
but also the most pleasant and the most self-sufficient. Like everyone else,
the philosopher must be provided with the necessities of life, at least in
100
NE, IX, 9, 1169b16-23.
101
NE, IX, 4, 1166a1ff; IX, 8, 1168b10
102
T. H. Irwin, “Aristotle,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 1, 429.
103
NE, X, 7, 1177a11ff.

moderation. To be just, for example, one needs people whom to be just,

while the philosopher can carry on his activity by himself – although it may
be better, Aristotle adds, if he has fellow-workers.104
The exercise of reason is the highest form of activity but reason,
Aristotle said, is divine in comparison with man; and it is not in so far as
one is a man that one will live the life according to reason, but “in so far
as there is something divine in him.”105 This famous passage shows that
although Aristotle makes frequent references to the common sense point
of view when it comes to expressing his ideas concerning happiness, he is
capable of highly idealistic sentiments. He writes on the life according to
reason in a manner which immediately puts one in mind of Plato. “Yet the
conception of happiness he puts forward differs in certain respects from
Plato’s and it is not only consistent with, but follows naturally from his own
views on the nature of the soul.106
The Intellectualist Account of Eudaimonia
The Definition: Activity of the Most Divine Part

According to the intellectualist account, stated in Book X, Chapter 7
of the Nicomachean Ethics, eudaimonia is realized in the activity of the most
divine part of man, functioning in accordance with its proper excellence –
this is the activity of theoretical contemplation.107 This view is also usually
referred to as the exclusivist interpretation108 or the dominant view.109 The
term “dominant” suggests the contrast between a group whose members
are roughly equal and a group whose one of its members is much superior
to the rest. Hence, “by ‘a dominant end’ might be meant a monolithic end,
an end consisting of just one valued activity or good, or it might be meant
104
NE, X, 7, 1177a20-1177b1.
105
NE, X, 7, 1177b26ff.
106
G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of His Thought (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 239.
107
Thomas Nagel, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 7.
108
See Lawrence Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,”
278; see also W. F. R. Hardie, Aristotle’s Ethical Theory, 23
109
See J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 17; see also Roger Crisp, “Aris-
totle: Ethics and Politics,” Routledge History of Philosphy: From Aristotle to Augustine,
vol. I, 114.

that element in an end combining two or more independently valued goods

which has a dominant or preponderating or paramount importance.”110
The dominant or intellectualist view of eudaimonia, therefore,
generally identifies happiness with philosophical contemplation. Such
a man will make theoretical knowledge, his most godlike attribute, his
main object. At a lower level, as man among men, he will find a place for
fulfillment which comes from being a citizen, from marriage and from the
society if such activities would only contribute his contemplative activity.
The “exclusivist’ interpretations,” thus, “maintain that no individual man
can live more than one of these ‘lives’ at the same time”111 and at the same
level of excellence. Therefore, he should live according to the most divine
element in him.
The Three Main Variants112

There are different forms of exclusivist interpretations as is implied in
the word “dominant.” In this section, three main variants will be delineated:
the strict intellectualist view, the political view and the developmental view.
(a) Strict Intellectualism113
This exclusivist interpretation takes the position that Aristotle
identified eudaimonia with the life of study and contemplation. This
generally goes by the name of the strict intellectualist view. Strict
intellectualism holds that the activity of theoria114 is the human
good, either (a) to the exclusion of ethical life altogether or (b) with
the understanding that the ethical virtues derive any value they may
110
J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 17.
111
Lawrence Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 278.
112
The three variants are based from L. Nannery’s classifications of exclusivist
interpretations.
113
In this paper, the researcher primarily considers the exclusivist or dominant ac-
count of eudaimonia to this variant in order to minimize ambiguity on the study.
114
In Aristotle’s most specialized use, theōria or its cognate theōrein refers to the
contemplative study that he identifies with the whole or an important part of happiness.
This is study in the sense in which I study a face or a scene that I already have in full view;
that is why the visual associations of theōrien are appropriate. It is the activity of the capac-
ity of knowledge. In Book X, 7 Aristotle explains why he thinks study is the activity that
comes closest to meeting the conditions for complete happiness. For further definition on
theōria, see T. Irwin, trans. NE, Glossary, 427.

