CONCEPTION OF HAPPINESS IN ARISTOTLE
Introduction
It could be argued that one feature common to all human beings is the desire to
avoid all circumstances that could result in pain and all forms of suffering,
and to seek only those that bring us happiness. From dawn to dusk, from the
womb to the tomb, we engage in one form of activity or the other. We hustle and
bustle, we spend sleepless nights toiling and burning out our energy. But why
do we do all these? We seem to act for the sake of something that has some sorts
of benefits to us. It would seem that underlying all our actions is the quest
to be happy. However, like many other concepts, we do not all share the same
conception of happiness. Philosophers, likewise, from antiquity to the modern
era, hold varied and often conflicting opinions about what happiness consists
in. This paper seeks to expose Aristotle’s own conception of happiness. We
shall adopt this format: Definition of the term “Happiness” by various
philosophers, Aristotle’s treatment of Happiness, Criticisms against
Aristotle’s conception of Happiness, and conclusion.
Conception of happiness
by various philosophers
Philosophers, over time and across
cultures, have come up with their own conception of what happiness is. It is interesting
to mote that philosophers often hold divergent and often conflicting views as
to what happiness consists in. The Epicureans, following Epiricus, assert that
“pleasure is the final end of life and the criterion of goodness in choice.”[1] Pleasure
is thus for them the greatest good. They seek only those things that will bring
about pleasure in the end; they undergo pain only if it will lead to pleasure.
Pleasure for the Epicureans is not the inordinate or senseless craving for
satisfaction but one that is marked by wisdom, honour, sobriety and justice.[2] For the Stoics, happiness consists in virtues.[3] They
believed that once happiness is gotten it can never be lost. They also maintained
that a virtuous life is always happy even when it lacks the availability of
some goods. Stoics believe that one who has attained this sense of virtue would
become a sage. He could be sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying
and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy.[4]
In the medieval period, St.
Augustine, writing about happiness, noted that we can find happiness only in
God since He is the source of happiness. Augustine argued that humanity was
brought forth from God, but has since fallen, and that to be happy one's soul must
remember the happiness from when one was with God. He thus follows the Neo-Platonism
tradition in asserting that happiness lays in the contemplation of the purely
intelligible realm. St Augustine maintained that happiness is acquired by attaining the
perfect good, and that the perfect good is God..[5] For
Avicenna, happiness is the aim of humans; real happiness is pure and free from
worldly interest. Ultimately, happiness is reached through the conjunction of
the human intellect with the separate active intellect. The Islamic
Philosopher, Moses Maimonides noted that happiness is ultimately and
essentially intellectual.[6]
Furthermore, St. Thomas Aquinas posited that happiness
is achieved by cultivating several intellectual and moral virtues, which enable
us to understand the nature of happiness and motivate us to seek it in a
reliable and consistent way. Yet, one will be unable to find the greatest
happiness in this life, because final happiness consists in a supernatural
union with God. As such, man’s happiness does not consist of wealth, status,
pleasure, or in any created good at all. Most goods do not have a necessary
connection to happiness since the ultimate object of man’s will can only be
found in God, who is the source of all good.[7] In
the modern era, Jeremy Bentham proposed “utilitarianism”, that is, the greatest
happiness for the greatest nimbler. Like Aristotle, he made happiness the key
notion of morality, but emphasized that it is not the individual’s happiness
that guide moral choices but that of the general society. Unlike Aristotle however,
he equated happiness with pleasure. He argued that to maximize happiness was
the same thing as to maximize pleasure. John Stuart Mill, following Bentham,
noted that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. He, unlike like Bentham,
noted that happiness could also be attained in the presence of minimal
suffering.and pain. He argues that pleasure can differ in quality and quantity,
and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be weighted
more heavily than baser pleasures. Furthermore, Mill argues that people's
achievement of goals and ends, such as virtuous living, should be counted as
part of their happiness.[8] The
German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant argued that duty is the ultimate purpose of
morality. Kant argued further that the reason acts not to inform the will how
best to choose means to some further end, but rather to produce a will that is
good in itself. He maintained that a will is good only if it is motivated by
duty. For Kant, Good will is the only thing that is good without qualification.
