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Ethics with Aristotle, Sarah Broadie
Chapter 1, Happiness, the Supreme End
Aristotle's Ethics begins and ends (1) with this question of the best life, since the
task of ethics, as he conceives it, is to seek a systematic answer. 2
One of the assumptions which we must share or pretend to share is that among
competing answers to the question What is the best life? there must be better and
worse. Having accepted this much we might naturally suppose that just one answer
is best. 4
in Aristotle's view, that central good, which he identifies with virtuous activity, must itself
enter into the perfections which follow upon it; thus the pleasure is pleasure in that activity,
and the friendship friendship of the actively virtuous.
This construction enables Aristotle to explain why there are so many conflicting views on the
nature of happiness
Not only is it the case that the presence of each of the other goods in the good
life is explained by its relation to the central good ; but each of the others is
good because of its relation to the centre.
So it is not surprising that people confuse one or another of the peripheral goods
with the essence of happiness.
We seek happiness, and happiness is the goal that matters more than anything
else. Perhaps not everyone cares about being happy, but we do not think much
of those who do not
the special nuance of the word eudaimonia (happiness). Etymology points to
the notion of a favourable divinity steering a person's destiny. To be happy is to
be blessed (makarios), and the happy are said to be loved by the gods, though
whether this is cause or effect of their happiness may not be clear (cf. 1099 b 9
18; cf. 1179 a 2232)
). However, the gods themselves are said to be happy and blessed, as are those
immortalised pure souls whose abode is the Isles of the Blest. Perhaps because
of this connotation of divine perfection, nonhuman animals cannot be said to
seek eudaimonia, although they certainly pursue their good. Eudaimonia strictly
speaking cannot be ascribed to children either, according to Aristotle (1100 a 2).
These considerations make it easier for him to argue, as he will, that our central
good consists in rational activity
eudaimoniawhich cannot apply to creatures lacking in reason or only
potentially rational, and which therefore invites us to focus on what it is that
those creatures lack (cf. 1099 b 321100 a 4; 1139 a 20; 1178 b 2728).
However, he has to establish that equivalence. For even if we agree that
everyone seeks happiness, it does not follow that happiness is the uniquely
ultimate good. He begins by stressing that goods are ends (tel) of human
action, and goes on to observe that if there is a single end of everything we do,
then the good we are seeking (1097 a 15) would be that end, and if there are
several, it would be those several (2224
we do seem to have many ends, but some of these are sought only for the sake
of others, so they are not final
So the highest good must be a final end, and if there are several final ends, it
must be the most final
One end is more final than another if it is pursued for its own sake, and the other
only for the sake of something else, or if it is pursued only for its own sake
whereas the other is pursued for itself and also for something else (3034
on these grounds happiness seems most final of all, for we pursue it only for its
own sake, whereas other things, such as honour, pleasure, intelligence, and all
kinds of excellence, we pursue each for its own sake (for if nothing resulted from
them we (p.31) should still choose each of them), but also for the sake of
happiness, judging that through them we shall be happy (1097 a 30b 6).
At the opening of his first chapter, Aristotle stated that the end of every activity
is a good of one sort or another. Here, it seems to me, the emphasis is reversed.
Goods are ends; i.e., by and large they are to be had or maintained or made
possible only through purposeful effort
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According to one widespread reading, all or at least a variety of choice-worthy ends
are (88) included in Aristotles concept of eudaimonia. A happy or flourishing life
somehow contains and exhibits them in such a way that each end is chosen for its
own sake and forms a part of the happy life. 89
A less common view holds that a happy life aims at one single end, and that lower
ends are chosen for the sake of the highest end. In favor of the latter reading are
Aristotles own statements in the NE, which seem to picture a single ultimate end for
human actions.
The goal of human practical activity is only an approximation or imitation of the
highest good, the truth contemplated in theoretical activity, but is nonetheless
chosen for its own sake as well as
for the sake of the telos it imitates.
John Ackrill, taking Hardies lead, went on to argue that while Books I through IX
present a consistently inclusive view, it is only in X.7 and 8 that Aristotle
presents the exclusive view in which theria is the predominant activity. 366