have from an instrumental relationship to theoretical virtue.115 It has

its basic foundation from Book X, Chapters 7-8 of the Nicomachean
Ethics, where Aristotle explicitly tells us that for a human being the
life according to intellect is the best and pleasantest, since intellect
more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the prime
happiness. The life expressing the other kind of virtue is happy in a
secondary degree. 116
(b) Civic-intellectualism
A second possible exclusivist view would have Aristotle
identify eudaimonia with the active life of the court or the civic
life.117 This is an unusual interpretation indeed and the researcher
shall limit to only a few comments on it.
This variant of the exclusivist interpretations bases the
position on a rereading of the notion of techne, usually translated
as “craft.” Techne or craft is a rational discipline concerned with
production. Hence, Aristotle sometimes associates craft with science,
though it does not meet the strictest condition for a science.118 Craft
involves inquiry and deliberation and so Aristotle often uses its
methods to illustrate the procedure of virtue and intelligence. The
adherents of this variant purport that the polis is a work of truth
which tells us what man is and makes participation in civic affairs
man’s highest good. They claim that Aristotle’s position is that
human nature and human reason find their complete and sufficient
expression in the “work” of the polis and the “work” that is the
polis.119 In other words, this variant claims that the highest activity
expressing virtue, the activity of the intellect, finds its complete
expression in the political community or polis.
115
116
NE, X, 7-8, 1178a5-1178b6.
117
Nannery based this distinction from Joachim Ritter’s essay. See Lawrence
Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 279-280.
118
For further discussion on the meaning of techne, see T. Irwin, trans. NE, Glos-
sary, 392.
119

(c) Developmental View120

The third variant of the dominant account takes the
developmental view, e. g., Jaeger’s, claims that Aristotle was
evolving from the view that the life of study and contemplation
by itself constituted eudaimonia to the view that eudaimonia is
constituted solely by the ethical virtues.121 On this view, Aristotle,
in the Eudemian Ethics, is still expressing the direct relevance
of the knowledge of God to moral action as he had done earlier,
by means of the Platonic conception of the absolute norm in the
Protrepticus.122 “In the later Ethics, this recedes very much into the
background; for the instinctive rightness of morally educated person,
which is a law to itself, is not an aim that can be focused clearly
at a single point, unlike the highest Good by reference to which
the Eudemian Ethics directs us to live.”123 Against such an ethics
of pure devotion to God, the famous picture of the contemplative
life in Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics fades, and becomes little
more than an objective of an idealized description of the life of the
scholar devoting to research.124 According to Jaeger, although the
Nicomachean Ethics tried to accomplish the movement, it fails to
reconcile the irreconcilable and was composed short of the final
development; the movement, however, is completed by the writer of
the Magna Moralia.125
The Function Argument

According to the Intellectualist account, both the Nicomachean
and the Eudemian Ethics exhibit indecision between two accounts of
120
This view is basically based from Werner Jaeger’s assumption that by means of
the fragments of the Protrepticus, it is possible to make a picture of the development of Ar-
istotle’s ethics in three clearly separated stages: the late Platonic period of the Protrepticus,
the reformed Platonism of the Eudemian, and the late Aristotelianism of the Nicomachean,
see Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development, Chapter IX,
229-258.
121
122
W. Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development, 241.
123
Ibid.
124
Ibid., 243.
125
See W. Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development, Ap-
pendix II, “On the Origin and Cycle of the Philosophic Ideal of Life,” 440-450.