He noted that the Good will is good in
itself alone, and that its goodness is not dependent on what it achieves and
that the highest good is nothing other than Good will [9].
He also noted that because happiness, unlike Good will, is not within our power
as finite beings, it is an impossible goal to pursue.[10]
Aristotle’s treatment of
Happiness
Aristotle began his treatment of happiness by stating
that every human action aims at some good, and that the good which is chosen
for its own sake rather than as means to an end is the highest good.. A
particular enquiry or endeavour may have more than one end or good, however
that which is the chief good among them is the most desirable, the most complete
and is self-sufficient. Aristotle defined this chief or ultimate good as happiness,
which also means living and doing well.[11] The
highest good has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not
desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable
for its sake. Yjese characteristics aptly capture the nature of happiness. No
one tries to be happy for the sake of some further goal; rather, being happy is
the highest end, and all subordinate goals, namely, health, wealth, and other
such resources, are sought because they promote happiness, not because they are
what happiness consists in. Aristotle observed that most people take happiness
as the highest good but have different conceptions of what truly constitutes
happiness. Is happiness to be found in pleasure or honour or health or wealth or
knowledge or something else? Aristotle reasoned that it would be very helpful
to know where the highest good can be found because this knowledge will guide
individuals as they sought for happiness. He noted that some think that
happiness is to be found in pleasure, others that it is to be found in honour,
and others that it is to be found in contemplation. For him, happiness is not to
be found in living for pleasure because such a life is slavish and brutish. Nor
is it found in seeking honuor because honour depends not on the person but on
what others think of him. The contemplative life or study is, for Aristotle,
the only kind of life that can lead us to the good. This is so because
contemplation is an activity of the soul, devoid of any quest for the
gratification of the senses and of dependence on others. It is only in
contemplation that the supreme good is found. Furthermore, he noted that the good
is not a universal Idea, as the Platonists claim; this is because this
universal Idea does not encompass the range of things that are considered good
and also because t has no practical ramifications. Aristotle further opined
that the highest good must be complete, self-sufficient and stable.[12]
Happiness meets these criteria.
Further, to decide what happiness is, Aristotle
reasoned that it is necessary to determine what the function of man is, because
happiness consists in performing one's function well.[13]
Man's function is that which sets him apart from all other beings, an action
which only human beings can perform. This function cannot be one which plants
and animals also perform, because it must be particular to human beings.
Therefore, man's function must be a part of the practical life of the rational
part of man. It follows, then, that happiness consists in the action of the
rational part of man, the soul. The ultimate good of man should naturally flow
from performing his function well; therefore, as Aristotle theorizes, "the
Good of man (and, by extension, the definition of happiness) is the active
exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if
there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and
most perfect among them."[14] To constitute true happiness, this action
must persist with continuity throughout a lifetime, happiness must be stable.[15] Aristotle
noted that to act according to reason is to act virtuously. He also stated that
the good for man is an activity of the soul according to the best and most
complete virtue. This would show that happiness is virtue based, that happiness
consists in a complete life lived according to virtue. He says not that
happiness is virtue, but that it is a virtuous activity. Happiness consists in
doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in
those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of
the soul. From the above analysis, one could see that Aristotle presented happiness
as the principle of actions and the cause of all good things.
