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1philosophical topicsvol. 41, no. 1, spring 2013
Happiness and Aristotles Definition of eudaimonia
carlotta capuccinoUniversity of Bologna
abSTracT. Happiness is a much-debated topic in both ancient and
con-temporary philosophy. The aim of this paper is twofold: first,
to estab-lish what are the necessary and sufficient conditions of
eudaimonia for aristotle in book i of Nicomachean Ethics; and
second, to show how aristotles theory is also a good answer to the
questions of the contempo-rary common sense about what happiness is
and how to achieve it. in this way, i would suggest new arguments
to give a new voice to aristotle in the contemporary philosophical
debate on this issue. my paper is therefore only tangentially a
contribution to this debate and remains essentially an essay on the
philosophy of aristotle.
The moments of happinessnot the sense of well-being,Fruition,
fulfilment, security of affection,Or even a very good dinner, but
the sudden illuminationWe had the experience but missed the
meaning. T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, iii: The dry Salvages
at first glance, augustines remarks about time also seem to be
true of happiness: What, then, is time? if no one asks me, i know;
if i want to explain it to someone who asks me, i do not know
anymore (Conf. Xi xiv 17).1 in the course of our
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2lives, all of us have experienced something that, if asked, we
would call happi-ness. For example, we say that we have lived happy
moments, periods, or years, and so on, thus making very common use
of the adjective happy. but if we were asked, What is happiness?
perhaps we would not be so quick to respond, or, in attempting to
do so, we would realize how difficult this question is to answer.
Happiness is one of those things we think we know about until
someone asks us what it is, and at that moment we realize that
actually we are ignorant of it. This kind of question raises what
Wittgenstein considered an eminently philosophi-cal problem.2
Nevertheless, the problem of happiness differs from the problem of
time in one important respect: it is the fact that common sense
provides several and heterogeneous answers to this question to
reveal that it is arduous to explain what happiness is.3 For in
common linguistic use the term happiness has more than one
meaning:4 first, it is ambiguous in those cases where it is not
clear whether we are using it to refer to something momentarylike
intense joyor something that has a certain duration, such as a
state of inner satisfaction5 (and even on the presumed subjective
nature of happiness there is no agreement).6 Then, if we ask a
represen-tative sample of people what constitutes lasting happiness
for them, i.e., what its contents or causes might be, it is
unlikely that we will receive two identical answers. The only issue
on which the average man seems to agree is that happiness is
some-thing of utmost importance. Therefore, from this indeterminacy
there also arises a practical problem: if i do not know what
happiness is exactly, yet i consider it to be one of the most
importantif not the most importantthings, how do i pursue it? in
which direction will i strive when i exercise what, for example,
the declaration of independence of the united States of america
recognizes as an inalienable right of a man?7 The apparent
legitimacy of this pluralism brings with it uncertainty and
confusion surrounding the goal to be achieved; this goal often
proves to be a false target, which causes dissatisfaction,
discontent, and a lower quality of life. Faced with such a
puzzlement in contemporary common sense, philosophers,
psychologists, and sociologists have soughtand still seekto map out
the con-cept of happiness, from its history to its definition and
conditions of pos sibility, with the aim of shedding some light on
its boundaries. using these renewed attempts as a starting point,
beginning with the still topical Analysis of Happiness by Wladyslaw
Tatarkiewicz (1976), the subject of this essay will be the
recon-struction of the aristotelian theses about eudaimonia with
the aim of showing its intrinsic value and usefulness for our
personal pursuit of happiness. in particular, we will deal with
aristotles definition of eudaimonia in book i of Nicomachean
Ethics, which will be analyzed clause by clause in order to answer
two fundamental questions: (1) what is eudaimonia, i.e., what are
its necessary and sufficient condi-tions ( 1), and (2) to what
extent is the aristotelian analysis of eudaimonia also a good
analysis of the contemporary conceptor conceptsof happiness that
could reveal to us a clearer path to follow in order to be happy (
2).8
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3i. ariSToTle oN EUDAIMONIA
in EN i 119 we find the most complete aristotelian definition of
eudaimonia in the form of a question:
What then stops us from calling happy (eudamona)10 the one who
is active in accordance with perfect (teleian) virtue, sufficiently
(hikans) equipped with external goods, not for some random period
of time but over a complete life (tleion bion)? (1101a1416,
christopher rowes transl. modified)
For aristotle, eudaimonia is an activity (enrgeia), not a state
of mind, and an activity in accordance with virtue (kataretn),
exercised over a lifetime in the pres-ence of a sufficient number
of external goods. at first glance, eudaimonia is there-fore
something essentially different from our happiness, understood
mostly as a state of inner satisfaction that is free from moral
values: if it is true that those who are happy tend more often than
not to be good, the converse is not true; namely, being good does
not necessarily make us happy.11 contemporary common sense seems to
agree on the disjunction between happiness and morals, thus marking
the biggest distance from the so-called eudaimonistic ethics of the
ancients. but let us proceed step by step, reconstructing the
arguments and premises through which aristotle arrives at this
conclusion. The first premise is posed by aristotle at the
beginning of book i (1, 1094a14), and states that every voluntary
human action (praxis) has an end, i.e., it aims at achieving a
certain good, understood as what we consider to be good for us.
This means that the end is always good for us and that no one acts
aiming at an evil for himself. The first claim, therefore, connects
the sphere of action with the good, making the underlying theory of
action the cornerstone of aristotles ethics. both theories, the
theory of action and the theory of the good, thus combine in an
ethics of action. For aristotle, human beings have two different
kinds of rexis, appetition or tension:12 will (bolesis), which
tends to the good, and desire (epithumia), moved by pleasure.
Voluntary action closes the gap between the will and the end, and
allows us to achieve the good. Thus, the good is, first of all, an
end that we aim to achieve by acting volun-tarily and does not
have, in this original sense, any moral connotation.13 The first
step of the aristotelian theory of action, however, goes further
back and consists of deliberation (boleusis), the process of
researching or calculating the ways and means by which to achieve
the end.14 This deliberation gives us various pos sible choices for
achieving the end; only then does the preferred choice (proaresis)
inter-vene: it is the kind of choice that directly determines the
action, bridging the gap between the will and the end. action
presupposes choice, then. but how do we make a choice once we have
weighed up the possible alternatives? The reasons for the choice
remain to be investigated. in order to deliberate, we need
phrnesis,
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4understood as practical sagacity, which is the result of
cognitive teaching; in addi-tion, our choices are directly affected
by our ethos, the habit of character given by the moral virtues
(and vices) formed and grown up with age. So we choose no more
through teaching, but through habituation or training (that is,
through activity). at the base of ethical virtues, however,
phrnesis, understood this time as practical wisdom, is still active
inasmuch as it allows us to grasp the mean that characterizes
them.15 The premise can be summarized as follows:
T1 Theory of action: Will end = good action
The second premise concerns the plurality and heterogeneity of
the ends of vol-untary human action, and can be found in the proem
to book i (1, 1094a16 ff.). after identifying the end of human
action with the good, aristotle asks whether there are goods in
themselves, i.e., goods that are desirable and achievable for
themselves and not in view of other ends. a good in itself, if it
exists, is a com-plete, accomplished or perfect (tleios) good
because it does not refer to anything outside itself. if more than
one good per se exists, those desirable and achievable only for
themselves16 will be more perfect or complete than those pursued
both for themselves and for other goods. on the other hand, if
there were no goods desirable and achievable per se, the chain of
ends would be infinite, and our lives would be empty because they
would never be fulfilled. This would be the case if it is true, as
aristotle claims, that the fundamental ingredient that makes up our
lives is praxis, the voluntary action.17 if there is an ultimate
goal (and there actually is),18 then on the basis of T1 (everything
tends toward a goal that is a good) this will also be a good, and
it will be the chief good since it is the ultimate one:
T2 goods in view of other things/goods in themselves
if good is a gradable value and to riston is that superlative
good we seek not in view of a higher good but for itself, the
knowledge of this chief good will therefore be of great importance
for our lives (gnosis pros ton bion) in order to achieve their
purpose (skops; 1, 1094a2224). The third premise concerns precisely
the research of the chief good, that which aristotle initially
defines as human (to anthrpinon agathn, 1094b8), i.e., particular
and realizable, feasible or practicable (praktn, 2, 1095a16)in the
very sense that it may be the end, and more precisely the ultimate
end, of voluntary human action (praxis); this premise corresponds
to the endoxici.e., reputablethesis according to which we agree to
call the superla-tive good eudaimonia. Human beings can come to
possess this chief good in its full scope and extent and thus be
happy.19
T3 riston = Eudaimonia (ex consensu omnium)
To say that happiness is the chief good, i.e., that it is the
good in itself, means that it does not make sense to ask someone,
Why do you want to be happy? There
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5are no goods, and thus no ends, that are superordinate to