eudaimonia, although it is less elaborately expressed in the Eudemian

Ethics.126 The Nicomachean Ethics sees happiness as constituted essentially
by the contemplative activity of the intellect; this is the only happiness really
worthy of the name and the life of practical wisdom and the moral virtues is
a second-rate kind of happiness. In the Eudemian Ethics on the other hand,
happiness consists in the ideal functioning of every part of the soul; the
activity of contemplation is only one, admittedly the highest one, among a
family of activities which constitute the happy life. Most of the Eudemian
Ethics expounds a comprehensive account, but the closing passage appears
otherwise:
What choice, then, or possession of the natural goods –
whether bodily goods, wealth, friends, or other things –
will most produce the contemplation of god, that choice or
possession is best; this is the noblest standard.127
Since the philosophic issue between these two positions arises
in virtue of the ambivalence, to explore the intellectualist account of
eudaimonia is to enter into a discussion of man’s ergon128 – the ergon of a
thing is a function that is specific to that thing alone. If a thing does, indeed,
have an ergon or a special purpose, then its specific good must be a function
of that ergon; thus, to understand the ultimate good of man we must come to
a conclusion of what his ergon is. Accordingly, “The proper ergon of man,
by which human excellence is measured, is that which makes him a man
rather than anything else.”129
The main difference between a human being and an animal is that man
has reason and that his entire complex of organic functions supports rational
as well as irrational activity. Although reason helps man to get enough to
eat and move around, it is not subservient to those lower functions. On one
126
T. Nagel, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 7.
127
EE, VII, 15, 1249b17ff.
128
The best single translation of ergon would be “work.” It is also used to mean
“function,” “characteristic task,” “activity,” and “end.” This is the use that connects some-
thing’s ergon with its essence and its virtue; in animate beings the ergon defines the type
of soul. For a further distinction on the different uses of ergon, see T. Iwin, trans. NE,
Glossary, 404. For a discussion on the relation of ergon with eudaimonia, see T. Nagel,
“Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 7-13; see also Stephen R. L. Clark, Aristotle’s Man, 15-27.
129

plausible view, reason, despite its continual service to the lower functions,
is what human life is all about. The lower functions serve it, provide it
with a setting and are to some extent under its control, but the dominant
characterization of a human being must refer to his reason. This is why
Aristotle is usually considered to be proposing an intellectualist position
and why a comprehensive position, which lets various other aspects of life
into the measure of good, is less plausible. “The supreme good for man
must be measured in terms of that around which all other human functions
are organized.”130
Furthermore, human possibilities reveal that reason has a use beyond
the ordering of practical life. The circle of mutual support between reason,
activity, and nutrition is not completely closed. In fact all of it, including
the practical employment of reason, serves to support the individual for
an activity that completely transcends these worldly concerns. “Aristotle
believes, in short, that human life is not important enough for humans
to spend their lives on. A person should seek to transcend not only his
individual practical concerns but also those of society or humanity as a
whole.”131 Nevertheless this divine element, which gives us the capacity to
think about things higher than ourselves, is the highest aspect of our souls,
and we are not justified in forgoing its activities to concentrate on lowlier
matters, unless the demands in the latter area threaten to make contemplation
impossible.
Objections against the Intellectualist Account132
Though the exclusivist interpretations may be thought to have strong

texts in their favor from Book X, Chapters 7-8 of the Nicomachean Ethics,
“strange to say that is all they might have.”133 They do not claim to have
more than the texts from Chapters 7 and 8. Their claim however, Nannery
concludes, is completely un-Aristotelian and is not supported by the texts
in question. Certainly it is anomalous that Aristotle should find happiness to
130
Ibid., 11.
131
Ibid., 12.
132
This paper will present only the objections raised against strict intellectualism
for brevity sake. For a complete discussion on the objections of the three variants, see Law-
rence Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 278-280.
133
L Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 278.

be a kind of life which is outside the range of the book in which happiness
is discussed. It should also be felt as an anomaly that Aristotle should find
the human good to be simply identical with something super-human.134
Moreover, Chapter 9 of Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics asserts that the
end of the inquiry is not just to know about happiness but to become happy
and good.135
Though Chapters 7-8 of NE Book X are certainly incompatible

with an inclusivist interpretation, these chapters cannot be read in a way
consistent with strict intellectualism either. Aristotle never says that the life
of study and contemplation is the only life that is eudaimon. In fact he states
that the life of the man of affairs is eudaimon, although not as eudaimon
as a life given over to contemplation.136 If, as Aristotle expressly says, the
life of action is eudaimon in a secondary way, then surely it is eudaimon.
In addition, there is an ample number of texts in which Aristotle illustrates
eudaimonia by examples taken from “the active life.”137 Emphatically, a
major bulk of the Ethics discusses this kind of life, asserting that happiness
is something complete and inclusive.
If the strict intellectualist falls back to the position of instrumentalism,