It is expedient to note that Aristotle posited that in
order to be happy one must possess others goods as well, such goods as friends,
wealth, and power, and that one's happiness is endangered if one is severely
lacking in certain areas. For example, if
one is extremely ugly, or has lost children or good friends through death.[16]
It can however be argued that if one's ultimate end should simply be happiness,
then why should it make any difference to one's happiness whether one has or
lacks these other types of good? Aristotle would seem to reply that one's happiness
would be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate
supply of other goods
Criticisms of Aristotle’s
conception of Happiness
Some of the positions presented by Aristotle in his
conception of happiness have come under serious criticisms. We shall present
some of them. Firstly, the philosopher, Roy Jackson, finds Aristotle guilty of
a logical fallacy. He maintained that this is so because Aristotle claimed that
because all of our activities are aimed at some good, then there must be some
single supreme good at which human life aims. Jackson was doubtful that there
can be a single description of the best kind of life whose content would be the
best life for anyone. He likened this to the “roads to Rome fallacy”. This
fallacy states that one might mistakenly claim that because all roads lead to
some town, therefore, there is a particular town to which all roads lead.
Jackson thus argued that Aristotle failed to establish a single good which
constitutes the aim of each human being.[17] He
however posited that it is very possible that our lives might consist in a
never-ending series of different activities aimed at different goods. Secondly,
Jackson stated that it is possible that we can agree that we all aim at happiness;
this, however, does not mean that we share the same content of a happy life
This he noted because, for him, we cannot truly identify a single concept of
happiness which applies to all human beings, and because happiness is relative
to each person according to the needs and interests of each individual, and because
it is always transitory, in that things which make us happy at some point
become mundane over time. In response to the first criticism, one can argue
that Aristotle assumed the existence of the supreme good only as a mere
possibility, and not as a definitive reality. This we could see from his
statement: “If...our activities have some end which we want for its own sake,
and for the sake of which we want all other ends.....it is clear that this must
be the good, that is, the supreme good.[18]
We can thus see that Aristotle was arguing that if there is a single sort of
good at which all of us ultimately aim then it would be very important to
establish what it is. He then
suggested that there
is general agreement
that we all
aim at happiness as an
ultimate end, so
there is indeed
a single sort
of supreme good
which is worth examining. To the second criticism,
Aristotle would seem to respond that the content of what constitutes the supreme
good is indeed the same for everyone. This is so because if one should consider
the meaning of the word eudemonia as
used by Aristotle in the Nicomachia
Ethics to represent the supreme good, one would discover that it has a far
deeper meaning than just happiness. A better translation of the word would mean
“best life”. This, for Aristotle, is the summon
bonum. And every one of us naturally desires to live the best of life that
we could. This distinction is necessary because it has been argued that it
possible to be evil and yet be happy. However, we know that we cannot choose
evil if we desire to live the best life, this is because both are incompatible.
We can conclude that the supreme good can be said to be the same for all human
beings in so far as we all desire to live the best form of life as we could.[19]
Further, Aristotle has also been criticized for what
is now called the “function argument”, which maintains that since the various
parts of the human body have their respective functions and that various
occupations of man also have their respective functions, it follows that humans
also their functions naturally proper to them. The argument also holds that
once we are able to identify what is natural to humans from their functions, we
can then be able to identify what is good for them, and that an identification
of this distinctive nature of man would help to determine the best form of
life.[20]
Roy Jackson however felt that the function argument is faulty. He noted that
because the various parts of the human body have their functions and because
various occupations have their functions, it does not follow that the human
person also has a function. He also noted that we cannot identify what is good
for man simply by identifying what is natural to him. He doesn’t see any link
between the two. Finally, Jackson noted that the function argument is faulty in
stating that an identification of the distinctive nature of man would determine
the best form of life, as it would mean that since only humans are able to
produce nuclear weapons.[21]
In response to the above criticisms, Michael Lacewing maintained