happiness. The answer is definitive.20 The pursuit of happiness,
for aristotle, is the ultimate end of human action, the chief good,
the best thing; and it is so both on the basis of universal
consensus (consensus on the name) and as a necessary consequence of
his theory of action. yet, there is no agreement on what this chief
good that we call eudaimonia is, for ancient common sense displays
the same pluralism that common sense does today.21 However, we do
not find the same confusion about what the characteris-tics of the
chief good should be that we find in the case of happiness. it is
widely accepted that the chief good must be (1) something personal
[oikeion] and dif-ficult to lose (3, 1095b2526);22 (2) the most
perfect (teleitaton) of all ends, i.e., the only good pursued
always for its own sake and never for the sake of other things23
(5, 1097a2834); and (3) self-sufficient (atarkes), that is, enough
for itself (1097b6 ss). With the usual method of ndoxaor reputable
opinionsaristotle weighs up the most popular or influential beliefs
on the topic, arriving at his per-sonal definition of to riston in
chapter 6 of the book. aristotles original move is the following:
he does not ask directly what eudaimonia is, he does not attempt to
settle the dispute between the many and the wise men (or the men of
taste and refinement, charentes; cf. 3, 1045b22), but wonders what
the best thing (the good in itself) is, presenting for the first
time his own theory of the good. What do we say when we say that
something is good? The answer is compelling because it exceeds our
intuitions about the concept of the good as a moral good:
T4 Agathn = Ergon
it is commonly believed (dokei)24 that the good of something
resides in its ergon; that is to say in its own work. For example,
the good for the flautist lies in playing the flute25 and the good
for the sculptor in the sculpture realized. aristotle takes the
concept of ergon from a passage of Platos Republic,26 where it is
said that (1) every animal has an ergon; (2) the ergon of every
animal is (i) what only the animal does (or can only be done
through it), just as one can only see with eyes and can only hear
with ears; or (ii) that which it does in the most perfect way (or
that which can be done in the most perfect way through it), just as
one can cut a hedge using many tools (knife, scissors, etc.), but
can only cut it in the perfect way by using a sickle; (3) this
applies to everything: the ergon of something consists in that
which only that thing can do or that which that thing does better
than any other thing. The ergon seems to be, then, that by which a
thing properly is the thing it is, that which something does by
nature, its end.27
aristotles argument is analogical and proceeds in the following
way. If the human being (nthropos) as such has an ergon, i.e., a
work that characterizes his human nature, then this work is a good
candidate for being the chief good that we are looking for and that
is called eudaimonia, just like for the flautist, the sculptor and
in general for those of which there is some work and an activity,
in this work
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6resides their good.28 The preliminary step in defining human
ergon is therefore to demonstrate that there actually is one, i.e.,
that the human being as such, and not as a professional in a given
profession, has his own work. aristotle demonstrates this in the
first part of the chapter by means of two arguments, which are also
both analogical.29 (i) The first one is the argument of
professionals (technitai), which works by contrast30 as a kind of
inverse analogical argument: is it possible that the profes-sionals
have an ergon and human beings do not? in other words, is it
possible that human beings are inactive by nature? The question is
rhetorical and the answer is, obviously, No. as eustratius
observed, pphuken (by nature) is the signal that we are dealing
with an a fortiori argument: if, on the one hand, we consider man
as a human being, we consider his essence or nature; if, on the
other hand, we consider man from the point of view of his
professional capacity (for example, as a flautist), we consider
some accidental feature of him. eustratius, bishop of Nicea and
eleventh-century commentator of aristotle, speaks of an argument
starting from the least strong case: if the effect has an ergon, a
fortiori the cause must have an ergon. if in fact the arts, which
are effects of human reason, have their own goods in their ergon, a
fortiori the good of human reason will be in mans own work.31
eustratius perfectly captures the aristotelian topos known as ek
tou mallon kai hetton, that derives (or that proceeds) from the
more or the less, formulated in the Rhetoric (ii 23, 1397b12 ff.).
(ii) The second argument is the argument of the natural parts, and
is, on the contrary, properly analogical: just as the eye, the
hand, and the foot and every part of the human being32 has an
ergon, so too the human being will have an ergon. in this case we
are also faced with an a fortiori argument:33 if the parts of the
human being that are less perfect (the argument starts from the
case of the less strong, as eustratius rightly observed) have their
own specific ergon, then so will the human being as such, being
more perfect than his parts.34 With these two analogical
argu-ments, aristotle has proved, in all probability,35 that the
human being has an ergon and thus, by modus Ponendo Ponens (mPP),
that this ergon coincides with his good.36 it remains to be
determined what human work is, and this is done by look-ing at mans
own peculiar nature (idion):37 that which distinguishes human
beings from other living beings (plants and animals) is a certain
practical life [praktik tis, in the sense of active] of that which
possesses reason. From the beginning, aristotle had defined the
human good as a practical good in the sense of feasible or
achievable through action (praxis) (i 2, 1095a16). Furthermore, a
practical life is not understood as a simple disposition to act
(kathhexin), but as an activity (katenrgeian),38 and more precisely
an activity (enrgeia) of the rational soul.39 The ergon and the
good of man thus lie in this enrgeia of the rational soul. but
precisely what kind of activity is the enrgeia? Enrgeia and praxis
are not synonyms. aristotle explains the relationship between the
two activities in Metaph. 6 (1048b1836), claiming that there
are
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7two kinds of praxis: we can call the first knesis, movement,
whose end is outside of itself. The second, which has its end in
itself, is enrgeia. This kind of activity responds positively to
the test of the perfect tense. For activities like living, seeing,
thinking, being happy (as opposed to activities like weight loss,
learning, walking, building, and becoming), if x is living, seeing,
thinking, or being happy, then we can say that at the same time x
has lived, seen, thought, and been happy.40 That is, each of these
activities is perfect (tleios). and since it coincides with the
end, enrgeia always succeeds: he who carries out a perfect activity
acts necessarily and acts well (praxei ex anankes kai eu praxei, 9,
1099a23). in relation to ergon, if the praxis that accompanies the
ergon is a knesis, then the praxis is different from ergon. This
is, for example, the case of the sculptor: the praxis of
sculpting41 has the sculpture as its end, which is something
different from sculpting and external to it; therefore it is a
knesis. The ergon, which always coincides with the end, will be the
sculpture produced (ergon as a result). if, on the other hand, the
praxis that accompanies the ergon is an enrgeia, then it coincides
with the ergon, as in the case of the flautist: the praxis of
playing the flute has as its end playing the flute, and is itself
its own end, so it is at the same time enrgeia and ergon (ergon as
activity).42 We defined ergon as the thing by which a thing is the
very thing that it is, and now the value of by is clear: the ergon
of something is its natural end, i.e., its realization, the
fulfillment of that something qua the thing it is, or for what that
thing is. The ergon of something is in fact the good of that thing
(by endoxic thesis T4), and aristotle in the preceding chapters had
identified the good with the end (T1).43 This confirms that the
line of argument is moving toward the definition of the good and
the end. That which we are searching for, however, is not simply
the good (to agathn) of the human being, but his chief good (to
riston). it is still possible to proceed in the division of the
genus in the search for the specific difference: the ergon of x is
identical in genus to the ergon of spoudaios (good, excellent) x,
as in the case of the citharist and the good citharist.44 We
therefore generate the two species of ergon and of ergon
accomplished kataretn, i.e., according to the eminence in respect
of excellence (aret) that is proper to it.45 The term used is
huperochs, meaning emi-nence or superiority; and since we are
seeking the definition of the chief good, that which is better
within the genus of ergon will be preferred to the worst. The ergon
accomplished according to the eminence of the proper aret is
accomplished well, thus it is the best candidate for the role of
the chief human good:
T5 riston = Ergon kataretn
but if the chief good is identical to eudaimonia (z = x) through
universal con-sent, and is identical to ergon kataretn (z = y) as
aristotles analogical argu-ment concluded, then by applying a law
known as euclids lawbut already formulated by aristotle in the
Topics46that states: if two things are identical to the same thing,
then they are identical to each other, we can derive from our
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8endoxic premises the necessary conclusion that eudaimonia is
identical to ergon kataretn (x = y).47
T3 riston = Eudaimonia (ex consensu omnium) z = xT4 Agathn =
Ergon________________________________________________________T5
riston = Ergon kataretn z = yT6 x = y euclids law
Ergon was defined as an activity of the rational soul, thus
ergon kataretn, identical as for genus, will be an activity of the
rational soul according to the excellence that is proper to it;
and, aristotle adds, if there is more than one of these
excellences, then it will be activity according to the best and the
most perfect (teleiotaten) of them. Through the law of Transitivity
of identity, this will eventually be the defi-nition of eudaimonia
we have been looking for, with the addition of the clause in a
complete [teleia] life,48 and waiting for the final clause with a
sufficient amount of external goods, that will be the subject
matter of chapters 10 and 11.
