Aristotle on Eudaimonia: I

• Introduction
• Happiness: Common Notions Dismissed
• Actions
• Inclusiveness Considered
• Ergon Argument
• Theoria Considered

Introduction

"Aristotle on Eudaimonia: Dominant End or Inclusive Aggregate?"
by Susan J. Fleck. April, 2002

Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead. --Scottish Proverb

Happiness is not a reward--it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment--it is a result. --Robert Green Ingersoll

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet. --James Oppenheim

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life. --Burton Hills

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length. --Robert Frost

To fill the hour--that is happiness. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

Thomas Nagel claims that Aristotle displays indecision between two views of eudaimonia in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE)—a comprehensive and an intellectualist account (7).  Other writers claim that Aristotle has presented eudaimonia as being a dominant end of purely contemplative activity, rather than being inclusive—a plurality, or composite, of all intrinsic goods.  Some declare that Aristotle’s eudaimonia represents an active, political (social) and virtuous life, while others think it is a life of philosophy—a life lived for the sake of contemplation.  I cannot hope to provide a final conclusion in this modest paper, but I do argue in favor of one view.  I will discuss these differing views: I will argue that Aristotle’s position in The Nichomachean Ethics (hereafter NE) is that eudaimonia is comprised of a dominant aim, while at the same time includes other intrinsic goods.  Eudaimonia is the pursuit of the dominant role of contemplation, or the life of a philosopher: this kind of life subsumes the roles of the virtues and other intrinsic goods such as amenities and friendships. 

I intend to demonstrate that Aristotle has presented us with a rational doctrine of eudaimonia and it is not filled with inconsistencies or indecision.  Although Aristotle dwells on the primacy of the role of contemplation for happiness only in Book X, Books I through IX—in  which he discusses the nature of man and his soul, moral excellence, the virtues, and friendship—are all structured to support his arguments in book X.  Aristotle is consistent throughout NE in equating happiness with active contemplation.  He is also consistent in recognizing that humans are composite beings who require other goods to lead and have a happy life.  There will be a brief discussion on a problem with Aristotle’s eudaimonia: although he affirms the good life for the philosopher, he does not provide any guidance about how contemplative activity fits in with his doctrine of the mean relative to human living.

The first problem I have with this topic is that the word itself, or concept, eudaimonia seems to be either ambiguous or without a way to properly translate into English.  Eugenia Benitez gives us the etymology of the term eudaimonia:  it is a feminine noun formed from the stem “-daimon” (a divinity, a god or goddess) and the prefix “eu-” (well, noble).  Early uses connoted a nobly begodded, or blessed, character.  The classical Greek philosophers continued use of the term in the sense that eudaimonia was a difficult perfection to achieve, but they were in general agreement that eudaimonia was not externally conferred.  The translation of the word eudaimonia is not difficult because there are no comparable English words, but, rather, because the term in Greek is already ambiguous.  Aristotle observed that there was agreement that eudaimonia is the good life for a man, but there was widespread disagreement about what eudaimonia is (Benitez).   Many translate the term into expressions like “living well,” or “doing well.”  In the spirit of David Ross’s translation of NE, I will use the terms eudaimonia and happiness interchangeably.

According to one source, NE was written for and named after Aristotle’s son, Nicomachus.  It was not intended for publication, but rather, as notes for teaching in 350 BCE.  It was later edited for publication, possibly by his son (“Background”).  The scope of Aristotle’s project in NE was to discuss ethical subjects, indicate truth, and reach conclusions only “roughly and in outline.”  His audience was mature, morally developed, male citizens: a young man is too inexperienced to gain value from this treatise (1.3, 3).  What is Aristotle’s project, in NE?  He lays this out for us in Book 1.  Notice the conditional ifs and the general discussion of ends and means:

"Therefore, if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good achievable by action, and if there are more than one, these will be the goods achievable by action. . . . Therefore, if there is only one final end, this will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the most final of these will be what we are seeking. . . . but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for  themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that through them we shall be happy.  Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself. . . . Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.” (1.7, 11-12)[1] (emphasis mine)

Happiness: Common Notions Dismissed

In a nutshell, the main question Aristotle explores is: What is necessary and sufficient for one to be considered living well, and to be living the best possible life?  These may be two related but independent themes: you can decide after reviewing the considerations discussed in this paper.  Aristotle discussed, and dismissed, the common notions that happiness can be equated with pleasure, wealth, or honor (1.4, 5).  He considers that there are just three prominent types of life.  He quickly rules out the life of pleasure: the brutish life can not signify eudaimonia.  People who pursue the second form, a political life, are seeking honour.  But since honor is dependent on one who bestows the honor, and not on the recipient agent, this is too superficial and not self-sufficient enough to be what we, as humans, are seeking (1.5, 6).  He defers the discussion regarding the third type of life, that of contemplation, for later, as we will do here.

