Aristotle defined eudaimonia, or happiness, as "the best possible life." It may be argued that people today see happiness in much the same way; a challenge arises, however, when one attempts to define what is meant by "the best possible life." Our multicultural society's views are difficult to pin down, but it will be proposed in this paper that modern philosophy as a whole embraces an understanding of happiness different from that of Aristotle. The ideas of two influential thinkers of the modern era, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, as well as an informal survey of "pop culture," will be appealed to as support for this thesis.
Aristotle approached the idea of happiness, or eudaimonia, from the standpoint of "what is good for man," in accordance with the meaning of what it is to be "man." The discussion of eudaimonia, then, must begin with two definitions: what it is to be "man," or man's ergon, and what is "correct and proper" for man.
Ergon is that which makes a thing what it is, rather than something else. What is it that man does or is, which definitively separates him from other creatures? The reproductive and digestive functions, even desire and pleasure, are shared by humans and animals, so the ergon of man cannot be limited to these concepts. Aristotle claimed that reason, the exercise of the rational faculty, is the realm exclusive to man and the meaning of what it is to be "man."
The main difference between a human being and a giraffe is that a human being has reason and that his entire complex of organic functions supports rational as well as irrational activity...And although reason helps us to eat and move around, it is not subservient to those lower functions...[R]eason...is what human life is all about(Nagel 11).
There are two interpretations of Aristotle's assertions on what is correct and proper for man to do based on his ergon. The intellectualist view claims that Aristotle saw theoria, or contemplation, a...