T6 x = y T7 Ergon kataretn = rational activity of the soul
according to excellence y =
q______________________________________________________T8
Eudaimonia = rational activity of the soul according to excellence
x = q Transitivity of identity
at this point, aristotle reformulates the results of chapter 6
in terms of his the-ory of action by recalling some shared beliefs
and by introducing an eminent one already accepted by Plato and by
himself: the so-called tripartite division of goods into external
goods (like wealth and friendship) and internal goods, the latter
being of the body (health, beauty, and strength) and of the soul
(8, 1098b8 ff.). The goods of the soul, here assumed without
demonstration as the greatest goods,49 are actions (praxeis) and
activities (enrgeiai) peculiar of the soul. and since some of those
are ends, then the end too will be among the goods of the soul. as
a result, the happy man lives and acts well because eudaimonia is a
certain way of living well (euzoia tis) and acting well
(euprattein) in the sense of having suc-cess (eupraxia), i.e.,
realizing the end of the activity in which it consists.50 in other
words, for aristotle, man, qua human being, has one single ergon51a
constitutive luck, namely, a natural teleological condition, common
to everybodywhich, if exercised, leads to the accomplishment of his
own humanity and then to happi-ness.52 as for the kind of
excellence required for a man to exercise his ergon, the central
books of the Nicomachean Ethics will show that human excellence is
partly moral (the ethical virtues) and partly intellectual (the
dianoetic virtues); and it is here that we meet for the first time
the link between happiness and morality. before moving on to the
conclusion, where i will explain the consequences of this analysis
through a comparison of aristotles eudaimonia and our concept of
happiness,53 i would like to respond briefly to the three principal
objections that are usually advanced against the aristotelian
thesis on the basis of as many exeget-ical difficulties.54
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9 (1) The first objection concerns the nature of
self-sufficiency (autrcheia) that aristotle assigns to the chief
good and then to eudaimonia in chapter 5. Just as eudaimonia is the
perfect good because no one chooses it aiming at something else, so
it will also be self-sufficient because it is perfect. The
eudaimon, however, is self-sufficient not because he is a solitary
man (as this would be incompatible with the political nature of
man), but rather because his way of life (bios) is in itself worthy
of being chosen (or is the thing most worthy of being chosensee 5,
1097b1415) because it lacks nothing. in fact, if one could add to
it even the small-est of the goods, eudaimonia would no longer be
the preferable and ultimate good, given that among the goods one
should always choose the best one (b1920). This statement has
raised more perplexities than needed, i believe.55 We must not
forget that we are dealing with chapter 5, and that therefore
aristotle has not yet enunciated any of his definitions of the
chief good, neither the essential one of chapter 6 nor the two
successive ones of chapters 10 and 11 that complement its clauses.
However, it is clearly eudaimonia he is talking about when he says
that you cannot add to it any good because it is self-sufficient
(1097b15 ff.), and, according to him, eudaimonia is nothing other
than the complete definition he will give of it in chapter 11 and
from which our analysis started: an activity of the rational soul
carried out in an excellent way, in a complete life and with the
addition of a sufficient amount of external goods.56 in other
words, the external goods, which we will consider in more detail
shortly, are a constitutive element of the definition and thus
cannot be considered the more that, if added to eudaimonia, would
deny its primacy as chief good. What is meant here, on the
contrary, is not that the ergon kataretn is self-sufficient, so to
imply that man could be happy in the absence of any external and
corporeal good, just devoting his life to the exercise of virtuous
activities. There is no good, however minimal, which added to the
aristotelian formula of eudaimonia would alter its balance, because
it does not lack any of the goods that are required for it.57 (2)
The second objection concerns the clause in a complete life and in
par-ticular the meaning of the adjective tleios predicated of bios.
in the passages58 in which the phrase occurs it seems clear that
tleios, when referred to bios, always acquires a temporal value: in
the occurrence of chapter 11 the whole span of life is contrasted
with any limited period of time;59 a child is not really happy
because of his age, and could be said to be happy only in the hope
that he could become so, because many changes occur during a
lifetime and it is possible that the most prosperous man fall into
terrible misfortunes in his old age, and no-one can be called happy
who has endured such misfortunes and died in such a terrible way
(10, 1100a4 ss).60 and again, the happy man will be happy for his
whole life (di biou, b18). consequently, one could charge
aristotle, and Solon as well, with the accusation of having
formulated a paradoxical thesis: if one cannot say that any-one is
happy while he lives, but must wait till the completion (telos) of
his life to do so, it follows that one can only be really happy
after death. but if eudaimonia is by definition a certain kind of
activity, this is completely absurd (pantels topon). aristotle does
not believe, however, that to call happy the one who is dead is
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10
really Solons thesis, but that Solon rather intended to
emphasize that eudaimonia is something stable61 and thus ill-suited
to man as long as he is at the mercy of evils and misfortunes.
making death a condition of stability, however, is not only
para-doxical, but is also not sufficient, for two reasons: (1) it
does not take into account the common belief that there are some
goods and some evils for the dead as well, for example, honor and
dishonor or the success and failure of their descendants; and (2)
if we adopt luck (tuche) as a criterion for happiness, in so doing
we incur a still greater absurdity by making the eudaimon appear as
a chameleon, as we should call the same person first happy, then
miserable (thlios), then happy again within a single life. The
solution to both paradoxes (i.e., calling happy the one who is dead
and not calling happy the one who is alivesee 1100a32 ff.) lies in
reassigning the stability requirement of eudaimonia to what is the
requirement of, i.e., to virtuous activity, of whatever kind that
may be.62 if the happiness of man mainly depends on this activity
because it is the only way to make it stable, then bad luck and the
vices of the descendants, like the big misfortunes of life, can
reduce and obscure bliss (makariotes)63 to the extent that it can
cause pain and hinder the exercise of that activity, but cannot
alter its essence. in fact, the beautiful shines for those who have
the magnanimity to withstand adversity in these cases as well.
Similarly, great and numerous fortunes and ones descendants
successes will make life more blessed (makariteron) by embellishing
it as a kind of ornamental addi-tion64 to that which is complete in
itself, and not by adding to it a missing ingre-dient; this is
proved by the fact that minor fortunes and misfortunes are instead
irrelevant.65 However, there remains a small flaw in this perfect
construction, that aristotle cannot ignore: if eudaimonia is the
end and is that which is most com-plete in every aspect, as our
previous analysis seems to indicate, and given that the future is
obscure, it is necessary to add to our definition that to be
eudaimon, a man must not only live, but also die happy.66 The
paradox of Solon stands, then, but the response that aristotle has
in store is at once the most simple and pro-foundly human: if this
is the case, we will say that those who live in the manner we have
described are blessed (makarious), but blessed as men (makarious
dan-thropous). The perfection of enrgeia inevitably conflicts with
the imperfection of human nature. There is an irreconcilable
tension between activity par excellence for its own sake and the
constitutive limits of man that consist, on the one hand, of his
political nature (happiness does not belong to the one who is
stateless) and, on the other hand, of his mortality: perfect
happiness, bliss, only belongs to the gods. Perfection does not
belong to men except as an expression of their divine part.67
reduced to a human scale, even the most perfect activity becomes
imperfect in at least one aspect: of a being in time we can say
that he has been happy, conjugat-ing the verb in the past, or that
he is happy in the present, but with reservations, because that is
his nature.68 only of an immortal god in his eternal present can we
say that he is happy and blessed without qualification, because we
can say at the same time that he was, is, and will be happy. This
interpretation is confirmed
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11
by aristotle himself, in particular in a passage of the Eudemian
Ethics completely parallel to book i of the Nicomachean Ethics:
and that we have rightly stated its [scl. of happiness] genus
and defini-tion is proved by opinions that we all hold. For we
think that to do well [eu prattein] and live well [eu zen] are the
same [to aut] as to be happy [eudaimonein]; but each of these, both
life and action, is employment [chresis] and activity [enrgeia],
inasmuch as active life involves employ-ing thingsthe coppersmith
makes a bridle, but the horseman uses it. There is also the
evidence of the opinion that a person is not happy for one day
only, and that a child is not happy, nor any period of life (hence
also Solons advice holds good, not to call a man happy while he is
alive, but only when he has reached the end), for nothing
incomplete is happy, since it is not a whole. (ii 1, 1219a40b8, H.
rackams transl. modified)69
(3) The third objection, finally, deals with the role played by
external goods, i.e., with the last clause of the definition
introduced later in chapters 10 and 11.70 in order to be eudaimon,
a man must necessarily be provided with a minimum of cor-poreal and
external goods71 of two kinds: some goods will be instrumental to
the exercise of virtuous activity, useful by nature, for example,
money and friendswithout these resources it would be impossible, or
at least not easy, to perform beautiful actions; other goods, like
a noble birth, children, or beauty, are necessary because their
lack blurs (rhupanousi) happiness. according to aristotle, then, a
certain external prosperity and good fortune (eutuchia) are an
essential part of the definition of eudaimonia. it does not follow
from this, however, that misfortune and a lack of prosperity make a
man unhappy. The remaining goods in addition to the souls own
activitiescorporeal and external goodsare in fact necessary
conditions for happiness, but not in the same way in which virtuous
activity is a necessary condition for it.72 The enrgeiai kataretn
are decisive (kriai) for life and happiness,73 just as the opposite
activities (the vicious ones) are decisive for unhappiness: because
of their stability, they are its key ingredient, or, as it were,
its cause. This means that only the presence of these activities or
of the contrary ones can make a man eudaimon or athlios, i.e.,
happy or unhappy. and since it is not easy, if not impossible, to
lose the virtuous habit acquired with effort and reinforced by
daily exercise, then no blessed man can become miserable (11,
1100b34).74 Happy and unhappy are not contradictory opposites for
aristotle; that is, the law of the excluded middle does not hold
true for them, but an inter-mediate condition between the two is
allowed. lack of a sufficient amount of external goods will prevent
a man from being happy, or truly blessed, making him not happy, but
will not lead him to a condition of misery. The stability of his
excel-lent character will be back active as soon as fate will favor
its exercise again; such stability is then not affected, but only
temporarily blurred by misfortune. in the same way, the greatest
prosperity will be unable to turn a miserable man into a happy one
because the character, even the vicious one, persists once
formed:75 only through constant exercise of the best part of
ourselves will we achieve that for which we are born and therefore
be happy.
