Aristotle’s Ethics: Happiness and Virtue
Aristotle’s Ethics
For Aristotle, science is the set of existing knowledge, and ethics is one of them. Aristotle’s ethics is based on Socrates and Plato. Aristotle regarded ethics as a practical science that studies human behavior directed to the good and to achieving happiness. However, Aristotle says that happiness is impossible to reach outside of society, as collective happiness allows for individual happiness. That is why ethics is closely connected with politics and cannot be understood separately. Aristotle says that man is a political animal (zoon politikon), concluding that human beings can only achieve full happiness within society.
Happiness
Ethics deals with human actions intended to achieve the good of man, and for that, we need to know where the good of man is and how it can be achieved. Thus, the supreme good for man is happiness, which all men want to reach and to which all human actions are aimed. One could say that happiness is the aspiration of all human beings, the goal for achieving self-realization. To reach it, you need to first obtain a series of intermediate goods, since everything we desire, want, or wish for will contribute to our happiness, and this is common to all human beings. There are three types of goods:
- External Goods: honor, fame, wealth, etc.
- Goods of the Body: pleasures, etc.
- Goods of the Soul: knowledge of beautiful things, etc.
However, Aristotle says that the only existing way to achieve total happiness is theoretical or contemplative activity, as it is the only one that aligns with the rational nature of man. Aristotle proposes that if we want to be happy, we must aim for the maximum (contemplative life) but without giving up the intermediate pleasures and contemplative activity that constitutes an ideal. Because it is sometimes difficult to achieve, it is necessary to conform to a limited happiness, based on certain conditions (health, economic goods, pleasure, etc.).
How to Achieve Happiness? Virtue.
Virtue is the strategy to achieve happiness, so the two are closely related. Aristotle divides the virtues into two groups:
- Dianoetic Virtues: refer to understanding (art, theoretical and practical knowledge, intelligence, etc.).
- Ethical Virtues: are responsible for directing human actions (courage, self-control, liberality, generosity, humility, truthfulness, friendship, justice, etc.).
For Aristotle, ethical virtue is: “A habit is selective, consisting in a mean relative to us, determined by reason and as the prudent man would determine it.”
If we analyze this definition, we can say that ethical virtue is a sequence of behaviors that we learn (as habits are held regularly and are not innate), that we must choose, for Aristotle does not propose a collective model to be happy (selective), that should have a balance between excess and deficiency (mean), and that must be personal for each one (relative to us).
Happiness and Self-Sufficiency
Aristotle believes that happiness, according to virtue, must be achieved through self-sufficiency, the capacity to be self-sufficient. A happy person would be one who does not need others, who does not need anything or anyone. If Aristotle says that happiness is contemplative activity, it is because this activity, more than any other, is self-sufficient. However, this ideal vision of autarky clashes with the idea that human beings do not need to live in society, and Aristotle stated that man is a political animal who can only attain happiness in society.
Critical Reflection
Aristotle’s ethics will be the basis for many subsequent models. Unlike the society designed by Plato, who directs all his efforts to create a model of a just society, Aristotle designed a model of a happy society.