Nicomachean Ethics: Eudaimonia's Final Virtue

1.) “What is always chosen as an end in itself and never as a means to something else is called final in an unqualified sense. This description seems to apply to happiness above all else: for we always choose happiness as an end in itself and never for the sake of something else. Honor, pleasure, intelligence, and all virtue we choose partly for themselves—for we would choose each of them even if no further advantage would accrue from them—but we also choose them partly for the sake of happiness, because we assume that it is through them that we will be happy. On the other hand, no one chooses happiness for the sake of honor, pleasure, and the like, nor as a means to anything at all” (Aristotle; Nicomachean Ethics, p.51).

2.) Aristotle explains how happiness can be considered the final virtue sought after. Eudaimonia is the ultimate goal in a good life. Aristotle discusses how happiness is not a mean to something else like other virtues. Virtues such as honor or pleasure are sought after to help us obtain the virtue of happiness. Humans tend to seek happiness through other virtues. Becoming a flourishing human is part of a good life by being the end goal or purpose. Aristotle believes happiness is always “chosen as an
I then asked him questions about how happiness can part of a good life. He said typical things like, “the key to life is happiness” and how happiness is the main purpose of life. At first, he did not fully understand how Aristotle uses the term happiness in the passage. Jackson believed that happiness was more of an emotion than an end goal or state. Once I explained eudaimonia to him, he had a harder time understanding how it fits into a good life. He still believed that happiness and eudaimonia are parts of a good life. He is confused that if eudaimonia takes almost a lifetime to achieve, then how is it part of a good life. You have to be a flourishing human being to have truly lived a good