admitting that the ethical virtues are necessary by virtue of their use in
promoting contemplation, the same two criticisms apply: on the one
hand, it is completely un-Aristotelian; on the other, there are many texts
that contradict it.138 A simple presentation of the picture of the ideal man
according to this view is enough to refute it.
This man would never write books, have friends, or indeed do most
anything unless it contributed to theoria. He would not obey the summons
of the king to come and advise the sovereign, unless theoria required such
activity…He would have no deep-seated loyalty to any ethical standards,
but would obey any given norm or rule insofar as, and only insofar as,
they were instrumental to theoria. Thus, he might well make it his general
practice to steal books if he calculated that they would further the activity
134
Ibid.
135
NE, X, 9, 1179b1-4.
136
See NE, X, 8, 1178a9.
137
See NE, 1097b11; 1099a33-1099b2; 1099b25-32; 1102a5-15.
138
L Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 279.

of theoria. The retiring life of the scholar offers few occasions for the
commission of great crimes, but if it were clear that it would open up more
leisure and thereby allow for more theoria, our sage would be obliged to try
to cheat on his income tax.139
This might be an exaggerated example of the intellectualist position;
nevertheless, it might suggest some truth with it. One can see immediately
how far this “ideal life” is removed from the generous and well-rounded
presentation of the good things to be found in human life that we associate
with the name of Aristotle. “To postulate that theoria itself confers a grace
upon its practitioner that would preclude such repulsive character traits
is simply gratuitous, both with respect to Aristotle’s text and to life in
general.”140 In addition, a great number of texts can be cited against this
view. Every time Aristotle calls ethical activities noble, there is an implied
denial that they get their value from any relation, instrumental or otherwise,
to anything else because for Aristotle the ethical virtue is an end in itself.141
The Inclusive Account of Eudaimonia

The Definition: Organization of Life
One can take the view that Aristotle’s ideal is inclusivist; that is,
that it includes in some manner both the theoretical and practical lives. “By
an ‘inclusive end’ might be meant any end combining or including two or
more values or activities or goods; or there might be meant an end in which
different components have roughly equal value (or at least are such that
no one component is incommensurably more valuable than another).”142
This account of eudaimonia is also called a “comprehensive”143 view of
Aristotle’s happiness. According to the comprehensive account, eudaimonia
essentially involves not just the activity of the theoretical intellect but the full
range of human life and action, in accordance with the broader excellence
of moral virtue and practical wisdom. This view connects eudaimonia
139
The example is borrowed from L Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in
Aristotle’s Ethics,” 279.
140
Ibid., 279.
141
See, for instance, NE, 1099b15-1100a5,1100b10; MM, 1184b22-1185a1; EE,
1219 28-39; 1220a1ff.
a
142
J. L.Ackrill, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 17.
143
See T. Nagel, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 7.

with the conception of human nature as composite, that is, as involving

the interaction of reason, emotion, perception and action in an “ensouled”
body.144
This account of happiness suggests that, in the Eudemian Ethics,
Aristotle purports that it is a sign of “great folly” not to “have one’s life
organized in view of some end.”145 Perhaps it would be better to say that it
is impossible not to live according to some plan, and it is folly not to try to
make the plan a good one. The inevitability of a plan arises from the fact
that a man both has, and knows that he has, a number of desires and interests
which can be adopted as motives either casually or indiscriminately or in
accordance with priorities determined by the aim of living the kind of life
which he thinks proper for a man like himself. To this side of Aristotle’s
doctrine is applied the term inclusive end, “inclusive because there is no
desire or interest which should not be regarded as a candidate, however
unpromising, for a place in the pattern of life.”146
The Three Logical Possibilities

