Happiness, of which Aristotle writes in his Nicomachean Ethics, is more than a pleasant feeling or sense of personal contentment, but the ultimate good toward which everyone should direct his life. The modern English usage of happiness tends to carry a slightly less robust meaning than the Greek word from which it is derived.
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines happy as “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary comes a little closer, however, defining happiness as, “prosperity; a state of well-being and contentment: joy; a pleasurable or satisfying experience; felicity, aptness.”
The Greek lemma from which the English word is translated is εὐδαιμονίᾳ (eudaimonia), and is closer to the idea of ultimate human fulfillment or human flourishing. Consider the Greek-English Lexicon defines εὐδαιμονία as prosperity, good fortune, opulence. And the English-Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language defines it as bliss, blessedness, fortune, happiness, joy, luck, or prosperity.
The etymology of εὐδαιμονίᾳ is derived from the Greek adverb εὖ, meaning well (Latin bene, opposed to κακῶς, bad or Latin malus), and δαίμων, a god, goddess, like θεός, also Deity or Divine power. In translation, it carries the idea of a well-lived life, a well-ordered spirit, or the well-being of one’s divine genius.
In addition to an etymological treatment, Aristotle’s logical treatment of happiness demonstrates a real and a final good which all man pursues. For example, in book one, chapter four of the Ethics, he writes,
Let us resume our inquiry and state, in view of the fact that all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what it is that we say political science aims at and what is the highest of all goods achievable by action. Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise.
He asserts that although there is disagreement about what happiness is, there is general agreement between the classes that happiness is the highest good achievable by action. This consensus demonstrates that at the very least, the desire for happiness is a universal desire. Because it is desired by all human beings, it can be called a real good. Except in some remote particular instance, perhaps where someone is suffering from a pathological malady, there are no human beings that desire unhappiness.
Further, happiness is not merely an apparent good. Apparent goods are those goods which we desire at any given moment for their own sake, i.e. one person believes it good to live in the city and another in the country. It is not immediately certain whether they are in harmony with or beneficial to a person’s pursuit of those goods which are necessary to human benefit, like health, wealth, and knowledge—or love and happiness. Apparent goods may turn out to be harmless or even temporarily beneficial, but they may also turn out to be harmful.
Real goods, on the other hand, are always beneficial, though they are not always desired as they ought to be. They are beneficial because they are the natural desires innately endowed in human beings. Mortimer Adler distinguishes between real and apparent goods by those things human beings need, and those things human beings want. Needs “are our natural desires,” and “wants…the desires we acquire.” He goes on to explain, “all human beings have the same specifically human needs, whereas individuals differ from one another with regard to the things they want.”
Not only is happiness a real good, but it is also a final good because it is the good for which all other goods are pursued or attained. Aristotle addresses this in chapter seven of book one:
Clearly not all ends are final ends; but the chief good is evidently something final. Therefore, if there is only one final end, this will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the most final of these will be what we are seeking. Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.
Whatever it is that we do everything else for, that is the final good. Wealth, for example, is not a final good. One accumulates wealth for reasons other than simply having it. Wealth buys food, clothing, and luxuries, etc. Therefore, it is not a final good. Yet, neither are the things money buys final goods. By securing clothing, for example, one is acquiring warmth, comfort, and fashion. His point being wherever it is this trail leads, the end is the final good.
To conclude, that well-lived life, that well-being of spirit, that well-ordered soul that is universally held above all else as the ultimate good because it is the thing all people seek for its own sake and not for the sake of something else is what Aristotle calls happiness.
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