philosophical topics

vol. 41, no. 1, spring

2013

Happiness and Aristotles Definition of

Eudaimonia

Carlotta Capuccino
University of Bologna

ABSTRACT. Happiness is a much-debated topic in both ancient and contemporary philosophy. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to establish what are the necessary and sufficient conditions of eudaimonia for
Aristotle in Book I of Nicomachean Ethics; and second, to show how
Aristotles theory is also a good answer to the questions of the contemporary common sense about what happiness is and how to achieve it. In this
way, I would suggest new arguments to give a new voice to Aristotle in the
contemporary philosophical debate on this issue. My paper is therefore
only tangentially a contribution to this debate and remains essentially an
essay on the philosophy of Aristotle.
The moments of happinessnot the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security of affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination
We had the experience but missed the meaning.

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, III: The Dry Salvages

At first glance, Augustines remarks about time also seem to be true of happiness:
What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to someone
who asks me, I do not know anymore (Conf. XI xiv 17).1 In the course of our

lives, all of us have experienced something that, if asked, we would call happiness. For example, we say that we have lived happy moments, periods, or years,
and so on, thus making very common use of the adjective happy. But if we were
asked, What is happiness? perhaps we would not be so quick to respond, or,
in attempting to do so, we would realize how difficult this question is to answer.
Happiness is one of those things we think we know about until someone asks us
what it is, and at that moment we realize that actually we are ignorant of it. This
kind of question raises what Wittgenstein considered an eminently philosophical problem.2 Nevertheless, the problem of happiness differs from the problem of
time in one important respect: it is the fact that common sense provides several and
heterogeneous answers to this question to reveal that it is arduous to explain what
happiness is.3 For in common linguistic use the term happiness has more than one
meaning:4 first, it is ambiguous in those cases where it is not clear whether we are
using it to refer to something momentarylike intense joyor something that has
a certain duration, such as a state of inner satisfaction5 (and even on the presumed
subjective nature of happiness there is no agreement).6 Then, if we ask a representative sample of people what constitutes lasting happiness for them, i.e., what its
contents or causes might be, it is unlikely that we will receive two identical answers.
The only issue on which the average man seems to agree is that happiness is something of utmost importance. Therefore, from this indeterminacy there also arises a
practical problem: if I do not know what happiness is exactly, yet I consider it to be
one of the most importantif not the most importantthings, how do I pursue it?
In which direction will I strive when I exercise what, for example, the Declaration
of Independence of the United States of America recognizes as an inalienable right
of a man?7 The apparent legitimacy of this pluralism brings with it uncertainty and
confusion surrounding the goal to be achieved; this goal often proves to be a false
target, which causes dissatisfaction, discontent, and a lower quality of life.

Faced with such a puzzlement in contemporary common sense, philosophers,
psychologists, and sociologists have soughtand still seekto map out the concept of happiness, from its history to its definition and conditions of possibility,
with the aim of shedding some light on its boundaries. Using these renewed
attempts as a starting point, beginning with the still topical Analysis of Happiness
by Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz (1976), the subject of this essay will be the reconstruction of the Aristotelian theses about eudaimonia with the aim of showing its
intrinsic value and usefulness for our personal pursuit of happiness. In particular,
we will deal with Aristotles definition of eudaimonia in Book I of Nicomachean
Ethics, which will be analyzed clause by clause in order to answer two fundamental
questions: (1) what is eudaimonia, i.e., what are its necessary and sufficient conditions ( 1), and (2) to what extent is the Aristotelian analysis of eudaimonia also
a good analysis of the contemporary conceptor conceptsof happiness that
could reveal to us a clearer path to follow in order to be happy ( 2).8

I. Aristotle on Eudaimonia
In EN I 119 we find the most complete Aristotelian definition of eudaimonia in the
form of a question:
What then stops us from calling happy (eudamona)10 the one who is
active in accordance with perfect (teleian) virtue, sufficiently (hikans)
equipped with external goods, not for some random period of time but
over a complete life (tleion bion)? (1101a1416, Christopher Rowes
transl. modified)

For Aristotle, eudaimonia is an activity (enrgeia), not a state of mind, and an

activity in accordance with virtue (kataretn), exercised over a lifetime in the presence of a sufficient number of external goods. At first glance, eudaimonia is therefore something essentially different from our happiness, understood mostly as a
state of inner satisfaction that is free from moral values: if it is true that those who
are happy tend more often than not to be good, the converse is not true; namely,
being good does not necessarily make us happy.11 Contemporary common sense
seems to agree on the disjunction between happiness and morals, thus marking
the biggest distance from the so-called eudaimonistic ethics of the ancients. But
let us proceed step by step, reconstructing the arguments and premises through
which Aristotle arrives at this conclusion.
The first premise is posed by Aristotle at the beginning of Book I (1, 1094a14),
and states that every voluntary human action (praxis) has an end, i.e., it aims at
achieving a certain good, understood as what we consider to be good for us. This
means that the end is always good <or apparently good> for us and that no one
acts aiming at an evil <or apparent evil> for himself. The first claim, therefore,
connects the sphere of action with the good, making the underlying theory of
action the cornerstone of Aristotles ethics. Both theories, the theory of action and
the theory of the good, thus combine in an ethics of action. For Aristotle, human
beings have two different kinds of rexis, appetition or tension:12 will (bolesis),
which tends to the good, and desire (epithumia), moved by pleasure. Voluntary
action closes the gap between the will and the end, and allows us to achieve the
good. Thus, the good is, first of all, an end that we aim to achieve by acting voluntarily and does not have, in this original sense, any moral connotation.13 The first
step of the Aristotelian theory of action, however, goes further back and consists
of deliberation (boleusis), the process of researching or calculating the ways and
means by which to achieve the end.14 This deliberation gives us various possible
choices for achieving the end; only then does the preferred choice (proaresis) intervene: it is the kind of choice that directly determines the action, bridging the gap
between the will and the end. Action presupposes choice, then. But how do we
make a choice once we have weighed up the possible alternatives? The reasons
for the choice remain to be investigated. In order to deliberate, we need phrnesis,

understood as practical sagacity, which is the result of cognitive teaching; in addition, our choices are directly affected by our ethos, the habit of character given
by the moral virtues (and vices) formed and grown up with age. So we choose
no more through teaching, but through habituation or training (that is, through
activity). At the base of ethical virtues, however, phrnesis, understood this time
as practical wisdom, is still active inasmuch as it allows us to grasp the mean that
characterizes them.15 The premise can be summarized as follows:
T1 Theory of action: Will End = Good

Action

The second premise concerns the plurality and heterogeneity of the ends of voluntary human action, and can be found in the proem to Book I (1, 1094a16 ff.).
After identifying the end of human action with the good, Aristotle asks whether
there are goods in themselves, i.e., goods that are desirable and achievable for
themselves and not in view of other ends. A good in itself, if it exists, is a complete, accomplished or perfect (tleios) good because it does not refer to anything
outside itself. If more than one good per se exists, those desirable and achievable
only for themselves16 will be more perfect or complete than those pursued both
for themselves and for other goods. On the other hand, if there were no goods
desirable and achievable per se, the chain of ends would be infinite, and our lives
would be empty because they would never be fulfilled. This would be the case if it
is true, as Aristotle claims, that the fundamental ingredient that makes up our lives
is praxis, the voluntary action.17 If there is an ultimate goal (and there actually is),18
then on the basis of T1 (everything tends toward a goal that is a good) this will also
be a good, and it will be the chief good since it is the ultimate one:
T2 Goods in view of other things/Goods in themselves

If good is a gradable value and to riston is that superlative good we seek not in
view of a higher good but for itself, the knowledge of this chief good will therefore
be of great importance for our lives (gnosis pros ton bion) in order to achieve their
purpose (skops; 1, 1094a2224). The third premise concerns precisely the research
of the chief good, that which Aristotle initially defines as human (to anthrpinon
agathn, 1094b8), i.e., particular and realizable, feasible or practicable (praktn,
2, 1095a16)in the very sense that it may be the end, and more precisely the
ultimate end, of voluntary human action (praxis); this premise corresponds to the
endoxici.e., reputablethesis according to which we agree to call the superlative good eudaimonia. Human beings can come to possess this chief good in its full
scope and extent and thus be happy.19
T3

riston = Eudaimonia (ex consensu omnium)

To say that happiness is the chief good, i.e., that it is the good in itself, means that
it does not make sense to ask someone, Why do you want to be happy? There

are no goods, and thus no ends, that are superordinate to happiness. The answer is
definitive.20 The pursuit of happiness, for Aristotle, is the ultimate end of human
action, the chief good, the best thing; and it is so both on the basis of universal
consensus (consensus on the name) and as a necessary consequence of his theory
of action.
Yet, there is no agreement on what this chief good that we call eudaimonia is,
for ancient common sense displays the same pluralism that common sense does
today.21 However, we do not find the same confusion about what the characteristics of the chief good should be that we find in the case of happiness. It is widely
accepted that the chief good must be (1) something personal [oikeion] and difficult to lose (3, 1095b2526);22 (2) the most perfect (teleitaton) of all ends,
i.e., the only good pursued always for its own sake and never for the sake of other
things23 (5, 1097a2834); and (3) self-sufficient (atarkes), that is, enough for itself
(1097b6 ss). With the usual method of ndoxaor reputable opinionsAristotle
weighs up the most popular or influential beliefs on the topic, arriving at his personal definition of to riston in Chapter 6 of the book. Aristotles original move
is the following: he does not ask directly what eudaimonia is, he does not attempt
to settle the dispute between the many and the wise men (or the men of taste
and refinement, charentes; cf. 3, 1045b22), but wonders what the best thing (the
good in itself) is, presenting for the first time his own theory of the good. What do
we say when we say that something is good? The answer is compelling because it
exceeds our intuitions about the concept of the good as a moral good:
T4