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ii. EUDAIMONIA aNd HaPPiNeSS
if we retrace the history of the term eudaimon and the like from
the beginning, we can easily realize that eudaimonia was for a
greek what happiness is for us today and that therefore aristotles
theory relates to the common sense of his time in the same way that
our contemporary theories about happiness relate to todays common
sense. leaving aside the theological origin of eudaimon in its
etymolog-ical meaning (having the daimon in your favour),76 the
term is in fact used as a synonym for lbios, prosperous, and the
most common idea is that of eudaimonia as prosperity, i.e., the man
who has a favorable fate and possesses the best external goods is
considered eudaimon: good birth, children, wealth, and even a
beautiful death as the crowning of a happy life.77 However, there
are at least three funda-mental differences between the ancient and
the modern, two of which call com-mon sense into question, while
the third is purely theoretical. (1) The first difference concerns
the modern preference for a subjective vision of happiness as a
mental state of satisfaction (to be and feel happy are one and the
same thing),78 which is opposed to the ancient objective view of
eudaimonia as possession of goods, of whatever kind they may be.
However, this difference is not as clear-cut as it may seem. in
fact, not everyone today thinks that happiness is to be satisfied
with ones life in its totality; instead, some would rather define
it as a life which, in its totality, makes us satisfied.79 This
seemingly innocuous and irrelevant reversal of perspective actually
expresses the need for an objective element acting as a guarantee:
happiness is something desirable, and therefore it should be
accounted for; for example, it should be grounded in reality and
not be the result of deception or illusion, and the satisfaction
felt should be genuine, not due to an alteration induced by
exogenous substanceslike drugsor caused by an endogenous
dysfunction. The necessary and sufficient conditions for happiness
according to the com-mon sense view are several: happiness must be
complete (i.e., must be a satisfaction both at its highest degree
and with all the important aspects of life),80 durable (vs.
intense, momentary joy)81 and pleasurable (this is the very same
concept of inner satisfaction). There is no agreement, however, on
one last requirement: that happiness, being something desirable,
must be accounted for. The debate revolves around the famous case
of poor Susan, thus named with reference to an essay by Wayne
Sumner, but already known by Tatarkiewicz in a different version:82
Susan had been living for ten years believing that her marriage was
perfect, while her friends knew that actually her husband had a
double life and a second family elsewhere in town. in these ten
years of marriagethat is, before discovering the truthwas Susan
happy? Was hers a happy marriage?83 if in order to be happy it were
sufficient to feel happy (this is Sumners thesis)and if therefore
the answer to the question about Susans happiness were
affirmativewe would not know how to explain our reluctance to put
ourselves in her shoes. if hypothetically Susan could go back and
continue to feel happy without being aware of her husbands
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betrayal, perhaps she would agree to exchange the truth for
feeling good (because she felt good then, i.e., causality is not
retroactive: the present cannot influence the past); but not
everyone would make the same choice.84 also, ifagain,
hypothet-icallySusan could choose between this last option and that
of having a past free from deception, obviously she would opt for
the latter.85 The so-called Sufficiency thesis (to feel happy to be
happy) does not even explain pathological cases like the one
described in an episode of the american TV series Ally McBeal86
where a clot in a mans brain results in a permanent state of
happiness and elation, which he himself recognizes as artificial
and not corresponding to reality as soon as he decides to have the
clot removed so as to be able to mourn the death of his wife from
cancer. The inadequacy of extreme subjectivism lies in the failure
to recog-nize that, to be truly happy, the state of inner
satisfaction must follow the reali-zation of ones own ideal of
life. matthieu ricard, the scientist who in 2004 gave up his career
to follow the dalai lama and who, after a measurement of his brain
waves, was found to be the happiest man in the world,87 would not
be considered as such by the many who do not agree with his life
choice: to feel happy is not a sufficient condition for truly being
so (this is Tatarkiewiczs thesis).88 and after all pleasure is a
necessary condition for happiness, as shown by the sad story of
Vasja Sumkv, dostoyevskys weak-hearted character who suddenly finds
himself to have fulfilled his greatest desires and at the same time
to have realized the common ideal of happiness, and yet is not
happy because, due to an uncontrollable fear of losing what he has,
he is unable to feel satisfaction and ends up going crazy.89
on the other hand, the subjective view is not entirely alien to
ancient com-mon sense, as aristotle shows when among the ndoxa
concerning eudaimonia he mentions the hedonistic thesis according
to which eudaimonia coincides with pleasure.90 The ingredient of
pleasure is not even absent from aristotles definition itself, in
its double role of what perfects or intensifies the activity, as a
sort of crowning, and of unhindered activity, in the sense that we
feel pleasure in the very possibility of freely exercising the
specific activity that constitutes our natural end.91 Feeling good,
i.e., the inner satisfaction about the present and optimism for the
future, is therefore not alien to eudaimonia, because virtuous
activities are pleasurable by nature. every stable pleasure is a
pleasure of this kind. (2) The second difference actually hides a
similarity between modern and ancient views and raises the problem
of moral luck, i.e., of the relationship between happiness on the
one hand, chance and luck on the other. modern and ancient common
sense shareas we have seenthe thesis according to which happiness
consists in prosperity and good fortune,92 a thesis against which
the ancient philosophers would advance the following objection:
external goods are fundamentally unstable, susceptible to fortune;
hence if happiness consisted only in or mainly of their possession,
we would let chance decide about our existence. Happiness, if it
exists at all, must be something stable.93 it is not clear to what
extent modern theories meet the stability requirement, but it is
undeniable that each of us steadily desires the thingwhatever it
might bethat is regarded as
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necessary for our happiness. The possibility of freeing it from
the whims of luck should then be at the very least an attractive
one. (3) Finally, the third and possibly the most radical
difference concerns the link between moral good and happiness.
ethics is the theory of good life, of what it is to live well; in
other words, a theory of moral good. Philosophical reflection on
the good is therefore linked to the sphere of morality; but is to
be morally decent equal to or different from wanting to be happy?
What is the connection between moral good and happiness? For the
ancients, ethics revolves around the concept of hap-piness (thats
why we speak of eudaimonistic ethics): to claim that the final
good, the supreme good of human life is happiness, is the same as
claiming that our greatest duty toward both ourselves and the
community we live in is to be happy. For the modern person,
however, things are quite different. indeed, the concept of
happiness has progressively turned into an individualistic and
egoistic one. Why, then, listen to a voice so dissonant to us as
that of aristotle? The provocative outdatedness94 of the
aristotelian thesis lies, in my opinion, in two moves. (1) The
first one consists in centering happiness on what depends on us and
not on fortune (external goods) or on necessity (corporeal goods),
i.e., in centering it on goods of the soul,95 on properly human
excellences. according to aristotle, there is room for freedom and
responsibility between chance and necessity thanks to mans
voluntary actions, of which moral actions are a kind: we are, in
fact, praised or blamed for our actions, for what depends on us. on
this basis the two main dif-ferences between ancient and modern
theories of happiness are actually canceled. First of all,
aristotles eudaimonia, conceived of on a human scale, settles the
dis-pute between subjectivists and objectivists by recognizing the
mixed nature of the concept of happiness, which reconciles the
external point of view with the internal one: eudaimonia is an
enrgeia (external point of view), but of the soul (internal point
of view). in addition, it is an activity in accordance with aret
(internal ele-ment) in a complete life, with a sufficient number of
external and corporeal goods (objective element), accompanied and
crowned by pleasure (subjective element).96 This is the nature of
happiness to which the subjective and objective elements both
contribute in the proportions set out above.97 To ignore it would
mean to turn the concept of happiness into something slippery and
impossible to define and, on a practical level, to make happiness
even more difficult to achieve than it already is by its own
nature. as for the divergence between happiness and morality
distinctive of contemporary theories, aristotles response consists
in rooting the moral good in the nature of man. as we have seen,
the end of human actions is an extra-moral good, i.e., each one of
us always acts in view of what he thinks to be a good for him. and
the final end, i.e., the chief good and happiness, lies in the
exercise of the activ-ity that above all makes us human, i.e.,
rational activity, according to the excellence that marks it: an
excellence that is at the same time intellectual and moral.
morality is thus rooted in human nature, not because virtues, like
passions and capacities (dunmeis), are innate in manfor aristotle,
on the contrary, they are the result of
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15
habit and learningbut because virtuous activities, the enrgeiai
kataretn (both moral and intellectual), constitute the ergon and
the natural end of man. To be happy is a moral duty because our
nature demands it. (2) The second move consists of a challenge,
because aristotles aim in writ-ing the Nicomachean Ethics concerns
something unusual for us and can therefore result into either a
success or a failure. if action is the fundamental ingredient of
human life, if the theory of action is what describes our life,
then we must try to know the chief good as much as we can,98 and
this will be the task of politik, the architectonic science to
which ethics is a sort of prelude, because man is by nature a
political animal:99 it is part of his intrinsic nature, and it is
his proper form, to live in a city (polis) whose task is to ensure
not only living, but living well, i.e., that kind of well-being
that aristotle identifies with eudaimonia. The purpose of the
Nicomachean Ethics, however, is not knowledge, but action:100 even
if knowing the highest good in its essential features is very
important for the goal of our lives, [ ] in the field of action the
realisation does not consist in theoretically know-ing every
aspect, but above all in putting it into practice (10, 1179a35
ss.). That is, the purpose is not to increase our knowledge of the
world, but aristotles discus-sion has as its goal human action in
the world. aristotle is quite close to Socrates in this respect: in
recognizing that conventional paideia is essentially cognitive,
while moral paideia is out of the curricula and is not a taught
subject-matter, marking a major gap in the traditional system of
education. Paideuein in greek means both to instruct and to
educate. The first level of paideia deals with instruction, which
is learning at once ones own language and the encyclopedia, that is
the basic com-mon beliefs of the polis, in order to acquire a
techne, an expertise to support oneself (professional education).