In claiming that Aristotle expounds in Book 1 of the Nicomachean
Ethics an “inclusive” and not a monolithic doctrine of eudaimonia, one could
be referring both to his account of the concept itself, that is, what one might
call in a broad sense the meaning of the word; and to his view about the life
that satisfies the concept and deserves the name. Hence, there are different
logical possibilities that the term might suggest. These possibilities will
spell out the main variants of the comprehensive account of eudaimonia.147
The Trade-Off View

This variant of the inclusivist account of eudaimonia maintains
that a maximization of both practical and theoretic virtuous actions can be
144
145
EE, I, 2, 1214b10.
146
See W. F. R. Hardie, “The Final Good in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 317.
147
The terminology and division, the researcher will employ, is borrowed from
Lawrence Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 280-281. Nan-
nery based this similar division from David Keyt, “Intellectualism in Aristotle,” Paideia
(Summer, 1979), 139-156. In this paper, the researcher will use these three main variants
interchangeably to mean the same broad comprehensive account of human happiness.

calculated, with each type having an equal or, at least, a convertible value.148
This type of inclusion suggests that both the life of practical virtue and
the life of contemplation and study can be traded off or interchanged as to
the kind of life one might choose to live. No one kind of life is said to be
secondary in degree or extremely superior with regard to its relationship
with eudaimonia. The virtues of character and the actions expressing them,
deserve to be chosen for their own sakes as components of happiness. In
like manner, the life of study can be chosen for its own sake because it
promotes eudaimonia. Hence, one can live an excellent practical life while
being a scholar, or a man of study while being a man of virtue.
The Absolute Priority View
This type of comprehensive view maintains that one can never
trade off theoretical for practical virtues. The two spheres of activity are
relatively self-contained and Aristotle’s ideal requires the maximization of
the theoretic virtues before the practical virtues are to be attended. Although
this sounds similar to the dominant account, this is not the same as the strict
intellectualist view. In absolute priority view the practical activities are
understood to have their own independent and not merely an instrumental,
value.149 The inclusion of the practical life begins when one has realized the
truths through contemplation. This can be usually pictured as an enlightened
person, who after contemplation under a tree realizes that the important
component of happiness is to live a life in excellence and virtue based from
the truths he realized. Now the theoretic virtues will serve as a guide or a
rule with regard to his actions; nevertheless, his actions together with the
other aspects of his life are still seen as one of the main components of
happiness together with the theoretic virtues he realized.
The Superstructure View
According to the superstructure view, the moral life sets certain
minimum requirements that must be satisfied before one is to engage in
theoretical activity. In so far as he is a human being and lives together with
a number of other human beings, he chooses to do the actions expressing
148
Lawrence Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 280-
281.
149
Ibid., 281.

virtue. Hence he will need the sorts of external goods that are needed for
the virtues, for living a human life. This view suggests that man should
work first and be virtuous in his actions before he gains the disposition for
study and contemplation. Indeed how one can contemplate if his stomach is
trembling or a neighbor is yelling at him. He, thus, needs first to look after
his duty virtuously and settle down the primary requirements necessary
for him to pursue theoretical activity. However, this variant of inclusive
account “does not demand that one should never shirk a duty, however,
trivial, for an opportunity to contemplate.” Where the line is drawn will
presumably be determined by the moral intuition of the practically wise
man (ho phronimos). 150 In the virtuous person, the virtues of character and
the actions expressing them will regulate one’s choice of other goods, and
so they also will regulate one’s choices about contemplation.
The Constitutive Activity Argument151

This argument claims that in Book I and generally until Book X
of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is expounding an inclusive doctrine
of eudaimonia and that there is no need to suppose that he was led into
confusion on this matter by some inadequacy in his understanding of means
and ends. Furthermore, the other accounts of Aristotle on eudaimonia found
in the Eudemian Ethics, the Magna Moralia, the Politics and the Rhetoric
support the comprehensive account.152 Thus, in the Rhetoric Aristotle
speaks of eudaimonia and its parts and in the Magna Moralia as saying
that eudaimonia is composed of many goods. But apart from these specific
assertions of the complexity of eudaimonia, one might well think it strange
that such a large proportion of the discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics
should be devoted to the practical virtues if they played no, or only a minor,
role in the good life.153
150
Ibid.
151
The researcher is using this term referring to J. L. Ackrill’s inclusive argument.
For a complete discussion of his arguments, see J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,”
15-33.
152
See for instance, EE, 1220a1ff; MM, 1184a19ff; Rhetoric, 1360b9; Politics,
1323 1ff.
a
153
J. O. Urmson, Aristotle’s Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1988),
118.

