Aristotle's eudaimonia and two conceptions of happiness
| Abstract | Are you happy? This question is asked of people by friends, parents and psychiatrists alike. What happiness consists of for each person seems, at first glance, to be entirely subjective in that is it up to each individual person to define what the happy-making ingredients of her life are. This dissertation centrally involves an interpretation of Aristotle’s eudaimonia, often translated as ‘happiness’. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is an inquiry into the chief good for human beings, and according to Aristotle everyone agrees that this chief good is ‘happiness’, however there is major disagreement about what ‘happiness’ consists of. What follows critically interprets Aristotle’s eudaimonia through a close reading of his arguments. Once Aristotle’s eudaimonia is explicated, it is used to question the supposedly subjective conception of happiness that the happiness literature argues is pervasive. Finally, Aristotle’s eudaimonia is defended as a theory of well-being against a charge of perfectionism. It is argued that Aristotle’s eudaimonia commits its adherents to maximising virtuous activity at all times, that is, to perfect themselves. It is this interpretation of Aristotle that seeks to undermine eudaimonia as a plausible theory of well-being, and I end this dissertation by providing a response to the objection from perfectionism. This project attempts, fundamentally, to show that Aristotle’s eudaimonia is not simply an intellectual curiosity: studying eudaimonia can help change the way we live our lives, and for the better | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesRobert Heinaman (1993). Rationality, Eudaimonia and Kakodaimonia in Aristotle. Phronesis 38 (1):31-56.
Stephen M. Fishman & Lucille Mccarthy (forthcoming). Conflicting Uses of 'Happiness' and the Human Condition. Educational Philosophy and Theory.
Catherine Osborne (2007). Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics – Gabriel Richardson Lear. Philosophical Investigations 30 (1):92–96.
Gabriel Richardson Lear, Happy Lives and the Human Good: An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
Jennifer Whiting (2002). Eudaimonia, External Results, and Choosing Virtuous Actions for Themselves. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2):270-290.
David Charles (1999). Aristotle on Well-Being and Intellectual Contemplation: David Charles. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 73 (1):205–223.
Jon Miller (ed.) (2011). Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: A Critical Guide. Cambridge University Press.
Anthony Carreras (2012). Aristotle on Other-Selfhood and Reciprocal Shaping. History of Philosophy Quarterly 29 (4):319-336.
C. D. C. Reeve (1992). Practices of Reason: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford University Press.
Alan S. Waterman (1990). The Relevance of Aristotle's Conception of Eudaimonia for the Psychological Study of Happiness. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 10 (1):39-44.
A. F. Mackay (2005). Aristotle's Dilemma. Journal of Ethics 9 (3-4):533 - 549.
David Shaw (2009). Euthanasia and Eudaimonia. Journal of Medical Ethics 35 (9):530-533.
David Webb (2010). The Structure of Praxis and the Time of Eudaimonia. Epoché 14 (2):265-287.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-09-17Total downloads95 ( #6,890 of 549,088 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,722 of 549,088 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
