The Moral Life & Happiness

Happiness can be identified not as an element in living the good life but as the act of living the good life. Aristotle indicates this with reference to the issue of wisdom:

Practical wisdom for Aristotle is knowledge concerning the good life, what it is and how to achieve it. Moreover, for Aristotle the good life is the happy life. Everything that is good is good only so far as it leads to and is conducive to human happiness (Garrett 38).

Aristotle presented in his works a compendium of the knowledge of his time and examined issues and facts to discover how things worked, what was believed about them, and also to separate this knowledge into categories. He did not do this simply as a compiler but filtered what he found through his own sensibilities and philosophical thought. For each art, says Aristotle, there is an end to which the art tends, and the variety of smaller goals along the way are the means to achieve this end. The knowledge of the goal, the chief good, serves as a guide so that we direct our energies toward and achieve the goal. Aristotle argues that not all ends are final ends, and some are the means to other ends. Yet there has to be a final

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Virtue as well produces happiness--virtue is that which tends to the good and thus to that which is beneficial and positive, leading in turn to happiness. When Aristotle states that human good is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, he is first of all placing the seat of human behavior and action in the soul--it is the soul that determines whether we do good or ill, and the soul always tends toward the good unless goaded in another direction because the good is the penultimate goal leading to happiness. Aristotle says that the function of the human being is a certain kind of life. That life is defined by Aristotle as an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good or noble man is the performance of these functions. This leads Aristotle to the conclusion that human good is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and he says that if there is more than one virtue, it is in accordance with the best and most complete virtue. Aristotle takes the long view in this and note that his definition should apply to the complete life. The conflict between being happy and being moral has to be seen as an illusion. Descartes agreed with Aristotle that there must be some b
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Approximate Word count = 1620
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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