In the Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle concludes that a life of contemplation is the highest human activity. Aristotle states that the life of reason and contemplation will be the happiest because the gods are the happiest among all of us, and contemplation is characteristic of their own lives. Aristotle explained this statement in details when he states that the life of contemplation is more Godlike and since God is all-powerful it is safe to say that this life will lead us to the happiest and best life. These arguments are sound because he believes the life of contemplation to be the best life because it is the most Godlike. And since it is Godlike it can be considered the best life. This is therefore sound because what is considered …show more content…
11), even though one may question what the highest virtue is. Considering his earlier conclusions, he states that pleasure is associated with activity and virtue, therefore the highest virtue must produce the most pleasure. As stated earlier, Aristotle believes that reasoning or the soul of reasoning is the ultimate function of a man. He later concluded that, virtue is the highest function of a man. Based on this statement, the highest virtue is reasoning. This concludes that, reasoning is the highest virtue. And if reasoning is the highest virtue then a life of contemplation would be the best and happiest life.
Aristotle continues to support his arguments by stating that, "firstly, this activity is the best and secondly, it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously that we can do anything. And we think happiness has pleasure mingled with it, but the activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities" (Aristotle, p.11). Aristotle believes that life of contemplation is the highest virtue. He also believes that life of contemplation is the best life because it is also self- sufficient it does not depend on intrinsic
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He explains this by stating that the gods do not have any need to worry about things humans worry about, "will not the gods seem absurd if they make contracts and return deposits, and so on? Acts of brave men, then confronting dangers and running risks because it is noble to do so? the circumstances of action would be found trivial and unworthy of the gods" (Aristotle, p.12). Aristotle states that since the gods do not take part in any of these actions then they are left with only the life of contemplation. Since the life of contemplation is seen as a way of acquiring knowledge and wisdom, then contemplative life is most worthy of the gods. And since the gods are wise and powerful it makes sense that they are continuously contemplating. Humans have the mind of fearing the gods and always want to please them. And we since we want to please the gods then we should follow how they live their lives which is the life of contemplation. Therefore as the followers of the gods it is only reasonable that if the gods live a life of contemplation we the followers should as
The three different ways of life according to Aristotle are the life of enjoyment/pleasure, the political life, and the contemplative life. The life of enjoyment/pleasure is a life that is purely devoted to pleasure, good, and happiness; when one lives as if they are a slave to sensual pleasure. Aristotle refers to the life of enjoyment as “completely slavish by choosing a life that belongs fatted cattle (Book I pg. 4)”, meaning this way of life does not correspond or consist of the rational nature in which each individual hold. Political life is a life that honor is used to convince one that their life is good and correlates to our rational nature. However, this life, like the life of enjoyment, is dependent on other people. Aristotle states, “for it seems to be in the ones who give honor rather than in the one who is honored. (Book I pg. 4)” In this way of life honor is a virtue, but it is a virtue that anyone can possess but be unfortunate or not good. Since both the life of enjoyment and the political life depend on someone else, Aristotle concludes the contemplative life is the highest or best way of life. This is because contemplative life on the basis means a life of true happiness and can possibly dodge difficulties. With the contemplative life, one is more than capable of engaging or
In Book 1 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he argues that happiness is the best good, and the goal of an individual and of those leading and governing society. Here, happiness is understood as both living well and doing well, rather than the convention sense of happiness as an emotion. According to Aristotle, happiness is achieved though actions involving reason and in accord with virtue, or the best of the virtues of there are more than one. In this paper, I will provide a brief overview of the work and its author, then proceed to provide an overview of the ideas expressed and the argumentation supporting them, before finally performing an analysis and critique of the ideas expressed.
Aristotle believes that happiness is an activity “in accord with virtue.” Happiness is in accord with the most excellent virtue. All men agreed that happiness is to “live well”, but Aristotle expands this further into a whole
Aristotle’s thoughts on ethics conclude that all humans must have a purpose in life in order to be happy. I believe that some of the basics of his ideas still hold true today. This essay points out some of those ideas.
Furthermore, Aristotle believes when the virtuous person does an action only through the sake of it self there is no other means to the end and one will eventually become virtuous. However, when the action is preformed for the sake of something else, then a person will not reach the highest form of virtue. The reason for this is when the action that is preformed for the sake of something else, then it will not reach complete happiness because it will always desire more.
Aristotle defines the function of a human being as an activity of the rational soul. He argues that most functions of humans, such as being alive or having sense perception, are shared with plants and animals and cannot be distinct functions of human beings. The only remaining possibility which is not shared with things other than human beings, according to Aristotle, is the part of the soul that has reason. Human function, therefore, is an “activity of the soul in accord with reason or requiring reason.” But further qualification must be made when referring to the something’s function in the context of a greatest good; in this case, it is not sufficient for something to simply function, it must also function well. For example, the function of a pianist is to play the piano, but the function of a good pianist is to play a piano well. According to Aristotle, adding a function’s best virtue to it will work without qualification to make something excellent in every case. So, the function of a human being is an activity of the rational soul and the greatest good for a human is activity of the rational soul in accordance with its virtue.