Agathn = Ergon

It is commonly believed (dokei)24 that the good of something resides in its ergon;
that is to say in its own work. For example, the good for the flautist lies in playing
the flute25 and the good for the sculptor in the sculpture realized. Aristotle takes
the concept of ergon from a passage of Platos Republic,26 where it is said that (1)
every animal has an ergon; (2) the ergon of every animal is (i) what only the animal
does (or can only be done through it), just as one can only see with eyes and can
only hear with ears; or (ii) that which it does in the most perfect way (or that which
can be done in the most perfect way through it), just as one can cut a hedge using
many tools (knife, scissors, etc.), but can only cut it in the perfect way by using a
sickle; (3) this applies to everything: the ergon of something consists in that which
only that thing can do or that which that thing does better than any other thing.
The ergon seems to be, then, that by which a thing properly is the thing it is, that
which something does by nature, its end.27
Aristotles argument is analogical and proceeds in the following way. If the
human being (nthropos) as such has an ergon, i.e., a work that characterizes his
human nature, then this work is a good candidate for being the chief good that we
are looking for and that is called eudaimonia, just like for the flautist, the sculptor
and in general for those of which there is some work and an activity, in this work

resides their good.28 The preliminary step in defining human ergon is therefore to
demonstrate that there actually is one, i.e., that the human being as such, and not
as a professional in a given profession, has his own work. Aristotle demonstrates
this in the first part of the chapter by means of two arguments, which are also both
analogical.29
(i) The first one is the argument of professionals (technitai), which works by
contrast30 as a kind of inverse analogical argument: is it possible that the professionals have an ergon and human beings do not? In other words, is it possible that
human beings are inactive by nature? The question is rhetorical and the answer is,
obviously, No. As Eustratius observed, pphuken (by nature) is the signal that
we are dealing with an a fortiori argument: if, on the one hand, we consider man
as a human being, we consider his essence or nature; if, on the other hand, we
consider man from the point of view of his professional capacity (for example, as
a flautist), we consider some accidental feature of him. Eustratius, Bishop of Nicea
and eleventh-century commentator of Aristotle, speaks of an argument starting
from the least strong case: if the effect has an ergon, a fortiori the cause must have
an ergon. If in fact the arts, which are effects of human reason, have their own
goods in their ergon, a fortiori the good of human reason will be in mans own
work.31 Eustratius perfectly captures the Aristotelian topos known as ek tou mallon
kai hetton, that derives (or that proceeds) from the more or the less, formulated in
the Rhetoric (II 23, 1397b12 ff.).

(ii) The second argument is the argument of the natural parts, and is, on the
contrary, properly analogical: just as the eye, the hand, and the foot and every part
of the human being32 has an ergon, so too the human being will have an ergon. In
this case we are also faced with an a fortiori argument:33 if the parts of the human
being that are less perfect (the argument starts from the case of the less strong, as
Eustratius rightly observed) have their own specific ergon, then so will the human
being as such, being more perfect than his parts.34 With these two analogical arguments, Aristotle has proved, in all probability,35 that the human being has an ergon
and thus, by Modus Ponendo Ponens (MPP), that this ergon coincides with his
good.36 It remains to be determined what human work is, and this is done by looking at mans own peculiar nature (idion):37 that which distinguishes human beings
from other living beings (plants and animals) is a certain practical life [praktik
tis, in the sense of active] of that which possesses reason. From the beginning,
Aristotle had defined the human good as a practical good in the sense of feasible
or achievable through action (praxis) (I 2, 1095a16). Furthermore, a practical life
is not understood as a simple disposition to act (kathhexin), but as an activity
(katenrgeian),38 and more precisely an activity (enrgeia) of the rational soul.39
The ergon and the good of man thus lie in this enrgeia of the rational soul. But
precisely what kind of activity is the enrgeia?
Enrgeia and praxis are not synonyms. Aristotle explains the relationship
between the two activities in Metaph. 6 (1048b1836), claiming that there are

two kinds of praxis: we can call the first knesis, movement, whose end is outside
of itself. The second, which has its end in itself, is enrgeia. This kind of activity
responds positively to the test of the perfect tense. For activities like living, seeing,
thinking, being happy (as opposed to activities like weight loss, learning, walking,
building, and becoming), if x is living, seeing, thinking, or being happy, then we
can say that at the same time x has lived, seen, thought, and been happy.40 That
is, each of these activities is perfect (tleios). And since it coincides with the end,
enrgeia always succeeds: he who carries out a perfect activity acts necessarily and
acts well (praxei ex anankes kai eu praxei, 9, 1099a23). In relation to ergon, if
the praxis that accompanies the ergon is a knesis, then the praxis is different from
ergon. This is, for example, the case of the sculptor: the praxis of sculpting41 has
the sculpture as its end, which is something different from sculpting and external
to it; therefore it is a knesis. The ergon, which always coincides with the end, will
be the sculpture produced (ergon as a result). If, on the other hand, the praxis that
accompanies the ergon is an enrgeia, then it coincides with the ergon, as in the
case of the flautist: the praxis of playing the flute has as its end playing the flute,
and is itself its own end, so it is at the same time enrgeia and ergon (ergon as
activity).42 We defined ergon as the thing by which a thing is the very thing that it
is, and now the value of by is clear: the ergon of something is its natural end, i.e.,
its realization, the fulfillment of that something qua the thing it is, or for what that
thing is. The ergon of something is in fact the good of that thing (by endoxic thesis
T4), and Aristotle in the preceding chapters had identified the good with the end
(T1).43 This confirms that the line of argument is moving toward the definition of
the good and the end.

That which we are searching for, however, is not simply the good (to agathn)
of the human being, but his chief good (to riston). It is still possible to proceed in
the division of the genus in the search for the specific difference: the ergon of x is
identical in genus to the ergon of spoudaios (good, excellent) x, as in the case of the
citharist and the good citharist.44 We therefore generate the two species of ergon
and of ergon accomplished kataretn, i.e., according to the eminence in respect of
excellence (aret) that is proper to it.45 The term used is huperochs, meaning eminence or superiority; and since we are seeking the definition of the chief good,
that which is better within the genus of ergon will be preferred to the worst. The
ergon accomplished according to the eminence of the proper aret is accomplished
well, thus it is the best candidate for the role of the chief human good:
T5

riston = Ergon kataretn

But if the chief good is identical to eudaimonia (z = x) through universal consent, and is identical to ergon kataretn (z = y) as Aristotles analogical argument concluded, then by applying a law known as Euclids Lawbut already
formulated by Aristotle in the Topics46that states: if two things are identical
to the same thing, then they are identical to each other, we can derive from our

endoxic premises the necessary conclusion that eudaimonia is identical to ergon

kataretn (x = y).47
T3 riston = Eudaimonia (ex consensu omnium)
z=x
T4 Agathn = Ergon
________________________________________________________
T5 riston = Ergon kataretn
z=y
T6 <Eudaimonia = Ergon kataretn> x = y Euclids Law

Ergon was defined as an activity of the rational soul, thus ergon kataretn, identical
as for genus, will be an activity of the rational soul according to the excellence that
is proper to it; and, Aristotle adds, if there is more than one of these excellences,
then it will be activity according to the best and the most perfect (teleiotaten) of
them. Through the Law of Transitivity of Identity, this will eventually be the definition of eudaimonia we have been looking for, with the addition of the clause in
a complete [teleia] life,48 and waiting for the final clause with a sufficient amount
of external goods, that will be the subject matter of Chapters 10 and 11.
T6 <Eudaimonia = Ergon kataretn>
x=y
T7 Ergon kataretn = Rational activity of the soul

according to excellence
y=q
______________________________________________________
T8 Eudaimonia = Rational activity of the soul

according to excellence
x = q Transitivity of Identity

At this point, Aristotle reformulates the results of Chapter 6 in terms of his theory of action by recalling some shared beliefs and by introducing an eminent
one already accepted by Plato and by himself: the so-called tripartite division of
goods into external goods (like wealth and friendship) and internal goods, the
latter being of the body (health, beauty, and strength) and of the soul (8, 1098b8
ff.). The goods of the soul, here assumed without demonstration as the greatest
goods,49 are actions (praxeis) and activities (enrgeiai) peculiar of the soul. And
since some of those are ends, then the end too will be among the goods of the soul.
As a result, the happy man lives and acts well because eudaimonia is a certain way
of living well (euzoia tis) and acting well (euprattein) in the sense of having success (eupraxia), i.e., realizing the end of the activity in which it consists.50 In other
words, for Aristotle, man, qua human being, has one single ergon51a constitutive
luck, namely, a natural teleological condition, common to everybodywhich, if
exercised, leads to the accomplishment of his own humanity and then to happiness.52 As for the kind of excellence required for a man to exercise his ergon, the
central books of the Nicomachean Ethics will show that human excellence is partly
moral (the ethical virtues) and partly intellectual (the dianoetic virtues); and it is
here that we meet for the first time the link between happiness and morality.
Before moving on to the conclusion, where I will explain the consequences of
this analysis through a comparison of Aristotles eudaimonia and our concept of
happiness,53 I would like to respond briefly to the three principal objections that
are usually advanced against the Aristotelian thesis on the basis of as many exegetical difficulties.54
8

