Nicomachean Ethics and Reasons Role in Happiness and Virtue Free Essays

Nicomachean Ethics consists of ten books, by Aristotle, that explains how to live a good life. Living a good life leads to one reaching eudaimonia. Aristotle’s philosophy is that contemplation is the highest activity of a human. We will write a custom essay sample on Nicomachean Ethics and Reasons Role in Happiness and Virtue or any similar topic only for you Order Now To achieve eudaimonia one has to live virtuously, and in order to live virtuously one must use their reason to find out what is the right way, the right place, the right time, and the right reason. Arete is related to virtue. It means excellence. Everything has a function. With arete, something is said to function well. If something has arete then, then the thing performs its function well, and is well itself. It is reaching its full potential. It is performing its function to the best of its ability. If one has arete, they are said to be pursuing excellence in everything that they do. They are living their life excellently. However this does not mean they are living their life perfectly. This is impossible. Perfect is a dream concept. There is no way to achieve true perfection. Virtue is important to live a happy, good life. According to aristotle there are two kinds of virtue, in intellectual and moral. Intellectual virtue is gained through knowledge, while moral virtue is gained through experience and habit. Virtue consists of acting the right way, at the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons. Having virtue is the disposition to become to a good person. Virtue is said to be a skill. Virtue today is thought to be something that can be taught to kids. However being a good person is not about knowing what the right thing to do is, but actually doing the right thing. Virtue is not something that can be thought, like history or biology. It is not simply telling you how to be and how to act, but it is learning how to be a good person. Philosophy is much deeper than that. The doctrine of the mean enlightens one on how to find virtue. Aristotle defines virtue as a middle ground between the extremes of excess and deficiency. To be virtuous, one cannot have too little of a good thing nor too much of a good thing. One has to find the mean between to the two extremes. If one slides too far one way or another, then they will no longer be virtuous. They will be committing a vice. Leaning too far to one side will make a person bad. A virtuous person is great at the balancing act of life. They are able to find the golden mean between the two vices of excess and deficiency. Some believe that virtue is being a good as you can be, but Aristotle reveals that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. One has to know how to find them golden mean in order to be virtuous. Aristotle points out some virtues and how they are means between the two extremes. However, he doesn’t point out every single one. One has to use the their common sense to determine what is the mean between any two things and what to do in what situation. Virtue and excellence are ingredients to have a good life and achieve eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is often translated as happiness. However this is not the best translation, because happiness is a fleeting feeling often associated with pleasure. Eudaimonia is better translated as a flourishing life. It is about overall happiness with life, not just the happiness in the moment that your boyfriend proposes to you. The ultimate goal of life is to achieve eudaimonia. It is our telos. It is a means to itself not to reach any other activity. No one says they want to be happy in order to achieve something else. A person without the common sense to find the mean between the vices of excess and deficiency and live virtuously, or not living up to their full potential, will not be able to reach eudaimonia Aristotle says the highest form of happiness is contemplation. Completion is the highest activity for our rational mind. Those that do have a rational soul cannot reach eudaimonia and they cannot not contemplate. In contemplation, humans are able to process information and evaluate it. Human have such advanced minds compared to any other living thing. Since humans are the only beings that have a rational soul, we are able to reach eudaimonia. Our ability to contemplate is what gives us the ability to be moral or immoral. Human have been given the ability to know what is right or wrong. No other being can have morals or values, because they have no sense of what is right or wrong. For instance, a jaguar cannot feel bad about killing a gazelle. That just how animals are. Animals do what they have to to survive. They cannot rationalize. If humans acted like other animals, then they would be considered savage creatures. People have a conscience. They are able to think and form ideas about what should be done in what situation and why. While there are some intelligent animals, none are intelligent as humans. None have the ability to think and reason like humans do. This is why humans are the dominant species. Humans have been able to evolve enormously at a very rapid pace. From being simple hunter and gatherer tribes of just a few thousand years ago to the complex societies and cultures that we have now in the age of technology. Without the gift of contemplation humans would not be able to live a life of virtue and reach eudaimonia. How to cite Nicomachean Ethics and Reasons Role in Happiness and Virtue, Papers