Nicomachean Ethics By Aristotle
When someone is asked, “What is the main purpose of life?” most would answer that they want to live a happy life. What exactly is meant by the term “happiness?” Aristotle, a philosophy that was a big influence in Western Europe, decided to discover what it means to truly be happy and how humans could attain it. Aristotle studied many areas of human knowledge and wrote his thesis in his book The Nicomachean Ethics. He develops the notion that thinking will lead to the highest happiness that a human could achieve.
In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about how humans have immediate goods in life such as “pleasure, money, or, eminence,” which will contribute to the supreme good in life (7). However, the supreme good does not aim to satisfy the appetite or the will, for these things are too superficial according to Aristotle. The supreme good “is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed” (Aristotle, 15). This is defined as happiness. Human functions are to live in excellence according to reason and virtue. Therefore in order to accomplish happiness, we must first accomplish virtue.
To be virtuous, one must have a rightly ordered soul. Aristotle states, “the good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if …show more content…
We can select to live of life of virtue, which guarantees us a happy and fulfilled life. Although it is difficult to put the most focus on the intellect of the soul, it is an exceptional achievement if successful. Aristotle believes to attain happiness and become virtuous that humans must find the means between two extremes of everything in life. He states, “one should incline sometimes towards excess and sometimes towards deficiency, because in this way we shall most easily hit upon the mean” (49). For example, humans must find a balance between pleasure and pain to become a virtuous
In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about how humans have immediate goods in life such as “pleasure, money, or, eminence,” which will contribute to the supreme good in life (7). However, the supreme good does not aim to satisfy the appetite or the will, for these things are too superficial according to Aristotle. The supreme good “is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed” (Aristotle, 15). This is defined as happiness. Human functions are to live in excellence according to reason and virtue. Therefore in order to accomplish happiness, we must first accomplish virtue.
To be virtuous, one must have a rightly ordered soul. Aristotle states, “the good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if …show more content…
We can select to live of life of virtue, which guarantees us a happy and fulfilled life. Although it is difficult to put the most focus on the intellect of the soul, it is an exceptional achievement if successful. Aristotle believes to attain happiness and become virtuous that humans must find the means between two extremes of everything in life. He states, “one should incline sometimes towards excess and sometimes towards deficiency, because in this way we shall most easily hit upon the mean” (49). For example, humans must find a balance between pleasure and pain to become a virtuous