 (1) The first objection concerns the nature of self-sufficiency (autrcheia)

that Aristotle assigns to the chief good and then to eudaimonia in Chapter 5. Just
as eudaimonia is the perfect good because no one chooses it aiming at something
else, so it will also be self-sufficient because it is perfect. The eudaimon, however,
is self-sufficient not because he is a solitary man (as this would be incompatible
with the political nature of man), but rather because his way of life (bios) is in
itself worthy of being chosen (or is the thing most worthy of being chosensee 5,
1097b1415) because it lacks nothing. In fact, if one could add to it even the smallest of the goods, eudaimonia would no longer be the preferable and ultimate good,
given that among the goods one should always choose the best one (b1920).
This statement has raised more perplexities than needed, I believe.55 We must not
forget that we are dealing with Chapter 5, and that therefore Aristotle has not yet
enunciated any of his definitions of the chief good, neither the essential one of
Chapter 6 nor the two successive ones of Chapters 10 and 11 that complement its
clauses. However, it is clearly eudaimonia he is talking about when he says that you
cannot add to it any good because it is self-sufficient (1097b15 ff.), and, according
to him, eudaimonia is nothing other than the complete definition he will give of
it in Chapter 11 and from which our analysis started: an activity of the rational
soul carried out in an excellent way, in a complete life and with the addition of a
sufficient amount of external goods.56 In other words, the external goods, which
we will consider in more detail shortly, are a constitutive element of the definition
and thus cannot be considered the more that, if added to eudaimonia, would deny
its primacy as chief good. What is meant here, on the contrary, is not that the ergon
kataretn is self-sufficient, so to imply that man could be happy in the absence of
any external and corporeal good, just devoting his life to the exercise of virtuous
activities. There is no good, however minimal, which added to the Aristotelian
formula of eudaimonia would alter its balance, because it does not lack any of the
goods that are required for it.57

(2) The second objection concerns the clause in a complete life and in particular the meaning of the adjective tleios predicated of bios. In the passages58 in
which the phrase occurs it seems clear that tleios, when referred to bios, always
acquires a temporal value: in the occurrence of Chapter 11 the whole span of life
is contrasted with any limited period of time;59 a child is not really happy because
of his age, and could be said to be happy only in the hope that he could become
so, because many changes occur during a lifetime and it is possible that the most
prosperous man fall into terrible misfortunes in his old age, and no-one can be
called happy who has endured such misfortunes and died in such a terrible way
(10, 1100a4 ss).60 And again, the happy man will be happy for his whole life (di
biou, b18). Consequently, one could charge Aristotle, and Solon as well, with the
accusation of having formulated a paradoxical thesis: if one cannot say that anyone is happy while he lives, but must wait till the completion (telos) of his life to do
so, it follows that one can only be really happy after death. But if eudaimonia is by
definition a certain kind of activity, this is completely absurd (pantels topon).
Aristotle does not believe, however, that to call happy the one who is dead is
9

really Solons thesis, but that Solon rather intended to emphasize that eudaimonia
is something stable61 and thus ill-suited to man as long as he is at the mercy of evils
and misfortunes. Making death a condition of stability, however, is not only paradoxical, but is also not sufficient, for two reasons: (1) it does not take into account
the common belief that there are some goods and some evils for the dead as well,
for example, honor and dishonor or the success and failure of their descendants;
and (2) if we adopt luck (tuche) as a criterion for happiness, in so doing we incur
a still greater absurdity by making the eudaimon appear as a chameleon, as we
should call the same person first happy, then miserable (thlios), then happy again
within a single life.

The solution to both paradoxes (i.e., calling happy the one who is dead and
not calling happy the one who is alivesee 1100a32 ff.) lies in reassigning the
stability requirement of eudaimonia to what is the requirement of, i.e., to virtuous
activity, of whatever kind that may be.62 If the happiness of man mainly depends
on this activity because it is the only way to make it stable, then bad luck and the
vices of the descendants, like the big misfortunes of life, can reduce and obscure
bliss (makariotes)63 to the extent that it can cause pain and hinder the exercise of
that activity, but cannot alter its essence. In fact, the beautiful shines for those
who have the magnanimity to withstand adversity in these cases as well. Similarly,
great and numerous fortunes and ones descendants successes will make life
more blessed (makariteron) by embellishing it as a kind of ornamental addition64 to that which is complete in itself, and not by adding to it a missing ingredient; this is proved by the fact that minor fortunes and misfortunes are instead
irrelevant.65 However, there remains a small flaw in this perfect construction, that
Aristotle cannot ignore: if eudaimonia is the end and is that which is most complete in every aspect, as our previous analysis seems to indicate, and given that
the future is obscure, it is necessary to add to our definition that to be eudaimon,
a man must not only live, but also die happy.66 The paradox of Solon stands, then,
but the response that Aristotle has in store is at once the most simple and profoundly human: if this is the case, we will say that those who live in the manner we
have described are blessed (makarious), but blessed as men (makarious danthropous). The perfection of enrgeia inevitably conflicts with the imperfection of
human nature. There is an irreconcilable tension between activity par excellence
for its own sake and the constitutive limits of man that consist, on the one hand, of
his political nature (happiness does not belong to the one who is stateless) and, on
the other hand, of his mortality: perfect happiness, bliss, only belongs to the gods.
Perfection does not belong to men except as an expression of their divine part.67
Reduced to a human scale, even the most perfect activity becomes imperfect in at
least one aspect: of a being in time we can say that he has been happy, conjugating the verb in the past, or that he is happy in the present, but with reservations,
because that is his nature.68 Only of an immortal god in his eternal present can
we say that he is happy and blessed without qualification, because we can say at
the same time that he was, is, and will be happy. This interpretation is confirmed

10

by Aristotle himself, in particular in a passage of the Eudemian Ethics completely

parallel to Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics:
And that we have rightly stated its [scl. of happiness] genus and definition is proved by opinions that we all hold. For we think that to do well
[eu prattein] and live well [eu zen] are the same [to aut] as to be happy
[eudaimonein]; but each of these, both life and action, is employment
[chresis] and activity [enrgeia], inasmuch as active life involves employing thingsthe coppersmith makes a bridle, but the horseman uses it.
There is also the evidence of the opinion that a person is not happy for
one day only, and that a child is not happy, nor any period of life (hence
also Solons advice holds good, not to call a man happy while he is alive,
but only when he has reached the end), for nothing incomplete is happy,
since it is not a whole. (II 1, 1219a40b8, H. Rackams transl. modified)69

(3) The third objection, finally, deals with the role played by external goods, i.e.,
with the last clause of the definition introduced later in Chapters 10 and 11.70 In
order to be eudaimon, a man must necessarily be provided with a minimum of corporeal and external goods71 of two kinds: some goods will be instrumental to the
exercise of virtuous activity, useful by nature, for example, money and friends
without these resources it would be impossible, or at least not easy, to perform
beautiful actions; other goods, like a noble birth, children, or beauty, are necessary
because their lack blurs (rhupanousi) happiness. According to Aristotle, then, a
certain external prosperity and good fortune (eutuchia) are an essential part of the
definition of eudaimonia. It does not follow from this, however, that misfortune
and a lack of prosperity make a man unhappy. The remaining goods in addition
to the souls own activitiescorporeal and external goodsare in fact necessary
conditions for happiness, but not in the same way in which virtuous activity is a
necessary condition for it.72 The enrgeiai kataretn are decisive (kriai) for life
and happiness,73 just as the opposite activities (the vicious ones) are decisive for
unhappiness: because of their stability, they are its key ingredient, or, as it were,
its cause. This means that only the presence of these activities or of the contrary
ones can make a man eudaimon or athlios, i.e., happy or unhappy. And since it
is not easy, if not impossible, to lose the virtuous habit acquired with effort and
reinforced by daily exercise, then no blessed man can become miserable (11,
1100b34).74 Happy and unhappy are not contradictory opposites for Aristotle;
that is, the Law of the Excluded Middle does not hold true for them, but an intermediate condition between the two is allowed. Lack of a sufficient amount of
external goods will prevent a man from being happy, or truly blessed, making him
not happy, but will not lead him to a condition of misery. The stability of his excellent character will be back active as soon as fate will favor its exercise again; such
stability is then not affected, but only temporarily blurred by misfortune. In the
same way, the greatest prosperity will be unable to turn a miserable man into a
happy one because the character, even the vicious one, persists once formed:75 only
through constant exercise of the best part of ourselves will we achieve that for
which we are born and therefore be happy.

11

II. Eudaimonia and Happiness

If we retrace the history of the term eudaimon and the like from the beginning, we
can easily realize that eudaimonia was for a Greek what happiness is for us today
and that therefore Aristotles theory relates to the common sense of his time in
the same way that our contemporary theories about happiness relate to todays
common sense. Leaving aside the theological origin of eudaimon in its etymological meaning (having the daimon in your favour),76 the term is in fact used as a
synonym for lbios, prosperous, and the most common idea is that of eudaimonia
as prosperity, i.e., the man who has a favorable fate and possesses the best external
goods is considered eudaimon: good birth, children, wealth, and even a beautiful
death as the crowning of a happy life.77 However, there are at least three fundamental differences between the ancient and the modern, two of which call common sense into question, while the third is purely theoretical.

