Aristotle: Happiness and Virtue
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What I expect to learn:
In this chapter, I expect to learn Aristotle’s view about happiness and virtue and how those two turn out to be connected.
Quote:
“Similarly, the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if it is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his work well”
Review:
In this chapter, Aristotle talks about happiness and virtue. First, for us what happiness really means? For me, happiness is the feeling of contentment. We are happy when we got all the things that we ask for. Now, let’s take a look to the views of Aristotle about Happiness. According to him “happiness is not a pleasure, honor, or wealth, but an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue”. So, what is virtue? For us we always think that virtue is a characteristic or quality valued as being always good and right but for Aristotle virtue is equivalent to excellence. For example, a man has virtue as a teacher, if he teaches well, since teaching is the distinguishing activity of a teacher. From what I have read, “a virtuous person is someone who performs the distinctive activity of being human well. We all know that we, as human beings are rational and rationality is our distinctive activity and since our rationality is our distinctive activity, its exercise is the supreme good”.
Aristotle also discussed the two kinds of virtue which are the moral and intellectual. Aristotle says that moral virtue involves behaving the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess. Moral virtue according to him is through habit and practice rather than through analysis and instruction. For Aristotle, If you wanted to achieve excellence in your field for example in badminton, you cannot simply read books about badminton, you have to practice. Intellectual virtues, on the other hand, do not make a person ethically good, but it makes you wiser and more knowledgeable. It is more about reasoning.
Happiness, for Aristotle, is not something that comes from outside forces instead for him, happiness is happening within you. Happiness is an action. It is not something that happens to you or comes to you without doing anything. It is an activity based in human choices. Just like what others said, a good man is one who reasons well and chooses well. And if you chose the right thing, you will be happy. So, a man who did good things is a happy man. Happiness, according to Aristotle, is going to result from making choices that promote the fullness of one’s being. So, we can say that you can be happy if you want to. You just need to choose the right manner and the right actions in the right place and time.
What I have learned:
I have learned from Aristotle that you could have self-control, but if you never exercise that self-control by facing down your weaknesses, you cannot gain happiness. We can be happy if we want to. We just need to put things on the right track and be excellent on what is good. ”A good man is a happy man” if you choose to do good and choose to do the right, good and excellent thing you will be happy.
Integrative questions:
- What is a virtue?
- How is virtue related to one’s happiness?
- What is moral virtue?
- What is intellectual virtue?
Reference:
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/aristotle/section8.rhtml
