Aristotle’s Ethics: Happiness, Virtue, and the Good Life
Aristotle’s Ethics: Action, Knowledge, and Happiness
Aristotle viewed ethics, knowledge, and politics as practical sciences focused on praxis, or action. His ethical framework aims to achieve happiness. Human beings possess vegetative, sensitive, and rational souls, leading to different types of movements. Movements oriented towards action (praxis) seek happiness and are guided by phronesis (practical wisdom) and episteme (scientific knowledge). Movements oriented towards production (poiesis) aim to create something and are guided by techne (art or skill).
The Pursuit of Happiness
The ultimate goal is happiness, achieved by pursuing a good end. Each intermediate end serves as a means to reach this final goal. Happiness arises from exercising the unique activity of human beings: intellectual contemplation, which must be accompanied by virtue.
Characteristics of Long-Term Happiness
Aristotle defines long-term happiness as a form of self-sufficient good, pursued for its own sake. It is achieved through continuous activity. The most characteristic function of the human soul is thought, specifically theoretical intelligence. While other movements are controlled by reason, we must not act against nature. Continuous contemplative activity (theoria) is the highest good, guiding us in everyday life. Aristotle’s ethics are theological, as all human actions have an end, and eudaimonistic, equating living well with being happy. It is also naturalist, as happiness is achieved by acting according to nature.
Virtue and the City
A virtuous person lives according to virtue and requires a city ruled by good laws. Ethics necessitates politics, as individual well-being requires just laws. Virtue is a habit aimed at achieving happiness, involving deliberation and choice. The wise person knows the end and chooses the middle ground.
Types of Virtues
Aristotle distinguishes between two types of virtues:
- Dianoetic virtues: Arise from reasoning and lead to truth.
- Moral virtues: Require the proper functioning of the appetitive part of the soul.
Science and Knowledge
Superior virtues like episteme and nous involve knowledge, unlike virtues that focus on prudent action. Episteme is a habit that reveals the necessary nature of things. True knowledge is guided accurately. All knowledge is teachable and uses induction and syllogisms. Aristotle shows that internal causes determine the nature of being. This knowledge addresses universal and necessary truths.
Limitations of Science
Science is limited because it cannot prove everything; nous captures what science cannot. Techne, or art, deals with what might be otherwise. It is a primary mode of knowledge applicable to particular things. Unlike action, production creates something external. Techne is inferior to science because it deals with contingency, while science deals with necessity.
Wisdom (Phronesis)
Phronesis is a mode of understanding the truth of things, knowing their reason for being and universal respect. The prudent person deliberates about what is good for living well. The wise sage knows the whole of life. Possessing the virtue of prudence means possessing true knowledge of good and evil for humans. Techne, wisdom, and ways of knowing are true and universal. Science is a way of demonstrating deliberation and caution about what can be otherwise.
Intellect (Nous)
First principles (archai), which cannot be proven but are captured by intellect (nous), are called axioms. Nous is a way of being true, providing the necessary universal principles from which science departs. Everything else can be proven through sophia (wisdom).