There is, however, also a superior level of paideia, which differs
in its end from instruction: to educate someone means to make sure
that that human being is at his best and cultivates his humanity to
the highest degree (nonprofessional education). How should we live?
Which bios? Which form will our lives take? moral principles are
not transmitted through instruction, they are not subjects of
traditional teaching, and yet a moral code exists. but, then, who
teaches us to be morally decent? Superior education remains in the
background, it is tacitly acquired through rewards and punishments,
and this marks the failure of our educational system. To be happy,
for Socrates as for Plato and aristotle, cannot be separated from
fulfilling ones own moral profile.101 This is the reason why it
makes sense to accept aristotles challenge. His ethics merely
describes how things are (it is not a pre-scriptive ethics, because
it does not need to be so), correcting the imperfections and the
errors of common sense where they lurk;102 and nevertheless it can
be con-sidered as an example of moral paideia because it is a right
way to talk about it:103 moral and intellectual happiness is the
ultimate expression of your nature, and it is perfectly within your
reach, whatever profession you choose in your life, be it or not an
expression of your individual talents. So why should you not
practice it? if this attempt results in a failure, it will at least
be a noble failure.
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acKNoWledgmeNTS
This essay is a distillation of the work done in recent years in
advanced semi-nars held at the university of bologna and Pisa, and
in a course of lectures at the university of Ferrara. Warm thanks
are due to all the participants in sem-inars and the students of
the course for their stimulating questions and com-ments. a special
thanks goes to Walter cavini for reading and discussing a first
draft of my paper, to angelo giavatto and Paola gamberini for a
last- minute reviewing of my english, and to three anonymous
referees for their very helpful remarks and suggestions.
NoTeS
1. unless otherwise indicated, the translations of the texts
cited are my own. The abbreviations of the names of greek and latin
authors and of the titles of their works are taken respectively
from the Greek-English Lexicon by H. g. liddell, r. Scott, and H.
S. Jones, and the Oxford Latin Dictionary by P. glare.
2. ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 89:
augustine says (Conf. Xi.14): quid est ergo tempus? si nemo ex me
quaerat scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.This could not
be said about a question of natural science (for instance, what is
the specific gravity of hydrogen). Something that we know when no
one asks us, but no longer know when we are supposed to give an
account of it, is something that we need to remind ourselves of
[etwas, worauf man sich besinnen mu]. (and it is obviously
something of which for some reason it is difficult to remind
oneself).
3. on the other hand, we are not able to give more than a purely
ostensive answer to the question of what time is it, such as by
indicating toward the face of a clock.
4. [ ] we have four uses of the term happiness; a man is said to
be happy if (1) he is satisfied with his life, (2) he experiences
the greatest joy, (3) he is successful and (4) he possesses the
highest good. These four meanings are a copious source of confusion
in our ideas about happi-ness; four concepts each designated by the
same word are apt to fuse in our minds into a single nebulous
notion hovering between the four. even though most philosophers who
have written about happiness have accepted only one of them and
eliminated the rest, the average man is still inclined to lump
these four different things under a single label. if he says (of
himself or someone else) that he is happy, he means it sometimes in
one sense, sometimes in another; if he is refer-ring to someone
else he is most likely to be thinking of happiness in the third or
fourth sense, and reserve the first or second sense for his own
happiness (Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1617, italics mine). Whether this is
a real ambiguity or a mere generality, as Fred Feldman prefers to
define it based on a distinction of Quine, it is undeniable that we
do not use the noun happiness and the adjective happy univocally,
though we do use them successfully every day. The statement i am
happy sometimes means i am in ecstasy or i feel an intense joy,
other times i am fine or i am satisfied with my life: these are
clearly two different senses or contextual meanings of the term,
even if they probably belong to a basic common meaning (cf. Feldman
2010, 12736; Quine 1960, ch. 4). Quine himself is in favor of a
loose concept of ambiguity where further technicalities are not
required: having no present technical need of the notion of
ambiguity, however, i shall not try to improve the boundary, but
will just go on using the word as a non-technical term where it
seems appropriately suggestive (p. 132). The everyday use of happy
and happiness belongs, i think, to these cases. in support of the
ambiguity of use, see also the literary examples given in the
following note.
5. cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 29 ff. The work of W. Tatarkiewicz is
punctuated, from the beginning, by countless literary examples
playing on this ambiguity and giving rise to expressions with an
air
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17
of paradox: in aldous Huxleys Antic Hay the hero asks his
companion, after a mozart concert: did you enjoy it? did i? emily
laughed expressively. No, i didnt enjoy it, she said. enjoy isnt
the word; you enjoy eating ices. it made me happy. its unhappy
music but it made me happy (p. 1); This is the source of such
paradoxes as Voltaires: one can feel happy without being happy (p.
19); The german romantic Jean Paul wrote: my happiness is that i am
unhappy: this can sometimes be said by a nation or an individual
(p. 21); He would say, as did the Polish playwright of the 18th
century count Fredro: How unhappy i am with being happy (p. 26);
etc.
6. in regards to lasting happiness, distinctions of common sense
overlap with the philosophical distinction between happiness as a
state of mind and happiness as living well or in a satisfactory
way. See, for example, the beginning of the entry Happiness in the
SEP (Haybron 2011).
7. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the
pur-suit of Happiness (in congress, July 4, 1776). in the film The
Pursuit of Happyness by gabriele muccino (2006), which is inspired
by the declaration, happiness very evidently means prosperity.
Similarly, the manuscript version of the declaration bears the word
prosperity instead of happi-ness; namely, Jefferson initially wrote
that mans main inalienable rights are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of prosperity, engaging a precise meaning of the term
happiness.
8. in other words, following the Socratic method, we will pose
the question of ti esti (What is it?), and we will see, with
aristotle, that this does not mean to do theory in the sense of
doing some-thing separate from the practical research of happiness,
i.e., something abstract. on the contrary this question offers a
good start in order to give a direction to that practical
research.
9. For the Nicomachean Ethics, i adopt the division into
chapters of F. Susemhils and o. apelts critical edition (leipzig
1903).
10. in modern translations, the terms eudaimon and eudaimonia
are translated respectively as happy and happiness by
convention.
11. at least, this is what common experience seems to suggest. a
first difference between the greek eudaimon and the english happy
consists in the fact that eudaimon is never used in relation to an
object: one never says one is eudaimon about something; on the
contrary, in english the adjective happy allows for this use: we
say, for example, i am happy to see you. cf. broadie 2002, 12.
12. Famous in this regard is the beginning of aristotles
Metaphysics: all men by nature aim to know ( ).
13. aristotle seems to recall the Socratic thesis according to
which nobody acts willingly in view of something he believes to be
an evil for him, although it is possible at a later time that he
has sec-ond thoughts and regrets, i.e., that he is wrong. For
Socrates, too, the good as the end of an action is to be understood
in an extra-moral sense.
14. in the original latin sense of deliberatio: to ponder, to
weigh up the various possibilities.
15. For example, courage is preserved by the mean inasmuch as
the brave, unlike the coward, who is afraid and runs away from
anything, and the rash, who tackles everything and fears nothing
(both vices, respectively by defect and excess, in absence of the
calculation of phrnesis), will have fear in just measure and in the
right circumstances, i.e., will be able to control his emo-tions.
Phrnesis thus operates directly on the determination of character
(together with habit) and mediately (through such character
determination) both on the choice that leads to the action and on
the goal established by the will.
16. it seems that according to aristotle there are only two
possible goods that are desirable and achievable only per se and
never with a view to other goods: eudaimonia and pleasure. For
aristotle they are not the same thing and, in the Nicomachean
Ethics, pleasure is described as something that supervenes on the
activity of eudaimonia (see above, p. 13) and thus depends on it.
Furthermore, good and pleasure are distinct because they are the
object of two different species of rexis, respectively, will
(bolesis) and desire (epithumia).
17. Praxis as an object of ethics is not any action, but moral
action, i.e., action subject to praise and blame. a moral action is
a voluntary one: we do not praise or blame nonvoluntary actions or
those not subject to praise or blame. in this sense, for aristotle,
animals and children do not act (cf. EN i 8, 1099b321100a3; EE ii
6, 1222b20; 8, 1224a29).
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18
18. an implicit assumption underlying the entire aristotelian
argument is the teleological thesis according to which nature does
nothing in vain. For example, it cannot be in vain for human beings
to be created as agents, i.e., it would be foolish if human acting,
which is the fundamental ingredient of human life, did not have an
end. See for example 10, 1099b2022.
19. unlike, for example, the Platonic idea of good as a good in
itself, eternal, and separate (4, 1096b3233). cf. 9, 1099b3233: [ ]
we do not call an ox or a horse happy and 13, 1102a1516. The
distinction between goods that are also means or instruments for
other ends and goods in themselves, until the superlative good in
itself, i.e., the chief good (always desirable, and only for
itself, never as an instrument for other ends), is introduced in
the proem and completed in chapter 5 of book i.