From the beginning of their evolution, human beings have been searching for the meaning of happiness. While many may see this to be an inconsequential question, others have devoted entire lives to the search for happiness. One such person who devoted a great deal of thought to the question of man's happiness was the famous ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle. In his book The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discussed the meaning of happiness and what it meant to live a good life. He asserted that the devise which has been invented to create what is good for man is called "politics;" and it "uses the rest of the sciences"¦so that this end must be the good for man." (Aristotle, I, ii) Aristotle also identified four general means by which people live their lives in order to gain happiness, but stated that only one was a means by which a person could actually attain it. According to Aristotle, it was not political power, wealth, or worldly pleasures by which a person could achieve real happiness, it was living a contemplative life.
To find out what the function of a human being is, Aristotle looks at what is distinctive about humans. He discovers that the good of the human is to act in accord with reason well, which can translate into acting in accord with virtue. One cannot have happiness without virtue, just as it is impossible to be virtuous with the absence of rational thinking. Because man is a rational creature, rather than plants which are vegetative, happiness for man must include the excellent functioning of the rational faculties.
In the book Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle, Aristotle describes various way of living one’s life, the ultimate goal in life, and how to achieve happiness and live the best life. Aristotle describes three different kinds of lives in Nicomachean Ethics. These three lives consists of the life of honor, the life of pleasure, and the life of study. Aristotle, from the first book, insists that the life of study or contemplation is considered to be the best life. He argues that self-sufficiency is required for the life of study whereas the life of honor and pleasure are based upon a need for other people as well as a never ending cycle of pursuing higher goods.
Aristotle’s theory will be discussed in full length on his theory of virtue. Now Aristotle did believe in a multitude of theories that are all based off of virtue, but also the soul. To Aristotle, virtue is an excellence, which comes after happiness and achieving our final goal. When Aristotle talks about an individual’s final goal and excellence of that
Aristotle is one of the greatest thinkers in the history of western philosophy, and is most notably known for expressing his view of happiness in Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle develops a theory of how to live the good life and reach eudaimonia (happiness). Eudaimonia has been translated into, living a happy and virtuous life. Aristotle’s definition of the good life as the happy life, consist of balancing virtues (arête), the mean, external goods, political science, and voluntary action.
He is honored to be author of ‘The Nicomachean Ethics,’ which was in fact the 1st book ever written on the subject of ethics. The book is greatly influential, even in modern times. By an analysis of Aristotle’s literature, it can be observed that he primarily focused on preaching to be ‘virtuous’ rather than focusing on the theories of what ‘virtue’ is. According to him, in whatever way we choose to act, some action that is focused on achieving the desired end result or ‘good’ results comes from that person’s own perspective. Aristotle claimed that the maximum good which a person have desire to achieve is basically an end-point itself , a person’s action or struggles is for achieving that ‘end-point’, it may be regarded as a point of maximum satisfaction. Aristotle critically concluded that the happiness of a person satisfies these conditions completely, and hence the highest attainable good is regarded as happiness.
Aristotle believes that happiness is the ultimate goal in life. You can’t reach happiness unless you work hard and become successful. That is where virtue comes into play. A human’s function is to engage in “an activity of the soul which is in accordance with virtue” and which “is in conformity with reason” (page 76, Palmer). The two kinds of virtue are intellectual and moral. Our virtues are what make us all individual and all different. Intellectual virtues are what we are born with and what we learn. It is our nature as humans and what we have inherited that makes desire to learn. As humans, we develop wisdom to help guide us to a good life. With the intellectual virtue you develop two different kinds of wisdom: practical and
Even though Aristotle mentions that contemplation brings happiness he later on mentions that it is hard for a human to achieve pleasure at its finest, at the right time and place, because such thing can only be accomplished by god. He talks about, happiness in relation to contemplation and then he says that god is the only one who can achieve happiness, through its highest form,
To start with, Aristotle highlights that the perception of virtue is different for everyone, and there are a lot of factors which influence it. For example, people's moral principles, mentality, the society they live in and its formative culture peculiarities. The highest human good is considered to be in close relations with the sense of happiness. As all people have different characters, attitudes to life, moral values, it is difficult to define the conditions on which their happiness depends. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, writes that the highest human good "proves to be the activity of the soul in accord with virtue" (Aristotle, trans. Irvin T., 1999). In other words, it is the way of a person's appropriate behavior in the situations of different nature and difficulty in his or her life.