It argues that at the very start of the Nicomachean Ethics, we find

Aristotle expounding and using the notion of an end and connecting it with
terms like “good” and “for the sake of.” He distinguishes between activities
that have ends apart from themselves and others that are their own ends.
He then makes a statement that is often neglected and never given its full
weight: “it makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the
ends of the actions or something else apart from these, as in the case of the
sciences just mentioned.”154
It would then be natural to expect that corresponding to the initial
distinction between the activities there would be a fundamental distinction
between the ways in which activities of the two different types could be
subordinated to another activity. If the idea of use or exploitation of a
product or outcome becomes inappropriate when the subordinate activity
is not directed to a product or outcome, what immediately suggests itself
instead is a relation like that of part to whole, the relation an activity or end
may have to an activity or end that includes or embraces it. To seek a good
example to this case, one may think of the relation of putting to playing golf
or the relation of the steps in a dance to the whole dance itself.155 One does
not putt in order to play golf as one buys a club in order to play golf since
putting is playing golf (though not all that playing golf is). In like manner,
the steps of the dance are not means to perform a dance but it is dancing in
itself.
Now the idea that some things are done for their own sake and may
yet be done for the sake of something else is precisely the idea Aristotle will
need and use in talking of good actions and eudaimonia. For eudaimonia
is not the result or outcome of a lifetime’s effort; it is not something to
look forward to; it is a life, enjoyable and worth while all through. “That
the primary ingredients of eudaimonia are for the sake of eudaimonia is
not incompatible with their being ends in themselves; for eudaimonia is
constituted by activities that are ends in themselves.”156 It is not necessary
to claim that Aristotle has made quite clear how there may be “components”
in the best life or how they may be interrelated. It is enough to claim that
Aristotle understands the concept of eudaimonia in such a way that the
154
NE, I, 1, 1094a16-18.
155
These exposition is based from J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 19.
156
J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” 19.

eudaimon life necessarily includes all activities that are valuable. Comforts
and prosperity may be goals to be secured by action, but eudaimonia is
precisely not such a goal. It is doing well, not the result of doing well; a life,
not the reward of life.157
Objections against the Inclusive Account

The inclusive account of eudaimonia is more in the spirit of
Aristotle’s discussion than the exclusivist views; nonetheless, all inclusivist
views are open to the same criticisms.158
The primary contention among critics is Aristotle’s inexplicit
statement concerning the matter. If Aristotle’s ideal is a composite one, why
doesn’t he explicitly say so? Nothing prevents him from doing this. Is there
not a patent anomaly in saying that, in Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics,
Aristotle gives three choices (the three lives), eliminates one of them, and
refuses to decide between the other two? Now, when he returns to the
question again in the middle of the last Book he tells us, in a brief space,
that both lives are eudaimon, but that the life of contemplation and study
is the “most eudaimon” – and by all this what he actually means to convey
is that a life which is some combination of both of the lives is what really
the ideal? Certainly, if this was Aristotle’s intention, he did not succeed in
conveying this meaning.159
Second, these inclusivist views are subject to the criticism that they
all must maintain that Aristotle uses the word “life” to denote two very
different things, and that he consciously switches from one to the other in
the course of a single argument without warning the reader. Thus the word
“life” is understood to mean something close to “a road once taken” in the
Nicomachean Ethics, Books I-IX, but then in Book X, 7-8 it is allowed to
also have the meaning of a combination of two of the lives that have been
contending for the honor of being identified with eudaimonia.
157
Ibid., 24.
158
See L. Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 281.
The following objections are borrowed from L. Nannery, “The Probe of the Two Lives in
Aristotle’s Ethics,” 281-282.
159
L. Nannery, “The Problem of the Two Lives in Aristotle’s Ethics,” 281