20. Happiness is an intrinsically superlative word (whereas
chief good is a grammatically super-lative word: to riston).
epicurus writes in the Letter to Menoeceus: When there is happiness
we have everything, when there is not we do everything to have it (
122). in making this argument, aristotle thinks of a passage in
Platos Symposium:
d.: and what will he get when good things become his own?
S.: Thats easier for me to answer, i said; hell be happy.
d.: So its the ownership of good things that makes happy people
happy; and you dont need to ask the further question, Why does
someone want to be happy? This answer seems to mark the end of the
enquiry (204e205a, christopher gills transl., italics mine).
cf. Wittgenstein, Notebooks 19141916: and if i now ask myself:
but why should i live happily, then this of itself seems to me to
be a tautological question; the happy life seems to be justified of
itself, it seems that it is the only right life (30.7.16, g. e. m.
anscombes transl. slightly modified). Contra Sumner 2002, 34:
Happiness is not evidentlyindeed evidently notthe only thing that
ultimately matters; but it is assumed that to be happy and to feel
happy are one and the same thing.
21. in chapter 3, aristotle reviews the bioi, ways or styles of
life, each offering a model of happiness: the three main bioi are
the hedonistic (based on pleasure), the political (politiks), and
the theo-retical (theoretiks).
22. This first character is indicative of a form of optimism
belonging to ancient common sense and marks a difference from the
contemporary one.
23. Perfect simpliciter (hapls tleios), as aristotle defines
it.
24. 6, 1097b27. also this fourth premise (T4) seems therefore
endoxic.
25. For aristotle, there is a difference between good (ergon)
and the highest good (ergon kataretn). as we shall see (pp. 78),
the highest good of the flautist is to play the flute in an
excellent way. This obviously does not imply that the flautists
ergon is playing the flute in a bad way: the ergon is the good of
the flautist, though not the highest one. The ergon, then, will be
to play the flute well (i.e., to perform a correct execution), but
not in an excellent way. The same will be true for the human being
as such.
26. So state gauthier and Jolif (2002, 54). cf. Pl. R. i
352d7354c3.
27. cf. bonitz 1870, 285b1516: id dicitur, quod quis facit vel +
facere.
28. The structure of the analogical argument is as follows: as
(hosper) for every x, if x has an ergon, then its good coincides
with its ergon, so (houto) one might also admit the same for the
human being, if the human being is an x that has an ergon.
restated: if the human being belongs to the x that have an ergon
(so being a case or an instantiation of an x that has an ergon),
then, as for every x, if x has an ergon, its good coincides with
its ergon, one might also admit (doxeien) the same for the human
being. it is a conditional (ab) of which aristotle wants to prove
the antecedent in order to be able to derive the consequent (ab,
but a, therefore b) via mPP.
29. it is more precisely a disjunctive interrogative sentence (
), which contains two ana-logical and a fortiori arguments
supporting the thesis that man has an ergon. in this passage the
two disjunctions seem to behave like a couple of rhetorical
questions, the first with answer No and the second with answer
yes.
30. as indicated by the oppositional correlation men de.
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19
31. cf. eustr. in EN 66.2325. However, although he grasps that
an a fortiori argument is at work in the passage, eustratius
applies it to the thesis that the good of man consists of his
ergon, while the argument (or rather the two arguments contained in
the interrogative disjunction) is actually introduced to prove the
thesis that the human being, as human, has an ergon. also see
aquinas: multo autem magis inconveniens est, quod sit otiosum et
frustra id quod est secundum natu-ram, quod est ordinatum ratione
divina, quam id quod est ordinatum ratione humana. [ ] est igitur
aliqua operatio hominis propria, sicut eorum quae ei accidunt (Th.
in EN 121 Spiazzi, italics mine).
32. Since for aristotle soul and body are not separable parts of
the human being but rather form a single compound or snolon, eyes,
hands, and feet are not parts of the body but of the whole human
being. We say my hand, as well as my body and my soul. For
aristotle, in addition to technitai, the parts of man, namely the
non-uniform (anomoiomers) parts (the instrumental, organic parts),
also have an ergon and a praxis. They include (1) organs such as
the eye and the ear; and (2) the complex parts such as the hand or
the foot, that is, those parts of the body that are nonhomogenous
and namely composed by dissimilar parts (PA ii 1, 646b11 ff.), as
they result from the aggregation of uniform (homoiomers) parts
(homogeneous, sensitive parts: bones, flesh, skin, etc.). of these
nonuniform parts there are erga and praxeis (1516). Since their
praxeis and their movements are manifold (polumorphon), it is
necessary that the parts that make them up exhibit different
properties. For each uniform part composing a nonuniform one
preserves its own dnamis, its capacity (e.g., to be soft, hard,
wet, and so on), and these multiple dunameis allow the nonuniform
part to perform its various actions and movements (1, 646b13).
Since each instrument is in view of an end, this will also hold of
every organ of the body, the end being a praxis, an activity. The
end of the whole body will then be a praxis polmeros, a composite
activity (5, 645b17).
33. again through a rhetorical question, but this time with the
answer yes. This is not a classic part/whole argument, as aquinas
has it (in EN 122 Spiazzi); for if it were so, we would have to
admit that aristotle falls into a trivial fallacy of composition:
if the parts have a certain property, it does not necessarily
follow from this that the whole of which they are parts have the
same property.
34. it is the same difference in perfection found in the first
argument: the human being is a work of nature, thus it is more
perfect than the carpenter or the cobbler, the flautist or the
sculptor, as well as than any art and craft, which are the result
of learning and human experience. gauthier and Jolif grasp the link
between the two arguments: ils [scl. hoi technitai] exercent leurs
yeux, leurs mains, leurs pieds, leur corps tout entier, [it is not
a whole/parts argument] mais ce nest pas l lhomme. lhomme est en
dehors et au del (gauthier and Jolif 2002, 56, italics mine).
35. The argument of the more and the less is a rhetorical one, a
topos, so it is only probably true (i.e., its not deductively
valid).
36. See above, n. 28.
37. The ergon of something is therefore an idion of that thing,
but not every idion is an ergon.
38. although the passage is controversial and contains a few
lines expunged by some editors, i believe this to be its most
plausible sense. in 9, 1098b30 ff., aristotle resumes the common
opinion on happiness already stated in 3, 1095b30 ff.: our account
is in harmony with those who say that happiness is excellence, or
some form of excellence; for activity in accordance with excellence
belongs to excellence. but perhaps it makes no little difference
whether we suppose the chief good to be located in the possession
of excellence or in its use, i.e. in a habit [en hexei] or in a
form of activity [enrgeia]. For it is possible for the habit to be
present and yet to produce nothing good, as for example in the case
of the person who is asleep or in some other way quite inactive,
but the same will not hold of the activity: the person will
necessarily be acting, and acting well (christopher rowes transl.
modified). it is a recovery of the virtuous ingredient: in chapter
3, aristotle had examined the ndoxon according to which virtue
(aret) would be the end of politi-cal life, and then excluded it by
saying that aret is incomplete (atels): for it seems to be possible
actually to be asleep while having ones excellence ([chonta ten
aretn, like in our passage tou logon chontos], or to spend ones
life in inactivity [apraktein], and furthermore to suffer, and to
meet with the greatest misfortunes; and no one would call the
person who lived this kind of life happy. The act is worth more
than the disposition also in EE ii 1, 1219a31 (cf. bods 2004, 70 n.
4).
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39. literally an activity of the soul according to reason or not
without reason (1098a78): the praktik regards both the rational
soul and the conative (orektiks) or appetitive soul (willing and
desiring).
40. The greek, which unlike most modern languages has the
perfect tense, can best express this property. We must content
ourselves with the present perfect tense.
41. Here praxis clearly means activity, not moral action; and in
particular a productive activity, a poesis.
42. This double value of ergon as an activity and as a result of
the activity is the reason why it is preferable to translate the
greek word as work rather than, for example, as function or task.
in english, work means both the process and its product (resultant
sense). Contra Whiting 1988.
43. cf. i 1,1094a13: the good is that at which all things aim,
that is to say, as restated in line 4, their telos; a1822: as the
good is the end, so the chief good is the ultimate end, hence
pursued for its own sake and not in view of another thing; 1094a4
ff.: some ends are activities (enrgeiai), others are works beyond
them (par auts erga tin). and when the ends are beyond actions (par
tas praxeis), then the works (ta erga) are better than the
activities (enrgeia is here an exact synonym for praxis). cf. what
Wittgenstein writes in his Notebooks 19141916: and in this sense
dostoievsky is right when he says that the man who is happy is
fulfilling the purpose of existence. or again we could say that the
man is fulfilling the purpose of existence who no longer needs to
have any purpose apart from life. That is to say, who is satisfied
(6.7.16, g. e. m. anscombes transl. slightly modified); on
happiness as satisfaction, see above, pp. 1213 and below, n.
90.
44. Starting from aristotle spoudaios is the adjective
corresponding to the noun aret (Plato still used agaths).
45. Here again aristotle echoes Pl. R. i 352d8354c3. even for
Plato if x has an ergon, then it also has an aret proper to that
ergon; this means that if one performs his ergon with aret, he
performs it well (eu), and if one performs his ergon with kakia, he
performs it badly. This is also true for the soul, whose ergon is
to live (to zen), because the soul is the principle of life. if the
soul lives (namely, if it realizes its ergon) with aret, this means
that it lives justly, because justice is the aret of the soul. as a
result, for Plato, justice is a sufficient condition for happiness
(justice happiness), and in this respect, his theory of ergon turns
out to diverge from that of aristotle.