(1) The first difference concerns the modern preference for a subjective vision
of happiness as a mental state of satisfaction (to be and feel happy are one and
the same thing),78 which is opposed to the ancient objective view of eudaimonia
as possession of goods, of whatever kind they may be. However, this difference is
not as clear-cut as it may seem. In fact, not everyone today thinks that happiness
is to be satisfied with ones life in its totality; instead, some would rather define
it as a life which, in its totality, makes us satisfied.79 This seemingly innocuous
and irrelevant reversal of perspective actually expresses the need for an objective
element acting as a guarantee: happiness is something desirable, and therefore it
should be accounted for; for example, it should be grounded in reality and not be
the result of deception or illusion, and the satisfaction felt should be genuine, not
due to an alteration induced by exogenous substanceslike drugsor caused by
an endogenous dysfunction.
The necessary and sufficient conditions for happiness according to the common sense view are several: happiness must be complete (i.e., must be a satisfaction
both at its highest degree and with all the important aspects of life),80 durable
(vs. intense, momentary joy)81 and pleasurable (this is the very same concept of
inner satisfaction). There is no agreement, however, on one last requirement: that
happiness, being something desirable, must be accounted for. The debate revolves
around the famous case of poor Susan, thus named with reference to an essay
by Wayne Sumner, but already known by Tatarkiewicz in a different version:82
Susan had been living for ten years believing that her marriage was perfect, while
her friends knew that actually her husband had a double life and a second family
elsewhere in town. In these ten years of marriagethat is, before discovering the
truthwas Susan happy? Was hers a happy marriage?83 If in order to be happy it
were sufficient to feel happy (this is Sumners thesis)and if therefore the answer
to the question about Susans happiness were affirmativewe would not know
how to explain our reluctance to put ourselves in her shoes. If hypothetically Susan
could go back and continue to feel happy without being aware of her husbands

12

betrayal, perhaps she would agree to exchange the truth for feeling good (because
she felt good then, i.e., causality is not retroactive: the present cannot influence the
past); but not everyone would make the same choice.84 Also, ifagain, hypotheticallySusan could choose between this last option and that of having a past free
from deception, obviously she would opt for the latter.85 The so-called Sufficiency
thesis (to feel happy to be happy) does not even explain pathological cases like
the one described in an episode of the American TV series Ally McBeal86 where a
clot in a mans brain results in a permanent state of happiness and elation, which
he himself recognizes as artificial and not corresponding to reality as soon as he
decides to have the clot removed so as to be able to mourn the death of his wife
from cancer. The inadequacy of extreme subjectivism lies in the failure to recognize that, to be truly happy, the state of inner satisfaction must follow the realization of ones own ideal of life. Matthieu Ricard, the scientist who in 2004 gave
up his career to follow the Dalai Lama and who, after a measurement of his brain
waves, was found to be the happiest man in the world,87 would not be considered
as such by the many who do not agree with his life choice: to feel happy is not a
sufficient condition for truly being so (this is Tatarkiewiczs thesis).88 And after all
pleasure is a necessary condition for happiness, as shown by the sad story of Vasja
Sumkv, Dostoyevskys weak-hearted character who suddenly finds himself to
have fulfilled his greatest desires and at the same time to have realized the common
ideal of happiness, and yet is not happy because, due to an uncontrollable fear of
losing what he has, he is unable to feel satisfaction and ends up going crazy.89
On the other hand, the subjective view is not entirely alien to ancient common sense, as Aristotle shows when among the ndoxa concerning eudaimonia
he mentions the hedonistic thesis according to which eudaimonia coincides with
pleasure.90 The ingredient of pleasure is not even absent from Aristotles definition
itself, in its double role of what perfects or intensifies the activity, as a sort of
crowning, and of unhindered activity, in the sense that we feel pleasure in the
very possibility of freely exercising the specific activity that constitutes our natural
end.91 Feeling good, i.e., the inner satisfaction about the present and optimism
for the future, is therefore not alien to eudaimonia, because virtuous activities are
pleasurable by nature. Every stable pleasure is a pleasure of this kind.
(2) The second difference actually hides a similarity between modern and
ancient views and raises the problem of moral luck, i.e., of the relationship
between happiness on the one hand, chance and luck on the other. Modern and
ancient common sense shareas we have seenthe thesis according to which
happiness consists in prosperity and good fortune,92 a thesis against which the
ancient philosophers would advance the following objection: external goods are
fundamentally unstable, susceptible to fortune; hence if happiness consisted only
in or mainly of their possession, we would let chance decide about our existence.
Happiness, if it exists at all, must be something stable.93 It is not clear to what
extent modern theories meet the stability requirement, but it is undeniable that
each of us steadily desires the thingwhatever it might bethat is regarded as

13

necessary for our happiness. The possibility of freeing it from the whims of luck
should then be at the very least an attractive one.

(3) Finally, the third and possibly the most radical difference concerns the link
between moral good and happiness. Ethics is the theory of good life, of what it is
to live well; in other words, a theory of moral good. Philosophical reflection on the
good is therefore linked to the sphere of morality; but is to be morally decent equal
to or different from wanting to be happy? What is the connection between moral
good and happiness? For the ancients, ethics revolves around the concept of happiness (thats why we speak of eudaimonistic ethics): to claim that the final good,
the supreme good of human life is happiness, is the same as claiming that our
greatest duty toward both ourselves and the community we live in is to be happy.
For the modern person, however, things are quite different. Indeed, the concept of
happiness has progressively turned into an individualistic and egoistic one. Why,
then, listen to a voice so dissonant to us as that of Aristotle?

The provocative outdatedness94 of the Aristotelian thesis lies, in my opinion,
in two moves.

(1) The first one consists in centering happiness on what depends on us and
not on fortune (external goods) or on necessity (corporeal goods), i.e., in centering
it on goods of the soul,95 on properly human excellences. According to Aristotle,
there is room for freedom and responsibility between chance and necessity thanks
to mans voluntary actions, of which moral actions are a kind: we are, in fact, praised
or blamed for our actions, for what depends on us. On this basis the two main differences between ancient and modern theories of happiness are actually canceled.
First of all, Aristotles eudaimonia, conceived of on a human scale, settles the dispute between subjectivists and objectivists by recognizing the mixed nature of the
concept of happiness, which reconciles the external point of view with the internal
one: eudaimonia is an enrgeia (external point of view), but of the soul (internal
point of view). In addition, it is an activity in accordance with aret (internal element) in a complete life, with a sufficient number of external and corporeal goods
(objective element), accompanied and crowned by pleasure (subjective element).96
This is the nature of happiness to which the subjective and objective elements both
contribute in the proportions set out above.97 To ignore it would mean to turn the
concept of happiness into something slippery and impossible to define and, on a
practical level, to make happiness even more difficult to achieve than it already is
by its own nature. As for the divergence between happiness and morality distinctive
of contemporary theories, Aristotles response consists in rooting the moral good
in the nature of man. As we have seen, the end of human actions is an extra-moral
good, i.e., each one of us always acts in view of what he thinks to be a good for him.
And the final end, i.e., the chief good and happiness, lies in the exercise of the activity that above all makes us human, i.e., rational activity, according to the excellence
that marks it: an excellence that is at the same time intellectual and moral. Morality
is thus rooted in human nature, not because virtues, like passions and capacities
(dunmeis), are innate in manfor Aristotle, on the contrary, they are the result of

14

habit and learningbut because virtuous activities, the enrgeiai kataretn (both
moral and intellectual), constitute the ergon and the natural end of man. To be
happy is a moral duty because our nature demands it.

(2) The second move consists of a challenge, because Aristotles aim in writing the Nicomachean Ethics concerns something unusual for us and can therefore
result into either a success or a failure. If action is the fundamental ingredient of
human life, if the theory of action is what describes our life, then we must try to
know the chief good as much as we can,98 and this will be the task of politik, the
architectonic science to which ethics is a sort of prelude, because man is by nature
a political animal:99 it is part of his intrinsic nature, and it is his proper form, to
live in a city (polis) whose task is to ensure not only living, but living well, i.e., that
kind of well-being that Aristotle identifies with eudaimonia. The purpose of the
Nicomachean Ethics, however, is not knowledge, but action:100 even if knowing the
highest good in its essential features is very important for the goal of our lives,
[ ] in the field of action the realisation does not consist in theoretically knowing every aspect, but above all in putting it into practice (10, 1179a35 ss.). That is,
the purpose is not to increase our knowledge of the world, but Aristotles discussion has as its goal human action in the world. Aristotle is quite close to Socrates in
this respect: in recognizing that conventional paideia is essentially cognitive, while
moral paideia is out of the curricula and is not a taught subject-matter, marking a
major gap in the traditional system of education. Paideuein in Greek means both
to instruct and to educate. The first level of paideia deals with instruction, which
is learning at once ones own language and the encyclopedia, that is the basic common beliefs of the polis, in order to acquire a techne, an expertise to support oneself
(professional education). There is, however, also a superior level of paideia, which
differs in its end from instruction: to educate someone means to make sure that
that human being is at his best and cultivates his humanity to the highest degree
(nonprofessional education). How should we live? Which bios? Which form will
our lives take? Moral principles are not transmitted through instruction, they are
not subjects of traditional teaching, and yet a moral code exists. But, then, who
teaches us to be morally decent? Superior education remains in the background,
it is tacitly acquired through rewards and punishments, and this marks the failure
of our educational system.

To be happy, for Socrates as for Plato and Aristotle, cannot be separated from
fulfilling ones own moral profile.101 This is the reason why it makes sense to accept
Aristotles challenge. His ethics merely describes how things are (it is not a prescriptive ethics, because it does not need to be so), correcting the imperfections
and the errors of common sense where they lurk;102 and nevertheless it can be considered as an example of moral paideia because it is a right way to talk about it:103
moral and intellectual happiness is the ultimate expression of your nature, and it
is perfectly within your reach, whatever profession you choose in your life, be it or
not an expression of your individual talents. So why should you not practice it? If
this attempt results in a failure, it will at least be a noble failure.

15

Acknowledgments
This essay is a distillation of the work done in recent years in advanced seminars held at the University of Bologna and Pisa, and in a course of lectures at
the University of Ferrara. Warm thanks are due to all the participants in seminars and the students of the course for their stimulating questions and comments. A special thanks goes to Walter Cavini for reading and discussing a
first draft of my paper, to Angelo Giavatto and Paola Gamberini for a lastminute reviewing of my English, and to three anonymous referees for their very
helpful remarks and suggestions.