The purpose of NE, according to Jonathan Lear, and I agree, is not to instruct us in how to act in specific circumstances.  Rather, it is to give those who are already leading happy, virtuous lives insight into the nature of their own souls—to give to its readers self-understanding, not advice.  This will have the practical outcome in that those who understand what human happiness is will be more likely to achieve it, like the archers who have something to aim at, will be more likely to hit their target.   NE will help to increase and solidify one’s goodness through a development of a self-conscious and coherent ethical outlook, by reinforcing the kind of life one is already along the path of living (157-60).

Actions

 J. L. Ackrill points out that Aristotle needed to make the distinction that good actions can be done for their own sake as well as for the sake of something else.  Eudaimonia must not be considered as something at, or near, the end of one’s life, like looking forward to a contented retirement.  Rather, it is a whole life, enjoyable and worth while all the way through (19).  Aristotle emphasizes the role of action: what we are as persons is manifested in the outcome of activity, the products of handiwork.  If we love our handiwork, then we are loving existence.  The most pleasant things are those which are dependent upon activity, e.g., creating a painting, writing a book, having a discussion, making an artifact (9.7, 233-4).

Lear points out one of the main ways in which common modern ethical outlook is different from that of the Greek world of Aristotle’s time: we place the emphasis on intention rather than actions.  What matters in our Christian inherited outlook is that someone has a good heart and intends to do well by others, even if by circumstances of birth, or otherwise, one can do nothing for his or her neighbor.  For the Greeks, on the other hand, if one were deprived of the opportunity to live and act well, nothing could compensate for that.  For Christians, being virtuous is a description of the quality of one’s inner spirit, which would manifest itself in outward works only in so far as one had such opportunities.  For the Greeks, virtue was synonymous with excellence: to be virtuous was to be excellent at doing something (152-3).

Inclusiveness Considered

Returning to the passage cited above, Ackrill claims that Aristotle is pronouncing eudaimonia as genuinely self-sufficient because it includes everything desirable in itself; indeed, that is the only way it could be considered as the most final end.  It is better than anything else, not in the way that bacon might be chosen as the best of three breakfast foods to pick from three choices, but rather like the combination of bacon, eggs and tomatoes is the best breakfast without qualification.  Ackrill is convinced that Aristotle is not revealing that only one end (theoria) is really a final end (23).  However, as the passage is translated, Aristotle seems to make quite clear that we derive happiness through these other intrinsically good things, honor, pleasure, virtues, etc., not with them (included).  Also, one could always add additional ingredients, e.g. potatoes, or toast, and say that new combination is a better breakfast.  However, Ackrill points to another clue that Aristotle is speaking of one compound or inclusive end.  Aristotle refers to the political art as architectonic and that its end embraces the ends of all the other arts.  This inclusive conception presents the possibility of interpreting the most final end to mean one compound or inclusive end. 

Kathleen Wilkes takes for granted that Aristotle is discussing an inclusive end.  This is not the focus of her essay, but in defense of this sentiment she points out that the phrase ta pros to telos does not necessarily always need to mean “means to the end,” but, rather, should often mean “constituents of the end.”  This passage, for Wilkes, refutes the single, dominant end theory (356):

“. . . the self-sufficient we now define as that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing; and such we think happiness to be; and further we think it most desirable of all things, not a thing counted as one good thing among others—if it were so counted it would clearly be made more desirable by the addition of even the least of goods . . . and of goods the greater is always more desirable” (1.7, 12).

 

Richard Kraut acknowledges that it is easy and attractive to interpret Aristotle to mean that eudaimonia represents a composite of many different kinds of goods.  The best possible life will be one which possesses the greatest number of goods; the ultimate end, then, is an all-inclusive aggregate.  It is appealing and intuitive to think that we should strive to live fully and enjoy all that human living has to offer.  Aristotle, throughout the NE indicates that for someone to be living well he will have friends, experience pleasure, receive honor, and will acquire external goods conducive to a good life.  After criticizing defective notions of happiness, Aristotle gives a reason to believe that happiness is such an aggregate as shown in the passages cited above.  The superiority of happiness, according to this interpretation, must rest on the fact that it contains all intrinsic goods, so that nothing more could be added to make it more desirable (80-1).

Ergon Argument

However, interpreting happiness in this manner presents difficulties.  Aristotle begins his ergon argument shortly after this pivotal passage we just looked at.  He thinks that a clearer account of happiness can be given “if we could first ascertain the function of man” (1.7, 12).  He concludes that the human good is “activity of the soul exhibiting excellence” (1.7, 14).  Happiness is to be identified with the best or most complete of the excellent activities.  He acknowledges that man needs external goods, but only because it is impossible to do noble and excellent activities without “proper equipment” (1.8, 17).  The happy man will be happy throughout his life because “he will do and contemplate what is excellent.”  He can never be miserable, with the manners of excellent virtue and activities inculcated in his very being: he will bear bad fortune with great character, even though he may not reach blessedness if he meets with severe bad fortune (1.10, 21).  Aristotle is making a distinction between eudaimonia and blessedness.  The concept of an inclusive, or composite, end seems to be mixing the blessedness of external goods such as honor, health, etc., in with eudaimonia. 