46. Top. Vii 1, 152a3132: again, you must examine whether, when
the one of two things is the same as a third thing, the other is
also the same as it: for if both are not identical to the same
thing, clearly they are not identical to each other. cf. SE 6,
168b3132: For we retain that things identical to one and the same
thing are identical to each other. This is a relational syllogism
that euclid poses as a common notion at the beginning of his
Elements of Geometry: Things equal to the same thing are at the
same time equal to each other (i Ke 1).
47. T6 remains an implicit thesis; that is, the conclusion of a
tacit inference.
48. in fact, one swallow does not make a spring, nor a single
day; and in the same way does not supremely happy neither a single
day nor a brief time (6, 1098a1820). This famous saying is
catalogued in the Adagia by erasmus (62). cf. ar. Av. 1417; S. Ant.
737 and Hor. Ep. i 7, 13.
49. but see 13, 1102a1318: since we are looking for the human
good and human happiness (taga-thn anthrpinon kai eudaimonian
anthropinen) we should also consider human virtue (aretn
anthropinen); and we call human virtue not the virtue of the body,
but that of the soul.
50. cf. EE ii 1, 1219a40b8 and see above, p. 11.
51. This is the difference between ergon and idion: for every x
there are many idia but only one ergon (see above, n. 37);
accordingly the sole work and activity of plants is for aristotle
the generation of the seed (cf. bekker 1870, 839b4246). The ergon
is something exclusive, and this holds without exception: the
enrgeia kataretn of man is not even shared by the gods, whose ergon
consists in the pure and constant activity of theorein (cf. EN X 8,
1178b1832), an enduring condition that is as such inaccessible to
man; contra Whiting 1988, 37.
The aristotelian ergon argument is aristotles original thesis as
opposed, for example, to that of giovanni Pico della mirandola, for
whom man does not have an ergon, and this is his very dignity, that
of being able to assume every possible ergon according to his will,
whether that of the beasts or that of the gods. The ergon is
individual and not common to humankind. There is a clear revival of
the myth told in Platos Protagoras, in which Prometheus corrects
the fault of his improvident brother epimetheus, who did not leave
any special gift to mankind. giving
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21
fire to men, Prometheus annuls such a condemnation. For Pico
this lack is not a condemnation, but rather constitutes the dignity
of man: god intentionally does not give any specific prerog-ative
to man, not even reason, just in order to make him free and worthy
of admiration: Quis hunc nostrum chamaeleonta non admiretur? aut
omnino quis aliud quicquam admiretur magis? Quem non immerito
asclepius atheniensis versipellis huius et se ipsam transformantis
naturae argumento per Proteum in mysteriis significari dixit (De
hominis dignitate, 131v). This is exactly what aristotle denies to
the happy man in 11, 1100b4 ff.
52. an interpretation of the word felicit (happiness or
felicity) survives in italian with the mean-ing opportunity,
convenience, and in general the quality of what is successful in an
excellent way: felicit di una frase, di unespressione, di unidea
[felicity of a sentence, an expression, or an idea]; con quanta
felicit i suoi concetti descrivesse (machiavelli) (Treccani.it).
unlike italian, which keeps the same term (felicit) for both
happiness and opportunity, english distinguishes between happiness
and felicity. cf. J. l. austins felicity conditions of a
performative utterance.
53. by our concept of happiness i mean the contemporary common
sense concept of happiness as described above in 2.
54. except for what is probably the most important objection,
which concerns the clause and if there be more than one [scl. of
aretai], according to the best and most perfect. The lack of
clarity about what the most perfect human aret is has led to the
famous dispute between dominant and inclusive interpretations of
the relationship between perfect happiness, i.e., theoretical
activity, and a second-degree happiness, i.e., political or
practical activity. on this issue see, for the time being, the
illuminating essay by anthony long (2011). i plan in the future to
make this issue the subject of a new essay centered on EN X 69.
55. also recently. cf. e.g. Heinaman 2002.
56. at the beginning of chapter 7, aristotle himself refers to
the arguments of chapter 6 calling them outlines [hupotuposeis] of
the chief good; namely, a kind of sketch that will have to be
finished and completed, but not corrected and modified in its
substance.
57. The ergon, defined in terms of activity (enrgeia) in chapter
6 as a necessary conclusion of an analogical argument, is certainly
an internal good of the soul, according to the common opinion about
the tripartite division of goods and the primacy of the goods of
the soul over corporeal and external goods (chapter 8); but it does
not follow from this that it can be identified with eudaimonia. on
the contrary, we shall see that it is one of its necessary
conditions, and pre-cisely the essential or dominant condition,
although not exclusive. The activity of ergon, not eudaimonia as a
whole, is a good of the soul: the paradox of an internal good made
up in part of external goods does not hold. on this issue, see
Heinaman 2002 and 2007.
58. Not only the Nicomachean Ethics. See, e.g., EE ii 1, 1219a35
ff.: tleios, with reference both to life and to aret, means total
(hole) vs. partial (mrion).
59. 1101a16: .
60. cf. 1101a813: Nor, again, is he many-coloured and
changeable; for neither will he be moved from his happy state
easily or by any ordinary misadventures, but only by many great
ones, nor, if he has had many great misadventures, will he recover
his happiness in a short time, but if at all, only in a long and
complete one in which he has attained many splendid successes (W.
d. rosss transl. revised by J. o. urmson, italics mine). aristotles
eudaimonia is a form of life, as myles burnyeat defined it in a
radio interview on www.philosophybites.com (burnyeat 2007). See
also Tatarkiewicz 1976, 23: in yet another sense life amounts to
all the events in which a man is involved and to which he reacts
from birth to death. it is in this, the most common of all its
senses, that we say that the happy man is satisfied with life.
61. The present difficulty itself bears witness to our account.
For in no aspect of what human beings do is there such stability
[bebaiotes] as there is in activities in accordance with excellence
[ ] (christopher rowes transl.).
62. 1100b1820: e [ ]. cf. Pol. Vii 3, 1325b16 ff.
63. The makariotes is proper to the gods, thus the term is used
here in a hyperbolic sense to indicate human happiness in its
highest degree. cf. 12, 1101b2325 and see below, n. 67.
64. Taking a beautiful image from Tatarkiewicz: They are like
flowers on a dinner table, enhancing
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22
the pleasure of the meal, but otiose if the table is empty or
the food uneatable (Tatarkiewicz 1976, 98).
65. 11, 1100b22 ff.; cf. 1101a34 ff.
66. death turns out to be a part of life if it can actually
render life still more successful, as happened to Tellus of athens,
the happiest man according to Solon (see below, n. 77), or if it
can render one immortal as for Socrates: death does not always mark
the boundary of a persons life as an end that stands outside it;
sometimes it is a part of that life, continuing its narrative story
in some sig-nificant way. Socrates, abraham lincoln, Joan of arc,
Jesus, and Julius caesar all had deaths that were further episodes
of their lives, not simply endings, and we are able to see their
lives as head-ing toward those immortal deaths (Nozick 1989, 23).
Contra Wittgenstein, Notebooks 19141916: death is not an event of
life. it is not a fact of the world (8.7.16, g. e. m. anscombes
transl.); cf. TLP 6. 4311: death is not lived through (c. K. ogdens
transl.). Contra rassow, i hold the passage 1101a1719 as
genuine.
67. cf. 12, 1101b2325: [ ] in fact, we call the gods blessed and
happy, and we call blessed [with a hyperbole] more divine men.
insofar as he performs the virtuous and perfect activities of which
happiness consists, man has a great chance of living like a god
among men: because a man who lives among immortal goods is nothing
like a mortal man, as epicurus would put it (Ep. Men. 135).
Eudaimonia is the only example of an activity for its own sakethus
perfect and divinethat is accessible to man, and is not just any
kind of activity, but human activity par excellence. in chapter 12
of book i, aristotle explicitly treats eudaimonia as a divine
thing, hence worthy of honor and not of praise. Sarah broadie and
anthony a. long have recognized in divine life the unifying
paradigm of human happiness: in fact, according to aristotles
clinching argument, the respect in which we should be comparing the
political and theoretical ideals is the degree to which they
approximate the life of gods, the paradigm of happiness (broadie
2002, 7778); my aim [ ] is to see what progress we may make in
interpreting aristotelian eudaimonia by reviewing the terms
associations with divinity and with nous (long 2011, 94); divinity
is [ ] a prominent concept (ivi, 95); aristotle claims that human
beings have a composite nature, the best part of which is not human
but divine. We may try to make the paradox more tractable by
interpreting it as aristotles way of stating that human beings as a
species are equipped with a faculty that can enable them
intermittently to transcend their quotidian activities as living
bodies and live as if they were pure intellects (ivi, 100101); [ ]
all virtuous activities of nous are productive of some degree of
happiness because they, and not exclusively contemplation, involve
the exercise of our divine essence. [ ] the divine life is the
standard reference and paradigm of happiness (ivi, 102); We can
support broadies intuition concerning the resemblance of each type
[scl. of happiness] to the divine paradigm by invoking the
quasi-divinity of human nous (ivi, 112). See also below, n. 76.