Notes
1. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations of the texts cited are my own. The abbreviations
of the names of Greek and Latin authors and of the titles of their works are taken respectively
from the Greek-English Lexicon by H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, and the Oxford Latin
Dictionary by P. Glare.
2. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 89: Augustine says (Conf. XI.14): quid est
ergo tempus? si nemo ex me quaerat scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.This could not
be said about a question of natural science (for instance, what is the specific gravity of hydrogen).
Something that we know when no one asks us, but no longer know when we are supposed to
give an account of it, is something that we need to remind ourselves of [etwas, worauf man sich
besinnen mu]. (And it is obviously something of which for some reason it is difficult to remind
oneself).
3. On the other hand, we are not able to give more than a purely ostensive answer to the question of
what time is it, such as by indicating toward the face of a clock.
4. [ ] we have four uses of the term happiness; a man is said to be happy if (1) he is satisfied
with his life, (2) he experiences the greatest joy, (3) he is successful and (4) he possesses the
highest good. These four meanings are a copious source of confusion in our ideas about happiness; four concepts each designated by the same word are apt to fuse in our minds into a single
nebulous notion hovering between the four. Even though most philosophers who have written
about happiness have accepted only one of them and eliminated the rest, the average man is still
inclined to lump these four different things under a single label. If he says (of himself or someone
else) that he is happy, he means it sometimes in one sense, sometimes in another; if he is referring to someone else he is most likely to be thinking of happiness in the third or fourth sense,
and reserve the first or second sense for his own happiness (Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1617, italics
mine). Whether this is a real ambiguity or a mere generality, as Fred Feldman prefers to define
it based on a distinction of Quine, it is undeniable that we do not use the noun happiness and
the adjective happy univocally, though we do use them successfully every day. The statement I
am happy sometimes means I am in ecstasy or I feel an intense joy, other times I am fine or
I am satisfied with my life: these are clearly two different senses or contextual meanings of the
term, even if they probably belong to a basic common meaning (cf. Feldman 2010, 12736; Quine
1960, ch. 4). Quine himself is in favor of a loose concept of ambiguity where further technicalities
are not required: having no present technical need of the notion of ambiguity, however, I shall
not try to improve the boundary, but will just go on using the word as a non-technical term where
it seems appropriately suggestive (p. 132). The everyday use of happy and happiness belongs,
I think, to these cases. In support of the ambiguity of use, see also the literary examples given in
the following note.
5. Cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 29 ff. The work of W. Tatarkiewicz is punctuated, from the beginning, by
countless literary examples playing on this ambiguity and giving rise to expressions with an air

16

of paradox: In Aldous Huxleys Antic Hay the hero asks his companion, after a Mozart concert:
Did you enjoy it? Did I? Emily laughed expressively. No, I didnt enjoy it, she said. Enjoy isnt
the word; you enjoy eating ices. It made me happy. Its unhappy music but it made me happy
(p. 1); This is the source of such paradoxes as Voltaires: One can feel happy without being
happy (p. 19); The German Romantic Jean Paul wrote: My happiness is that I am unhappy:
this can sometimes be said by a nation or an individual (p. 21); He would say, as did the Polish
playwright of the 18th century Count Fredro: How unhappy I am with being happy (p. 26); etc.
6. In regards to lasting happiness, distinctions of common sense overlap with the philosophical
distinction between happiness as a state of mind and happiness as living well or in a satisfactory
way. See, for example, the beginning of the entry Happiness in the SEP (Haybron 2011).
7. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (in Congress, July 4, 1776). In the film The Pursuit of Happyness by Gabriele
Muccino (2006), which is inspired by the Declaration, happiness very evidently means prosperity.
Similarly, the manuscript version of the Declaration bears the word prosperity instead of happiness; namely, Jefferson initially wrote that mans main inalienable rights are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of prosperity, engaging a precise meaning of the term happiness.
8. In other words, following the Socratic method, we will pose the question of ti esti (What is it?),
and we will see, with Aristotle, that this does not mean to do theory in the sense of doing something separate from the practical research of happiness, i.e., something abstract. On the contrary
this question offers a good start in order to give a direction to that practical research.
9. For the Nicomachean Ethics, I adopt the division into chapters of F. Susemhils and O. Apelts
critical edition (Leipzig 1903).
10. In modern translations, the terms eudaimon and eudaimonia are translated respectively as happy
and happiness by convention.
11. At least, this is what common experience seems to suggest. A first difference between the Greek
eudaimon and the English happy consists in the fact that eudaimon is never used in relation to
an object: one never says one is eudaimon about something; on the contrary, in English the
adjective happy allows for this use: we say, for example, I am happy to see you. Cf. Broadie 2002,
12.
12. Famous in this regard is the beginning of Aristotles Metaphysics: All men by nature aim to
know ( ).
13. Aristotle seems to recall the Socratic thesis according to which nobody acts willingly in view of
something he believes to be an evil for him, although it is possible at a later time that he has second thoughts and regrets, i.e., that he is wrong. For Socrates, too, the good as the end of an action
is to be understood in an extra-moral sense.
14. In the original Latin sense of deliberatio: to ponder, to weigh up the various possibilities.
15. For example, courage is preserved by the mean inasmuch as the brave, unlike the coward, who
is afraid and runs away from anything, and the rash, who tackles everything and fears nothing
(both vices, respectively by defect and excess, in absence of the calculation of phrnesis), will
have fear in just measure and in the right circumstances, i.e., will be able to control his emotions. Phrnesis thus operates directly on the determination of character (together with habit) and
mediately (through such character determination) both on the choice that leads to the action and
on the goal established by the will.
16. It seems that according to Aristotle there are only two possible goods that are desirable and
achievable only per se and never with a view to other goods: eudaimonia and pleasure. For
Aristotle they are not the same thing and, in the Nicomachean Ethics, pleasure is described as
something that supervenes on the activity of eudaimonia (see above, p. 13) and thus depends on
it. Furthermore, good and pleasure are distinct because they are the object of two different species
of rexis, respectively, will (bolesis) and desire (epithumia).
17. Praxis as an object of ethics is not any action, but moral action, i.e., action subject to praise and
blame. A moral action is a voluntary one: we do not praise or blame nonvoluntary actions or
those not subject to praise or blame. In this sense, for Aristotle, animals and children do not act
(cf. EN I 8, 1099b321100a3; EE II 6, 1222b20; 8, 1224a29).

17

 18. An implicit assumption underlying the entire Aristotelian argument is the teleological thesis
according to which nature does nothing in vain. For example, it cannot be in vain for human
beings to be created as agents, i.e., it would be foolish if human acting, which is the fundamental
ingredient of human life, did not have an end. See for example 10, 1099b2022.
19. Unlike, for example, the Platonic idea of good as a good in itself, eternal, and separate (4,
1096b3233). Cf. 9, 1099b3233: [ ] we do not call an ox or a horse happy and 13, 1102a15
16. The distinction between goods that are also means or instruments for other ends and goods
in themselves, until the superlative good in itself, i.e., the chief good (always desirable, and only
for itself, never as an instrument for other ends), is introduced in the proem and completed in
Chapter 5 of Book I.
20. Happiness is an intrinsically superlative word (whereas chief good is a grammatically superlative word: to riston). Epicurus writes in the Letter to Menoeceus: When there is happiness we
have everything, when there is not we do everything to have it ( 122). In making this argument,
Aristotle thinks of a passage in Platos Symposium:
D.: And what will he get when good things become his own?
S.: Thats easier for me to answer, I said; hell be happy.
D.: So its the ownership of good things that makes happy people happy; and you dont
need to ask the further question, Why does someone want to be happy? This answer
seems to mark the end of the enquiry (204e205a, Christopher Gills transl., italics mine).
Cf. Wittgenstein, Notebooks 19141916: And if I now ask myself: but why should I live happily,
then this of itself seems to me to be a tautological question; the happy life seems to be justified of
itself, it seems that it is the only right life (30.7.16, G. E. M. Anscombes transl. slightly modified).
Contra Sumner 2002, 34: Happiness is not evidentlyindeed evidently notthe only thing that
ultimately matters; but it is assumed that to be happy and to feel happy are one and the same
thing.
21. In Chapter 3, Aristotle reviews the bioi, ways or styles of life, each offering a model of happiness:
the three main bioi are the hedonistic (based on pleasure), the political (politiks), and the theoretical (theoretiks).
22. This first character is indicative of a form of optimism belonging to ancient common sense and
marks a difference from the contemporary one.
23. Perfect simpliciter (hapls tleios), as Aristotle defines it.
24. 6, 1097b27. Also this fourth premise (T4) seems therefore endoxic.
25. For Aristotle, there is a difference between good (ergon) and the highest good (ergon kataretn).
As we shall see (pp. 78), the highest good of the flautist is to play the flute in an excellent way.
This obviously does not imply that the flautists ergon is playing the flute in a bad way: the ergon
is the good of the flautist, though not the highest one. The ergon, then, will be to play the flute well
(i.e., to perform a correct execution), but not in an excellent way. The same will be true for the
human being as such.
26. So state Gauthier and Jolif (2002, 54). Cf. Pl. R. I 352d7354c3.
27. Cf. Bonitz 1870, 285b1516: id dicitur, quod quis facit vel + facere.
28. The structure of the analogical argument is as follows: as (hosper) for every x, if x has an ergon,
then its good coincides with its ergon, so (houto) one might also admit the same for the human
being, if the human being is an x that has an ergon. Restated: if the human being belongs to the x
that have an ergon (so being a case or an instantiation of an x that has an ergon), then, as for every
x, if x has an ergon, its good coincides with its ergon, one might also admit (doxeien) the same for
the human being. It is a conditional (AB) of which Aristotle wants to prove the antecedent in
order to be able to derive the consequent (AB, but A, therefore B) via MPP.
29. It is more precisely a disjunctive interrogative sentence ( ), which contains two analogical and a fortiori arguments supporting the thesis that man has an ergon. In this passage the
two disjunctions seem to behave like a couple of rhetorical questions, the first with answer No
and the second with answer Yes.
30. As indicated by the oppositional correlation men de.

