What Is Aristotle's Argument About Being The Ultimate Good

The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle 's key study of morality and the final goal of human life, has for many years been a popular and persuasive book. It offers the modern reader many useful insights into human desires and behavior despite being thousands of years old. The overarching theme behind this book is Aristotle 's assertion that there are no recognized unconditional moral standards and that every ethical theory must take into consideration an understanding of psychology and knowing that behavior comes from the realities of human nature and how it affects daily life. Additionally, the book echoes Aristotle 's accomplishments in other areas of philosophy and is a good display of his methodological thought process, which is widely considered to be the root of all modern science examination.

The next topic to consider, then, is what kind of rational activities fulfill the purpose of a human being. Aristotle feels that as a human, one should actualize the capacities of the soul through activity. Here one encounters the debate of activity versus productivity. In current society, productivity is the measure of success, and activity for its own sake is rarely considered worthwhile. Aristotle does not believe in the importance of productivity relative to one's happiness. Instead, he feels that one should engage in activity for no external end or result whatsoever. Those activities that are chosen simply because of a desire to experience the activity are often the ones that bring the most happiness. Activities that have no product create a sense of existence for the one engaging in the activity. This, however, is not a product. Instead it is merely a way of defining or referring to the activity. An example of this kind of activity is conversation. If conversation occurs in

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

Aristotle argues, however, that to reach this final state of happiness, a person must live in accordance with appropriate virtues, so happiness cannot be found in vulgar and political lives but only in a contemplative life. He explains this idea by isolating humans to their special roles. Just like objects have specific functions (i.e. knives are used to cut things), “for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the “well” is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function.” Aristotle claims that humans, too, have a specific function: to exercise rational thought, which is a uniquely human quality. Thus, people are only able to achieve their final state of happiness through a habitual practice of areté or virtue, which is a person’s ability to actively contribute to society by using his or her individual capacity for reasoning. Only through this practice of excellence, then, can humans flourish to eudaimonia.

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.

Mankind has been searching for existential reasoning since our earliest beginnings. One of the biggest questions, the one that keeps me up at night, “How ought we to live?” will be explained from the viewpoints of Epictetus in his Enchiridion and Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics. In this paper, I will discuss both philosophies in principle and practice, while giving insight to how to they may function in a modern world situation. Although both theories have useful guidance for navigating the human condition, Aristotle’s theory of virtue encompasses more of a real world schematic of how to interpret oneself in relation to our surroundings through compassion rather than apathy.

Aristotle is a dichotomist, which means that he believes that human beings consist of two major elements, the body and the soul. The body is the physical matter that one can see, where the soul is the feelings and desires one has; the things you cannot touch. Aristotle believes that we have three major elements of the soul which are pleasures, desires, and feelings. These elements are where we find our virtues. In book one of The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses that virtue is the highest human good. This being said, there are two qualifications that the highest good must have, “The good must be something final and self-sufficient,” (Aristotle, 10). By final Aristotle means that which is in desirable in itself, and not sought for the sake of something else. By self-sufficient Aristotle means something that does not depend on other’s bestowing it. Aristotle gives us the sense that he believes that politics is about the human good and one cannot begin to practice politics or political science well; unless one has the idea of what the good actually is. In book one; with many arguments to support his theory, he tells the reader that the good is intellectual and moral virtue. One of his arguments is he believes that you need a moderate amount of both health and wealth to be able to fully develop the virtue. He sees these two aspects as a form of equipment because if one is constantly ill or does not have a sufficient amount of money there will be many obstacles in reaching

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.

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 Book IV Chapter 7 Aristotle discusses the virtue of being truthful. Virtue is described by Aristotle as an active condition done by choice. It is a moral mean between extremes relative from person to person. In paragraph 1, Aristotle explains that the virtue of being truthful is the mean between a braggart and an ironic person. The sphere of action or feeling that being truthful is related to is self-expression.

Aristotle begins his exploration into the most outstanding life by attempting to figure what the highest possible good achievable is for human beings. He comes to the conclusion that most people will agree that happiness is the most sought after good. Happiness is self-sufficient and is the complete end of things pursued. However, they cannot seem to agree how to achieve happiness and what happiness is. In order to figure out what happiness is, Aristotle must evaluate the true function of human beings. This true function, as seen by Aristotle, is the key to achieving happiness. Aristotle describes happiness by saying:

Perhaps now I need to introduce one of Aristotle’s suppositions: “living well and doing well are the same as being happy” (1.4.1095a19). But what does it mean to live well? A good example is that of the harpist. If the function of a harpist is to play the harp, then the function of a good harpist is to play the harp well (1.7.1098a9-12). It is this “superior achievement (of the function) that expresses virtue”(1.7.1098a10). When we apply this example to human beings it can be seen that the good human’s function to do well is completed “when its completion expresses the proper virtue”(1.7.1098a14-15). We have already determined that “the human function is the soul’s activity that expresses reason” (1.7.1098a8), since the human function is reason and “we must take [a human being’s special function to be] life as activity”

In Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the idea of moral virtue. Aristotle emphasized the importance of developing moral virtue as the way to achieve what is finally more important, human flourishing (eudaimonia). Aristotle makes the argument in Book II that moral virtue arises from habit—equating ethical character to a skill that is acquired through practice, such as learning a musical instrument. However in Book III, Aristotle argues that a person 's moral virtue is voluntary, as it results from many individual actions which are under his own control. Thus, Aristotle confronts us with an inherently problematic account of moral virtue.

Greek philosopher Aristotle once said that “The worst form of equality is to try to make unequal things equal.” While there are some scenarios where Aristotle’s words may not apply, I personally agree with him to a certain degree. Within society, equality may sound good when put on paper, but falls flat due to issues that have arose in history, essentially proving that true “equality” is a goal that cannot be accomplished..

To Aristotle leading a good life, for the most part, means fulfilling one’s purpose in a way that is good by balancing life’s pleasures. In order to determine if an object fulfills its function in a good way, we must first consider the object. If we were to agree that a car should be reliable, then we could also agree that reliable car should be considered a good car. Similarly, animals, for example, possess certain traits like the power of locomotion, and the desire to seek nourishment and reproduce. According to