68. in other words, happiness in its own essence, once the
virtuous activity of which it consists reaches regular practice, is
a lifelong possession (is di biou), difficult to lose and thus a
sufficient criterion to call a man happy. However, man does not
coincide with his rational soul and with his nousi.e., with the
divine element in himselfhe does not belong to the realm of
necessity, but to that of contingency, and is therefore subject to
fate and corruption; and in addition he needs the presence of other
men in order to live in a fully human way. His mortal side renders
the future uncertain and his happiness imperfect. everything is
known only when everything is over (Tatarkiewicz 1976, 117).
69. i believe this is also what aristotle means in book i of
Nicomachean Ethics. The Priam case is not a counterexample for the
following reason. To say that the happy man will never become
miser-able, though neither will he be blessed if he meets with
fortunes like Priams (EN i 11, 1101a68) does not mean that the
happy man at any given time (Priam before falling out of favor)
will be such, i.e., will be happy no matter what happens. it means
instead that, in case of misfortunes great and repeated, he will
not continue to be happy (cf. a1013), i.e., will not be blessed
(bliss is happiness forever); but will not for this reason be
unhappy, because he will retain the habit of virtue (see above, p.
11).
70. The two main passages are 10, 1099b2728 and 11,
1101a1416.
71. by the remaining goods (ton loipn agathn) aristotle means
all those that are not goods of the soul, hence both external goods
and internal corporeal goods: cf. 10, 1099b2728.
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72. analogically, in the Rhetoric, external goods, corporeal
goods, and goods of the soul are all con-sidered parts (mere) of
happiness (i 5, 1360b19 ff.), but the virtues are treated
separately in chapter 9 because they are properly objects of praise
as the vices are of blame.
73. 11, 1100b910 and 33. This means that, when needed, the happy
man will know to behave just like a good shoemaker who knows how to
make beautiful shoes with the leather he has been given
(1101a45).
74. cf. 1101a68: and if this is the case, the happy [eudaimon]
man can never become miserable [thlios]though neither will he be
blessed [makarios] if he meets with fortunes like Priams.
75. cf. EN ii 1, 6 and iii 8.
76. The first occurrence of the term is found in a passage of
Hesiods Works and Days, where eudaimon is paired with lbios and
means who has the favourable daimon and so is prosperous (eudaimon
te kai lbios, 82628). being eudamones originally means, then, to be
guarded by a daimon who believes your actions are just and gives
you wealth and prosperity. This etymological meaning, however, does
not play any role in the ordinary use of the word, and has already
disappeared in Herodotus (cf. the next note); consequently i
disagree on this point with long, according to whom the etymology
of eudaimonia together with the central role that the paradigm of
divine life seems to assume in the theses of ancient philosophers
about happiness (from aristotle to epicurus and the Stoics) would
suggest that philosophical eudaimonia, whatever are taken to be its
detailed conditions, is presumed without argument to be a godlike
or quasi-divine existence. The presumption does not need argument
because this connotation of the word is a cultural datum (long
2011, 97). i suggest, on the contrary, that aristotle is the one
who reshapes the etymology of the term, on the basis of a Platonic
idea and according to a philosophical practice that was well-known
to his master. i also suggest that he did that exactly by using the
argument according to which the human ergon is an excellent
activity of the rational soul (namely, both of the praktiks and of
the theoretiks nous). The peculiar work of man, the characteristic
that distinguishes him from all other animals and enables him to be
happy, is nothing else but the exercise of his most divine aspect.
cf. Pl. Ti. 90ad; long 2011, 9596; and especially Sedley 1999. To
confirm this, mans participation in the divine is defined by
aristotle in the same terms as the ergon in book i of Platos
Republic: of all living beings with which we are acquainted man
alone partakes of the divine, or at any rate partakes of it in a
fuller measure than the rest (PA ii 10, 656a89, anthony longs
transl.); see above, p. 4 and n. 27.
77. cf. Hdt. i 3033: Tellus of athens is the happiest of all
(olbitatos) because he is subject to good tuche and takes the
opportunity of a good death, i.e., he dies fighting for his country
with public honor; and S. OT 1186 ff., 1524 ff.: Faced with the bad
luck of oedipus, the chorus of Thebans concludes that no man can be
called happy.
78. cf. Sumner 2002, 24: The presupposition [ ] is that
happiness is a psychological statepos-sibly a quite complex one,
but no less psychological for that. as a psychological state,
happiness is subjective: that is, whether a person is happy (or how
happy she is) is determined not by any objective conditions of her
life but by her own (positive or negative) attitudes toward it;
Tatarkiewicz 1976, 18 ff.
79. Contra Tatarkiewicz 1976, 26: This duality in the notion
suggests two final formulations of the definition: happiness is
lasting, complete and justified satisfaction with life, or it is a
life which yields lasting, complete and justified satisfaction. [ ]
However the difference between the two is formal and linguistic;
they are simply two ways of formulating the same idea. on this
issue, see daniel Haybrons distinction between happiness in the
long-term psychological state (What is this state of mind that so
many people seek, that tends to accompany good fortune, success,
etc.? Haybron 2008, 32) and happiness in the well-being sense (What
is it for my life to go well for me? ib.).
80. Tatarkiewicz distinguishes between complete and total
satisfaction: cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 8.
81. durable means covering a certain period of time (a happy
year, a happy childhood), and in principle a lifetime, even if we
do not continuously feel satisfaction with the same intensity.
82. cf. Sumner 2002 and Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1314: Tatarkiewicz
gives a male version of Susans case.
83. cf. Sumner 2002, 31.
84. in the film The Matrix (1999) this possibility of returning
to the illusion lies in the choice between the red pill and the
blue pill that the protagonist Neo is meant to make when he crosses
the
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24
boundary between the virtual world in which his mind is
imprisoned and the real world; but once the step is taken, once the
truth is learned, it is impossible to go back. on this topic, cf.
griswold Jr. 2002, ch. 11, and especially p. 134: if we are willing
to count a person happy whose state of mind depends on false
beliefs, then happiness is completely subjectivized. as such, it is
vulnerable. What you dont know can hurt you, like an agent from
behind; The confusion of happiness with contentment is widespread.
[ ] The recognition, often belated, that happiness and contentment
are distinct, is perhaps not as widespread, but it is the sort of
stuff of which the wisdom of the elders is made. The end-of-life
feelings of regret and shame supply some evidence, i think, that we
naturally connect happiness with some objective state of
affairs.
85. Happiness is always the best condition, i.e., the preferable
good.
86. Ally McBeal, series iV, episode 17: The Pursuit of
Unhappiness, 2001. cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1314.
87. Il Venerd di Repubblica, may 25, 2007, n. 1001, pp.
2634.
88. cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1316: This is the situation of the
man whose happiness springs from his family life but whose wife is
unfaithful. if he is unaware of this he may be satisfied, but we
would not call him happy (pp. 1314). cf. griswold Jr. 2002, 13132:
and even if one were content over the long haul, there is a more
important way in which contentment is distinguished from happiness;
and that is the tendency of contentment to reduce itself to a state
of mind, one severed from an appraisal of the objective facts.
contentment and unreflectiveness are natural allies. The content
are, so to speak, tranquillized. [ ] Such a life has often been
compared to the life of the beasts, not without reason; my dog, for
example, can certainly be happy in the sense of content. When you
are asleep, you are not happy, however peaceful you may be. you are
just unconscious.
89. Fyodor dostoyevsky, A Weak Heart.
90. See above, n. 21. The subjective view is familiar not only
to common sense: just think of epicuruss aponia (absence of
physical pain) and ataraxia (absence of turmoil) or of the Skeptics
ataraxia, which myles burnyeat reminds us of in his radio interview
(burnyeat 2007, cf. n. 60). in the words of Wittgenstein: Peace in
thoughts. This is the coveted goal by one who makes philosophy
(Vermischte Bemerkungen [1944]). Feldman too describes himself as a
hedonist: i claim [ ] that to be happy is to take pleasure in
things; or, more precisely, to take on balance more occurrent
intrinsic attitudinal pleasure than displeasure in things (Feldman
2010, 17; cf. 107 ff.).
91. cf. Vii 13, 1153a1215 and X 4, 1174b31 ff. in addition for
aristotle the two fundamental ingre-dients of ethics are actions on
the one hand and virtues on the other, and the latter are defined
in relation to the passions that control them. moral virtue (as
well as vice) is the way of experi-encing a passion (for example,
courage is the right way of experiencing fear). The task of ethics
is to strengthen these attitudes, these virtuous habits, in order
to let them become real actions or virtuous behavior. aristotelian
ethics is in this sense an ethics of virtue or heroic ethics, vs.
Stoic therapeutic ethics or augustines ethics which considers
passions as evils to be cured; that is, as things to be eradicated.
Thus, for aristotle, even passions are an indispensable element of
human nature and of moral action; the task of man is not to
suppress, but to guide them in the right direction.
92. more precisely for modern common sense happiness is a state
of inner satisfactionmore or less enduringlargely caused by
prosperity (that is, the possession of external and corporeal
goods) and good luck.
93. The extreme thesis in this regard is supported, among the
ancients, by the Stoics: to be a perma-nent possession, happiness
must be completely aside from external and corporeal goods.
94. What to say when faced with the actualityor rather with the
provocative outdatednessof aristotelian practical philosophy? That
it is no longer possible to see it in a relationship of simpl