that the human life is ultimately and distinctively the life of a being that
can be guided by reason. We are, distinctively, rational animals. He held that
many commentators misunderstand Aristotle to be claiming that reasoning is our function
or characteristic activity. For him, Aristotle makes a deeper point noting what
is characteristic of us is that whatever we do, we do for reason. All our
activities are, or can be, guided by reason. Being guided by reason is, of
course, a matter of our our mental state, and so Aristotle talks of the
activity of the soul. Aristotle had posited that a good is one that performs
its characteristic activity well, and that it will need certain qualities
–virtues –to enable it to do this. Thus, our function as humans will be living
in accordance with reason, and the virtues of a human being will be what enable
this. Only the virtuous person can achieve happiness. To fulfil our function and
live well, we must be guided by the ‘right’ reasons –good reasons not ‘bad’
reasons. So happiness consists in the activity of the soul which exhibits the
virtues by being in accordance with good or right reason..[22]
Conclusion
In this paper, we have attempted and exposition of
Aristotle’s conception of happiness. We saw that various philosophers down the
ages have conceived happiness in different and often confliction ways. We a;so
saw that even among non-philosophers, a univocal definition of happiness does
not exist. We presented some criticisms of Aristotle/s conception of happiness,
an also proffered some responses to the criticisms. One thimg we cam draw from
the above exposition is the fact that Aristotle’s treatment of happiness is to
a large extent very tenablem notwithstanding the criticisms. I say that
because, for me, most of he other conception of happiness by other philosophers
would seem to be an offshoot of Aristotle’s, and also because Aristorle’s
conception of happiness, in my opinion,
makes much more sense and is easily understood than others. Because of its
technical nature and because of its very important place in humans’ whole
existence, a further and continued research and discussion on the subject
matter of happiness I encouraged.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bertrand
Russell. A History of Western Philosophy, New York” Simon and Schuster Inc.,
1945
Charles Kenny, The
Philosophy of Happiness
Julie
Hund Hughie, The Role of Happiness in
Kant” Ethics Aporia Vol. 14 number 1, 2004
Louis Pojman and James Fieser, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, Wadsworth: Gengage Learning,
2012
Michael
Lacewing, “Aristotle’s function
argument” Routledge Taylor and Francis
Group
Stephen Grant, “A Defence of Aristotle on
the Good Life”, Richmond journal of
Philosophy 16 (Winter 2007)
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Vol. 1, Trans. By Fathers of the English Dominican
Province, New York, Benzinger Press, 1948
Spark
Notes “John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism” http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/utilitarianism/summary.html.
Accessed 11/11/2015
Tim
O'Keefe, “Epicurus” Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu Accessed on 11/11/15/
[1] Cf. Louis Pojman and
James Fieser, Ethics: Discovering Right
and Wrong (Wadsworth: Gengage Learning, 2012), 103
[2] Cf. Tim O'Keefe, “Epicurus” Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu Accessed on 11/11/15/
[3] Cf. Baltzly, Dirk, "Stoicism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/stoicism/. Accessed on 11/11/2015
[4] Cf. Russell, Bertrand. A
History of Western Philosophy (New York” Simon and Schuster Inc., 1945)
pp. 240-251
[5] Cf. Mendelson, Michael,
"Saint Augustine", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/augustine/. Accessed 14/11/2015.
[7] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 2, a. 8.
[8] Cf. Spark Notes “John
Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism” http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/utilitarianism/summary.html. Accessed 11/11/2015
[9] Cf. Julie Hund Hughie, The Role of Happiness in Kant” Ethics Aporia Vol. 14 number 1, 2004
[10] Cf. Charles Kenny, The Philosophy of
Happiness
[11] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. 1,
1094a-1094b
[12] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. 1, 1095b-1096a
[13] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. 1,
1098a-1098b
[14] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean
Ethics, Bk. 1, 1101a-1102b
[15] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean
Ethics, Bk. 1, 1101a
[16] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 1, 1101a
[17] Cf. Stephen Grant, “A Defence of Aristotle on
the Good Life”, Richmond journal of
Philosophy 16 (Winter 2007)
[18] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.
11094a
[19] Cf.
Stephen Grant, “A Defence of Aristotle on
the Good Life”, Richmond journal of
Philosophy 16 (Winter 2007)
[21] Cf. Stephen Grant, “A Defence of Aristotle on
the Good Life”, Richmond journal of
Philosophy 16 (Winter 2007)
[22] Cf. .Michael Lacewing, “Aristotle’s
function argument” Routledge Taylor and
Francis Group
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