This formula for happiness, according to Kraut, refutes the notion that happiness is a composite of all intrinsic goods.  Even if we were to suppose that excellent, or virtuous activity, is a good that could be construed as having different components, such as acts of courage, of justice, etc., this would still be only one type of activity, or good, and not an aggregate of all goods, such as honor, pleasure, health, and wealth (82).  Aristotle reinforces his concept of happiness as relating to the soul:  “It is correct also in that we identify the end with certain actions and activities; for this it falls among goods of the soul and not among external goods” (1.8, 15).  Kraut asserts that if Aristotle meant for happiness to mean a composite of goods he would have said that happiness was not only a good of the soul, but also a good of the body (82).  Aristotle does say that happiness “needs the external goods as well,” but he does not subsume external goods within his definition of happiness.  One must have external means to become and remain virtuous and to do virtuous acts, but these resources are subordinate ends to the final end of happiness.  They are needed for the sake of virtuous acts: resources enable virtuous activity, but they do not increase its value.  According to the passage in 1.7, then, our lives can not be any more desirable by the addition of external goods, than it is by doing excellent rational activity.  Kraut points out that this same idea of happiness is found in Aristotle outside of NE: for example, in the Politics it is clear that the goods of the soul alone constitute happiness (83).

Ackrill avers that the doctrine that eudaimonia consists of just one activity, theoria, is “entirely unsupported in the previous argument.”  Ackrill would have Aristotle conclude his ergon argument with “if there are more than one virtue, then in accordance with all of them.”  He claims that this is the conclusion Aristotle provided in the Eudemian Ethics: “. . . eudaimonia must be the activity of a complete life in accordance with complete virtue . . .” (1219a39) (28-9).  Ackrill admits that the expression “most complete virtue” or “most final virtue” in NE is not clear.  However the earlier passage in the same chapter concerning ends and final ends contained the same baffling used of the term “most final.”  But there it was explained as “final without qualification,” which Ackrill takes to refer to “the comprehensive end that includes all partial ends.”  Ackrill thinks that he is justified, then, in interpreting “most final” virtue as referring to total virtue, the combination of all virtues (28). 

Theoria Considered

This stance is further supported by two further passages in Book 1.  In 1.9.10, where Aristotle is concluding his ergon argument—“there is required, as we said, both complete virtue (aretes teleias) and a complete life.”  He is clearly not referring to sophia or any other particular virtue here.  In 1.13.1: “Since eudaimonia is an activity of soul in accordance with complete virtue (areten teleian), we must investigate virtue.”  Ackrill maintains that the detailed, and lengthy, discussion of moral virtues that stresses the intrinsic value of good action, follows naturally only if the conclusion of the ergon argument is interpreted to refer to complete virtue rather than one particular virtue—that of theoria (28-9).  Ackrill suggests that the reason Aristotle did not make this more clear, or state his ideas in terms of parts and whole, is perhaps for a similar reason that Plato had already discussed in the Protagoras about the difficulty in understanding the concept that there are different virtues which are parts of a complete virtue.  Aristotle may have thought it was less misleading to use the expression of “contributing to a final end” than one like “parts of a whole” (29).

Kraut reports that many people think that Aristotle’s defense of theoria in 10.7-8 is a radical departure and it repudiates the prior framework of his ethical treatise in NE.  They may try to rescue Aristotle from this seeming contradiction by assuming he means by teleia eudaimonia (perfect happiness) that theoria is the best single component of an all-inclusive composite happiness.  However, this would mean that Aristotle is saying, oddly, according to Kraut, “that happiness (the composite of all goods) is more desirable than perfect happiness (the best single element of this composite).”  Since leading up to the discussion, and including all the books about virtue, Aristotle has not named theoria as the most perfect virtue and activity, one can see why Ackrill, Wilkes, and others interpret Aristotle to mean that eudaimonia is some form of composite, aggregate, or inclusive end (86).

One writer, weighing in on the composite side, does so at the other extreme, in that she leaves out the role of contemplation altogether.  Julia Annas focuses her discussion about the role external goods plays in Aristotle’s conception of happiness.  She claims:  “Aristotle’s own candidate for specifying happiness is a life of virtuous activity, along with adequate external goods” (36).  She thinks that Aristotle is giving conflicting accounts in that he claims that happiness is complete but external goods can make an agent happier (47).  Although she has interesting things to say about this so-called contradiction in NE, once we throw theoria into the mix of the happy life, then external goods become less of an issue in regards to what counts as a happy life. Although they are necessary to the extent we are human, in Aristotle’s hierarchy of values, external goods play a very minor role.

  

Copyright 2002 by Susan J. Fleck. All rights reserved.
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