Aristotle and Happiness
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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 rea
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properly and with excellence. These activities will not seem alien or difficult, precisely because they are in accordance with man's ergon; furthermore, a good man's performance of these activities will confer upon him true pleasure: "[g]oodness does not consist in avoiding pleasure in the interests of some higher ideal but in being right about what is truly pleasant"(Annas 289).
Aristotle's idea of pleasure was not simply bodily pleasure, such as that derived from the satisfaction of physical needs like hunger, fatigue, and sexual desire: "If pleasure were limited to pleasure from these sources, then it would be a hindrance to the good life...The good man's life will include these pleasures, but...it will be structured in such a way that the bodily pleasures have a place subordinate to intellectual and virtuous activities and the pleasures derived from these" (Annas 286).
Freud's ideas on pleasure and happiness were markedly different. He believed that happiness is an unattainable state, and that its attainment would be a threat to survival. According to Freud's theory, happiness and pleasure are always produced by "reduction in tension" (Kalin 173), by a return to the infantile state. Thus, work would be one instance of an
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Approximate Word count = 1600
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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