Third, all inclusivist views must make the pursuit of theoria hostage
to a prudential decision. Determinations concerning whether to actualize
here and now theoria (contemplation) or praxis (action) require the use
of a faculty nowhere mentioned in Aristotle. If the intellectual virtue or
phronesis guides ethical and political action and the three virtues of nous
(understanding), episteme (science) and sophia (wisdom) constitute the life
of theory, what faculty is there left over to tell us which of the faculties
ought to be exercised? One must postulate a kind of super-phronesis which
has the function of choosing the right “mix” for the “mixed ideal.”160
Lastly, the inclusivist views fail to fully explicate how the various
goods of life are to be combined in the best possible human life. They miss
to illustrate clearly what criterion oversees the organization of the whole, or
what relation there is between the pursuit of contemplation and the exercise
of the other virtues.
For these reasons the inclusivist views are all improbable and
unpersuasive. Though they express some of the spirit of Aristotle, they do
not account for the letter of the text.
We will pursue the matter in the succeeding issue No. 133 of this
journal. 
160
Ibid.

THE EUDAIMONIA PROBLEMATIC
ARISTOTLE
EUDAIMONIA
(Human Fulfillment)
“Activity of the soul in

accordance with virtue
and in a complete life”
Interpretations
Inclusive / Dominant /
Comprehensive Account Intellectualist Account
Activity in accordance with com- Activity in accordance with the

plete virtue and complete life best and most perfect virtue
Identifies happiness with

A good compounded by all goods
theoria /contemplation
Objections Objections
• although it is more in the spirit of

Aristotle’s discussion, it is not con-
• although it has a strong support
veyed directly by the Philosopher
in Book X of NE, it is outside the
• the difficulty of the term “life” or
range of the whole Aristotelian
βιος
ethical treatises
• the diffulty on the order of facul-
• it is un-Aristotelian to identify
ties
eudaimonia with something super-
• fails to explicate the criterion that
human
oversees the components and their
relation

Copyright of Philippiniana Sacra is the property of Philippiniana Sacra and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

Eudaimonia Problematic

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Eudaimonia Problematic

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Eudaimonia Problematic:

Ray Ann Cagampang* & Maximo Gatela, O.P.

Human happiness or fulfillment has always been perplexing. Since

A traditional Hellenistic conception of happiness and the good

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

Like his predecessors, Aristotle examines the ordinary moral opinions of

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

Aristotle, thus, wants to answer the criticisms as well as to modify

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle then briefly defines eudaimonia as the

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

that he calls perfect or final happiness, and a “secondary degree” happy

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

The Eudaimonia Problematic

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

proposed by the different contending views regarding Aristotle’s concept of

Exploring the Texts

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

on Aristotle’s eudaimonia. Also, the arguments with regard to action and

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

Aristotle’s Outline In The Ethics34 And

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

The Evolution of Meaning till Plato

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

Plato56 continued the Socratic tradition, identifying dikaiosune

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

Aristotle60 is most plausibly seen as working within the same

Happiness as the Highest Good and End of Human Life

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

The Definition of Happiness

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

it is happiness, and happiness alone, that meets this requirement. Honor,

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

Thus for Aristotle, eudaimonia, briefly defined, is “activity of the

In Book X, Aristotle might seem to be saying that it is contemplation

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

of virtuous activities.”78 Philosophic activity, or contemplation, is also

Happiness and Virtue

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

Happiness and Pleasure86

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

The Place of Fortune and Worldly Goods

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness.”95 Since it is

Friendship and Happiness

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

The Role of Contemplation

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

moderation. To be just, for example, one needs people whom to be just,

The Intellectualist Account of Eudaimonia

The Definition: Activity of the Most Divine Part

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

that element in an end combining two or more independently valued goods

The Three Main Variants112

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

have from an instrumental relationship to theoretical virtue.115 It has

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)

(c) Developmental View120

The Function Argument

PHILIPPINIANA SACRA, Vol. XLIV, No. 132 (September-December, 2009)