18

 31. Cf. Eustr. in EN 66.2325. However, although he grasps that an a fortiori argument is at work in
the passage, Eustratius applies it to the thesis that the good of man consists of his ergon, while
the argument (or rather the two arguments contained in the interrogative disjunction) is actually
introduced to prove the thesis that the human being, as human, has an ergon. Also see Aquinas:
Multo autem magis inconveniens est, quod sit otiosum et frustra id quod est secundum naturam, quod est ordinatum ratione divina, quam id quod est ordinatum ratione humana. [ ] Est
igitur aliqua operatio hominis propria, sicut eorum quae ei accidunt (Th. in EN 121 Spiazzi,
italics mine).
32. Since for Aristotle soul and body are not separable parts of the human being but rather form
a single compound or snolon, eyes, hands, and feet are not parts of the body but of the whole
human being. We say my hand, as well as my body and my soul. For Aristotle, in addition to
technitai, the parts of man, namely the non-uniform (anomoiomers) parts (the instrumental,
organic parts), also have an ergon and a praxis. They include (1) organs such as the eye and the
ear; and (2) the complex parts such as the hand or the foot, that is, those parts of the body that
are nonhomogenous and namely composed by dissimilar parts (PA II 1, 646b11 ff.), as they result
from the aggregation of uniform (homoiomers) parts (homogeneous, sensitive parts: bones,
flesh, skin, etc.). Of these nonuniform parts there are erga and praxeis (1516). Since their praxeis
and their movements are manifold (polumorphon), it is necessary that the parts that make them
up exhibit different properties. For each uniform part composing a nonuniform one preserves
its own dnamis, its capacity (e.g., to be soft, hard, wet, and so on), and these multiple dunameis
allow the nonuniform part to perform its various actions and movements (1, 646b13). Since
each instrument is in view of an end, this will also hold of every organ of the body, the end being a
praxis, an activity. The end of the whole body will then be a praxis polmeros, a composite activity
(5, 645b17).
33. Again through a rhetorical question, but this time with the answer Yes. This is not a classic part/
whole argument, as Aquinas has it (in EN 122 Spiazzi); for if it were so, we would have to admit
that Aristotle falls into a trivial fallacy of composition: if the parts have a certain property, it does
not necessarily follow from this that the whole of which they are parts have the same property.
34. It is the same difference in perfection found in the first argument: the human being is a work of
nature, thus it is more perfect than the carpenter or the cobbler, the flautist or the sculptor, as well
as than any art and craft, which are the result of learning and human experience. Gauthier and
Jolif grasp the link between the two arguments: Ils [scl. hoi technitai] exercent leurs yeux, leurs
mains, leurs pieds, leur corps tout entier, [it is not a whole/parts argument] mais ce nest pas l
lhomme. Lhomme est en dehors et au del (Gauthier and Jolif 2002, 56, italics mine).
35. The argument of the more and the less is a rhetorical one, a topos, so it is only probably true (i.e.,
its not deductively valid).
36. See above, n. 28.
37. The ergon of something is therefore an idion of that thing, but not every idion is an ergon.
38. Although the passage is controversial and contains a few lines expunged by some editors, I believe
this to be its most plausible sense. In 9, 1098b30 ff., Aristotle resumes the common opinion on
happiness already stated in 3, 1095b30 ff.: Our account is in harmony with those who say that
happiness is excellence, or some form of excellence; for activity in accordance with excellence
belongs to excellence. But perhaps it makes no little difference whether we suppose the chief
good to be located in the possession of excellence or in its use, i.e. in a habit [en hexei] or in a
form of activity [enrgeia]. For it is possible for the habit to be present and yet to produce nothing
good, as for example in the case of the person who is asleep or in some other way quite inactive,
but the same will not hold of the activity: the person will necessarily be acting, and acting well
(Christopher Rowes transl. modified). It is a recovery of the virtuous ingredient: in Chapter 3,
Aristotle had examined the ndoxon according to which virtue (aret) would be the end of political life, and then excluded it by saying that aret is incomplete (atels): for it seems to be possible
actually to be asleep while having ones excellence ([chonta ten aretn, like in our passage tou
logon chontos], or to spend ones life in inactivity [apraktein], and furthermore to suffer, and to
meet with the greatest misfortunes; and no one would call the person who lived this kind of life
happy. The act is worth more than the disposition also in EE II 1, 1219a31 (cf. Bods 2004, 70
n. 4).

19

 39. Literally an activity of the soul according to reason or not without reason (1098a78): the praktik
regards both the rational soul and the conative (orektiks) or appetitive soul (willing and desiring).
40. The Greek, which unlike most modern languages has the perfect tense, can best express this
property. We must content ourselves with the present perfect tense.
41. Here praxis clearly means activity, not moral action; and in particular a productive activity, a
poesis.
42. This double value of ergon as an activity and as a result of the activity is the reason why it is
preferable to translate the Greek word as work rather than, for example, as function or task. In
English, work means both the process and its product (resultant sense). Contra Whiting 1988.
43. Cf. I 1,1094a13: the good is that at which all things aim, that is to say, as restated in line 4,
their telos; a1822: as the good is the end, so the chief good is the ultimate end, hence pursued
for its own sake and not in view of another thing; 1094a4 ff.: some ends are activities (enrgeiai),
others are works beyond them (par auts erga tin). And when the ends are beyond actions
(par tas praxeis), then the works (ta erga) are better than the activities (enrgeia is here an exact
synonym for praxis). Cf. what Wittgenstein writes in his Notebooks 19141916: And in this sense
Dostoievsky is right when he says that the man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence.
Or again we could say that the man is fulfilling the purpose of existence who no longer needs to
have any purpose apart from life. That is to say, who is satisfied (6.7.16, G. E. M. Anscombes
transl. slightly modified); on happiness as satisfaction, see above, pp. 1213 and below, n. 90.
44. Starting from Aristotle spoudaios is the adjective corresponding to the noun aret (Plato still used
agaths).
45. Here again Aristotle echoes Pl. R. I 352d8354c3. Even for Plato if x has an ergon, then it also has
an aret proper to that ergon; this means that if one performs his ergon with aret, he performs
it well (eu), and if one performs his ergon with kakia, he performs it badly. This is also true for
the soul, whose ergon is to live (to zen), because the soul is the principle of life. If the soul lives
(namely, if it realizes its ergon) with aret, this means that it lives justly, because justice is the
aret of the soul. As a result, for Plato, justice is a sufficient condition for happiness (justice
happiness), and in this respect, his theory of ergon turns out to diverge from that of Aristotle.
46. Top. VII 1, 152a3132: Again, you must examine whether, when the one of two things is the
same as a third thing, the other is also the same as it: for if both are not identical to the same
thing, clearly they are not identical to each other. Cf. SE 6, 168b3132: For we retain that things
identical to one and the same thing are identical to each other. This is a relational syllogism that
Euclid poses as a common notion at the beginning of his Elements of Geometry: Things equal to
the same thing are at the same time equal to each other (I KE 1).
47. T6 remains an implicit thesis; that is, the conclusion of a tacit inference.
48. In fact, one swallow does not make a spring, nor a single day; and in the same way does not
<make a man> supremely happy neither a single day nor a brief time (6, 1098a1820). This
famous saying is catalogued in the Adagia by Erasmus (62). Cf. Ar. Av. 1417; S. Ant. 737 and Hor.
Ep. I 7, 13.
49. But see 13, 1102a1318: since we are looking for the human good and human happiness (taga
thn anthrpinon kai eudaimonian anthropinen) we should also consider human virtue (aretn
anthropinen); and we call human virtue not the virtue of the body, but that of the soul.
50. Cf. EE II 1, 1219a40b8 and see above, p. 11.
51. This is the difference between ergon and idion: for every x there are many idia but only one ergon
(see above, n. 37); accordingly the sole work and activity of plants is for Aristotle the generation
of the seed (cf. Bekker 1870, 839b4246). The ergon is something exclusive, and this holds without
exception: the enrgeia kataretn of man is not even shared by the gods, whose ergon consists in
the pure and constant activity of theorein (cf. EN X 8, 1178b1832), an enduring condition that
is as such inaccessible to man; contra Whiting 1988, 37.
The Aristotelian ergon argument is Aristotles original thesis as opposed, for example, to that
of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, for whom man does not have an ergon, and this is his very
dignity, that of being able to assume every possible ergon according to his will, whether that of
the beasts or that of the gods. The ergon is individual and not common to humankind. There
is a clear revival of the myth told in Platos Protagoras, in which Prometheus corrects the fault
of his improvident brother Epimetheus, who did not leave any special gift to mankind. Giving

20

fire to men, Prometheus annuls such a condemnation. For Pico this lack is not a condemnation,
but rather constitutes the dignity of man: God intentionally does not give any specific prerogative to man, not even reason, just in order to make him free and worthy of admiration: Quis
hunc nostrum chamaeleonta non admiretur? aut omnino quis aliud quicquam admiretur magis?
Quem non immerito Asclepius Atheniensis versipellis huius et se ipsam transformantis naturae
argumento per Proteum in mysteriis significari dixit (De hominis dignitate, 131v). This is exactly
what Aristotle denies to the happy man in 11, 1100b4 ff.
52. An interpretation of the word felicit (happiness or felicity) survives in Italian with the meaning opportunity, convenience, and in general the quality of what is successful in an excellent
way: felicit di una frase, di unespressione, di unidea [felicity of a sentence, an expression, or an
idea]; con quanta felicit i suoi concetti descrivesse (Machiavelli) (Treccani.it). Unlike Italian,
which keeps the same term (felicit) for both happiness and opportunity, English distinguishes
between happiness and felicity. Cf. J. L. Austins felicity conditions of a performative utterance.
53. By our concept of happiness I mean the contemporary common sense concept of happiness as
described above in 2.
54. Except for what is probably the most important objection, which concerns the clause and if there
be more than one [scl. of aretai], according to the best and most perfect. The lack of clarity about
what the most perfect human aret is has led to the famous dispute between dominant and
inclusive interpretations of the relationship between perfect happiness, i.e., theoretical activity,
and a second-degree happiness, i.e., political or practical activity. On this issue see, for the time
being, the illuminating essay by Anthony Long (2011). I plan in the future to make this issue the
subject of a new essay centered on EN X 69.
55. Also recently. Cf. e.g. Heinaman 2002.
56. At the beginning of Chapter 7, Aristotle himself refers to the arguments of Chapter 6 calling them
outlines [hupotuposeis] of the chief good; namely, a kind of sketch that will have to be finished
and completed, but not corrected and modified in its substance.
57. The ergon, defined in terms of activity (enrgeia) in Chapter 6 as a necessary conclusion of an
analogical argument, is certainly an internal good of the soul, according to the common opinion
about the tripartite division of goods and the primacy of the goods of the soul over corporeal
and external goods (Chapter 8); but it does not follow from this that it can be identified with
eudaimonia. On the contrary, we shall see that it is one of its necessary conditions, and precisely the essential or dominant condition, although not exclusive. The activity of ergon, not
eudaimonia as a whole, is a good of the soul: the paradox of an internal good made up in part of
external goods does not hold. On this issue, see Heinaman 2002 and 2007.
58. Not only the Nicomachean Ethics. See, e.g., EE II 1, 1219a35 ff.: tleios, with reference both to life
and to aret, means total (hole) vs. partial (mrion).
59. 1101a16: .
60. Cf. 1101a813: Nor, again, is he many-coloured and changeable; for neither will he be moved
from his happy state easily or by any ordinary misadventures, but only by many great ones, nor,
if he has had many great misadventures, will he recover his happiness in a short time, but if at all,
only in a long and complete one in which he has attained many splendid successes (W. D. Rosss
transl. revised by J. O. Urmson, italics mine). Aristotles eudaimonia is a form of life, as Myles
Burnyeat defined it in a radio interview on www.philosophybites.com (Burnyeat 2007). See also
Tatarkiewicz 1976, 23: In yet another sense life amounts to all the events in which a man is
involved and to which he reacts from birth to death. It is in this, the most common of all its
senses, that we say that the happy man is satisfied with life.
61. The present difficulty itself bears witness to our account. For in no aspect of what human beings
do is there such stability [bebaiotes] as there is in activities in accordance with excellence [ ]
(Christopher Rowes transl.).
62. 1100b1820: e [ ]. Cf.
Pol. VII 3, 1325b16 ff.
63. The makariotes is proper to the gods, thus the term is used here in a hyperbolic sense to indicate
human happiness in its highest degree. Cf. 12, 1101b2325 and see below, n. 67.
64. Taking a beautiful image from Tatarkiewicz: They are like flowers on a dinner table, enhancing

21

the pleasure of the meal, but otiose if the table is empty or the food uneatable (Tatarkiewicz
1976, 98).
65. 11, 1100b22 ff.; cf. 1101a34 ff.
66. Death turns out to be a part of life if it can actually render life still more successful, as happened
to Tellus of Athens, the happiest man according to Solon (see below, n. 77), or if it can render one
immortal as for Socrates: Death does not always mark the boundary of a persons life as an end
that stands outside it; sometimes it is a part of that life, continuing its narrative story in some significant way. Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Jesus, and Julius Caesar all had deaths that
were further episodes of their lives, not simply endings, and we are able to see their lives as heading toward those immortal deaths (Nozick 1989, 23). Contra Wittgenstein, Notebooks 19141916:
Death is not an event of life. It is not a fact of the world (8.7.16, G. E. M. Anscombes transl.);
cf. TLP 6. 4311: Death is not lived through (C. K. Ogdens transl.). Contra Rassow, I hold the
passage 1101a1719 as genuine.
67. Cf. 12, 1101b2325: [ ] in fact, we call the gods blessed and happy, and we call blessed [with a
hyperbole] more divine men. Insofar as he performs the virtuous and perfect activities of which
happiness consists, man has a great chance of living like a god among men: because a man who
lives among immortal goods is nothing like a mortal man, as Epicurus would put it (Ep. Men.
135). Eudaimonia is the only example of an activity for its own sakethus perfect and divine
that is accessible to man, and is not just any kind of activity, but human activity par excellence.
In Chapter 12 of Book I, Aristotle explicitly treats eudaimonia as a divine thing, hence worthy of
honor and not of praise. Sarah Broadie and Anthony A. Long have recognized in divine life the
unifying paradigm of human happiness: In fact, according to Aristotles clinching argument,
the respect in which we should be comparing the political and theoretical ideals is the degree
to which they approximate the life of gods, the paradigm of happiness (Broadie 2002, 7778);
My aim [ ] is to see what progress we may make in interpreting Aristotelian eudaimonia by
reviewing the terms associations with divinity and with nous (Long 2011, 94); divinity is [
] a prominent concept (ivi, 95); Aristotle claims that human beings have a composite nature,
the best part of which is not human but divine. We may try to make the paradox more tractable
by interpreting it as Aristotles way of stating that human beings as a species are equipped with a
faculty that can enable them intermittently to transcend their quotidian activities as living bodies
and live as if they were pure intellects (ivi, 100101); [ ] all virtuous activities of nous are
productive of some degree of happiness because they, and not exclusively contemplation, involve
the exercise of our divine essence. [ ] the divine life is the standard reference and paradigm of
happiness (ivi, 102); We can support Broadies intuition concerning the resemblance of each
type [scl. of happiness] to the divine paradigm by invoking the quasi-divinity of human nous
(ivi, 112). See also below, n. 76.
68. In other words, happiness in its own essence, once the virtuous activity of which it consists
reaches regular practice, is a lifelong possession (is di biou), difficult to lose and thus a sufficient
criterion to call a man happy. However, man does not coincide with his rational soul and with
his nousi.e., with the divine element in himselfhe does not belong to the realm of necessity,
but to that of contingency, and is therefore subject to fate and corruption; and in addition he
needs the presence of other men in order to live in a fully human way. His mortal side renders
the future uncertain and his happiness imperfect. Everything is known only when everything is
over (Tatarkiewicz 1976, 117).
69. I believe this is also what Aristotle means in Book I of Nicomachean Ethics. The Priam case is not
a counterexample for the following reason. To say that the happy man will never become miserable, though neither will he be blessed if he meets with fortunes like Priams (EN I 11, 1101a68)
does not mean that the happy man at any given time (Priam before falling out of favor) will be
such, i.e., will be happy no matter what happens. It means instead that, in case of misfortunes
great and repeated, he will not continue to be happy (cf. a1013), i.e., will not be blessed (bliss
is happiness forever); but will not for this reason be unhappy, because he will retain the habit of
virtue (see above, p. 11).
70. The two main passages are 10, 1099b2728 and 11, 1101a1416.
71. By the remaining goods (ton loipn agathn) Aristotle means all those that are not goods of the
soul, hence both external goods and internal corporeal goods: cf. 10, 1099b2728.

22

 72. Analogically, in the Rhetoric, external goods, corporeal goods, and goods of the soul are all considered parts (mere) of happiness (I 5, 1360b19 ff.), but the virtues are treated separately in
Chapter 9 because they are properly objects of praise as the vices are of blame.
73. 11, 1100b910 and 33. This means that, when needed, the happy man will know to behave just
like a good shoemaker who knows how to make beautiful shoes with the leather he has been
given (1101a45).
74. Cf. 1101a68: And if this is the case, the happy [eudaimon] man can never become miserable
[thlios]though neither will he be blessed [makarios] if he meets with fortunes like Priams.
75. Cf. EN II 1, 6 and III 8.
76. The first occurrence of the term is found in a passage of Hesiods Works and Days, where eudaimon
is paired with lbios and means who has the favourable daimon and so is prosperous (eudaimon
te kai lbios, 82628). Being eudamones originally means, then, to be guarded by a daimon who
believes your actions are just and gives you wealth and prosperity. This etymological meaning,
however, does not play any role in the ordinary use of the word, and has already disappeared
in Herodotus (cf. the next note); consequently I disagree on this point with Long, according to
whom the etymology of eudaimonia together with the central role that the paradigm of divine
life seems to assume in the theses of ancient philosophers about happiness (from Aristotle to
Epicurus and the Stoics) would suggest that philosophical eudaimonia, whatever are taken to be
its detailed conditions, is presumed without argument to be a godlike or quasi-divine existence.
The presumption does not need argument because this connotation of the word is a cultural
datum (Long 2011, 97). I suggest, on the contrary, that Aristotle is the one who reshapes the
etymology of the term, on the basis of a Platonic idea and according to a philosophical practice
that was well-known to his master. I also suggest that he did that exactly by using the argument
according to which the human ergon is an excellent activity of the rational soul (namely, both
of the praktiks and of the theoretiks nous). The peculiar work of man, the characteristic that
distinguishes him from all other animals and enables him to be happy, is nothing else but the
exercise of his most divine aspect. Cf. Pl. Ti. 90ad; Long 2011, 9596; and especially Sedley 1999.
To confirm this, mans participation in the divine is defined by Aristotle in the same terms as the
ergon in Book I of Platos Republic: Of all living beings with which we are acquainted man alone
partakes of the divine, or at any rate partakes of it in a fuller measure than the rest (PA II 10,
656a89, Anthony Longs transl.); see above, p. 4 and n. 27.
77. Cf. Hdt. I 3033: Tellus of Athens is the happiest of all (olbitatos) because he is subject to good
tuche and takes the opportunity of a good death, i.e., he dies fighting for his country with public
honor; and S. OT 1186 ff., 1524 ff.: Faced with the bad luck of Oedipus, the chorus of Thebans
concludes that no man can be called happy.
78. Cf. Sumner 2002, 24: The presupposition [ ] is that happiness is a psychological statepossibly a quite complex one, but no less psychological for that. As a psychological state, happiness
is subjective: that is, whether a person is happy (or how happy she is) is determined not by
any objective conditions of her life but by her own (positive or negative) attitudes toward it;
Tatarkiewicz 1976, 18 ff.
79. Contra Tatarkiewicz 1976, 26: This duality in the notion suggests two final formulations of the
definition: happiness is lasting, complete and justified satisfaction with life, or it is a life which
yields lasting, complete and justified satisfaction. [ ] However the difference between the two
is formal and linguistic; they are simply two ways of formulating the same idea. On this issue, see
Daniel Haybrons distinction between happiness in the long-term psychological state (What is
this state of mind that so many people seek, that tends to accompany good fortune, success, etc.?
Haybron 2008, 32) and happiness in the well-being sense (What is it for my life to go well for
me? ib.).
80. Tatarkiewicz distinguishes between complete and total satisfaction: cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 8.
81. Durable means covering a certain period of time (a happy year, a happy childhood), and in
principle a lifetime, even if we do not continuously feel satisfaction with the same intensity.
82. Cf. Sumner 2002 and Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1314: Tatarkiewicz gives a male version of Susans case.
83. Cf. Sumner 2002, 31.
84. In the film The Matrix (1999) this possibility of returning to the illusion lies in the choice between
the red pill and the blue pill that the protagonist Neo is meant to make when he crosses the

23

boundary between the virtual world in which his mind is imprisoned and the real world; but
once the step is taken, once the truth is learned, it is impossible to go back. On this topic, cf.
Griswold Jr. 2002, ch. 11, and especially p. 134: If we are willing to count a person happy whose
state of mind depends on false beliefs, then happiness is completely subjectivized. As such, it is
vulnerable. What you dont know can hurt you, like an Agent from behind; The confusion of
happiness with contentment is widespread. [ ] The recognition, often belated, that happiness
and contentment are distinct, is perhaps not as widespread, but it is the sort of stuff of which the
wisdom of the elders is made. The end-of-life feelings of regret and shame supply some evidence,
I think, that we naturally connect happiness with some objective state of affairs.
85. Happiness is always the best condition, i.e., the preferable good.
86. Ally McBeal, series IV, episode 17: The Pursuit of Unhappiness, 2001. Cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1314.
87. Il Venerd di Repubblica, May 25, 2007, n. 1001, pp. 2634.
88. Cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 1316: This is the situation of the man whose happiness springs from his
family life but whose wife is unfaithful. If he is unaware of this he may be satisfied, but we would
not call him happy (pp. 1314). Cf. Griswold Jr. 2002, 13132: And even if one were content
over the long haul, there is a more important way in which contentment is distinguished from
happiness; and that is the tendency of contentment to reduce itself to a state of mind, one severed
from an appraisal of the objective facts. Contentment and unreflectiveness are natural allies. The
content are, so to speak, tranquillized. [ ] Such a life has often been compared to the life of the
beasts, not without reason; my dog, for example, can certainly be happy in the sense of content.
When you are asleep, you are not happy, however peaceful you may be. You are just unconscious.
89. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Weak Heart.
90. See above, n. 21. The subjective view is familiar not only to common sense: just think of
Epicuruss aponia (absence of physical pain) and ataraxia (absence of turmoil) or of the
Skeptics ataraxia, which Myles Burnyeat reminds us of in his radio interview (Burnyeat 2007,
cf. n. 60). In the words of Wittgenstein: Peace in thoughts. This is the coveted goal by one
who makes philosophy (Vermischte Bemerkungen [1944]). Feldman too describes himself as a
hedonist: I claim [ ] that to be happy is to take pleasure in things; or, more precisely, to take
on balance more occurrent intrinsic attitudinal pleasure than displeasure in things (Feldman
2010, 17; cf. 107 ff.).
91. Cf. VII 13, 1153a1215 and X 4, 1174b31 ff. In addition for Aristotle the two fundamental ingredients of ethics are actions on the one hand and virtues on the other, and the latter are defined
in relation to the passions that control them. Moral virtue (as well as vice) is the way of experiencing a passion (for example, courage is the right way of experiencing fear). The task of ethics
is to strengthen these attitudes, these virtuous habits, in order to let them become real actions or
virtuous behavior. Aristotelian ethics is in this sense an ethics of virtue or heroic ethics, vs. Stoic
therapeutic ethics or Augustines ethics which considers passions as evils to be cured; that is, as
things to be eradicated. Thus, for Aristotle, even passions are an indispensable element of human
nature and of moral action; the task of man is not to suppress, but to guide them in the right
direction.
92. More precisely for modern common sense happiness is a state of inner satisfactionmore or less
enduringlargely caused by prosperity (that is, the possession of external and corporeal goods)
and good luck.
93. The extreme thesis in this regard is supported, among the ancients, by the Stoics: to be a permanent possession, happiness must be completely aside from external and corporeal goods.
94. What to say when faced with the actualityor rather with the provocative outdatednessof
Aristotelian practical philosophy? That it is no longer possible to see it in a relationship of simple
repetition. It takes a critical relationship. We do not understand Aristotle, wrote Schelling, if we
stop at him. To understand what he says we need to know also what he does not say, and we need
to have walked the paths that he has beaten, to have experienced the difficulties with which he
fought and the whole process he went through. By doing so, the history of Aristotelian thought
has become like the history of a fur: kept close by his pupils, soon ending up in the cellar and
remaining there for centuries, later rediscovered, cut, shortened and adapted according to the
needs of the wearer. Today it needs first of all a good restoration. Naturally after that do not put

24

it back among the mothballs, but try it on (Franco Volpi, Repubblica, May 12, 1996, p. 38, my
transl.).
95. This first claim is to be found already in Platos Philebus (11d46).
96. What seems to be a confusion in our idea of happiness is thus due to ignorance of its mixed
nature: This suggests that our idea of happiness might be a confused mixture, and that the
most common paradigm of happiness (the subjective construal of desire-satisfaction) leaves out
some important and more objective elements which our reflection uncovers (Annas 2002, 19);
cf. Tatarkiewicz 1976, 16: [ ] the notion is a hybrid one with a subjective and an objective
element.
97. That is, rooted in the thesis of metaphysical optimism. For Aristotle, the human natural desire to
know cannot be in vain but must be satisfied: man is naturally disposed to grasp the truth. Cf.
10, 1099b2022: But if it is better to be happy thus than by chance, it is reasonable that the facts
should be so, since everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can
be (W. D. Rosss transl. revised by Lesley Brown); contra Tatarkiewicz 1976, for whom we are
faced with a variety of theories none of which is demonstrably superior to the others (p. 124).
According to Pascals pessimistic view, happiness is neither within us nor outside us (Thoughts,
I 9 bis); Aristotle would say rather that it is both inside and outside us, but the inner part is
the dominant one, so that happiness depends essentially on us. On the other hand, wishing to
quantify the external and corporeal goods necessary for eudaimonia means altering the concept:
because they do not constitute the dominant factor, the minimum level of goods can be flexible
and relative to each single case, following the principle according to which the degree of accuracy
of the investigation depends on the nature of the subject examined (contra Annas 1993, 380 ff.).
98. Aristotles ethical reflection is supported, from the proem onward, by a reflection on akrbeia, on
the degree of accuracy appropriate to the subject under investigation: the cultivated man does
not claim more accuracy than needed (1, 1094b19 ff.). In the case of ethics, the reached conclusions are valid mostly (hos ep to pol) and not necessarily, as befits practical rather than logical-mathematical or metaphysical knowledge. This limitation is inherent to the subject matter
(the realm of ethics and politics is the realm of what matters for the most part); however, it does
not hinder the success of Aristotles reflection as far as its purpose is concerned: not to know in
detail the highest good and happiness, but to act in the world and live as happy men.
99. A claim stated in Pol. I 2, 1253a34, but also in EN IX 9, 1169b18.
100. 1, 1095a56: to telos estn ou gnosis, all praxis; cf. 1094a22 ff.
101. The same conviction animates the philosophy of Wittgenstein: Just improve yourself [ ] that
is all you can do to improve the world (Monk 1990, 1718), and arouses in him similar doubts
about the validity of the educational system he was acquainted with: Already our children learn
in school that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen gases, or sugar of carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen. Who does not understand these things is stupid. The most important issues are hidden
(Vermischte Bemerkungen [1948]).
102. Aristotles ethics is therefore both a descriptive and a corrective one, without becoming normative and exhortative: it does not invite us to be excellent, but shows us how to be so. It is up to us
to draw the right inference from practical syllogism and to act accordingly. Contra Whiting 1988,
in particular p. 35.
103. Without turning it into a form of indoctrination through norms and prescriptions.

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