Aristotle

14. THE GOOD LIFE

14 THE GOOD LIFE 14.1 THE PRINCIPLE OF HAPPINESS Aristotle uses several expressions for the conceptual field of the good. He calls agathon something that is good for someone. In the singular and with the definitive article—tagathon, the good—and even more so the superlative—ariston, the best—it comes close to the morally good. It amounts to the moral good if understood as obligations that are valid without reservations, not only toward others, but toward oneself as well. Dikaion, the right and just, singles out a certain sphere of responsibilities toward others; prepon, the appropriate, refers to habits and customs of one’s own culture; deon, the befitting, has a genuinely moral element; and kalon, the good-in-itself, the fine and beautiful, which leaves behind any consideration of utility, is the concept that corresponds most to the morally good. (However , Top. I 5, 102a6 equates kalon with prepon.) It is within this conceptual field that Aristotle develops his leading concept from its beginning in the theory of action. From the viewpoint of the concept of desire, what is called “moral principle” today, the final measure of human action, desire, consists in a highest goal absolute, the most elevated of all practical goods: eudaimonia, happiness. Given that Aristotle takes the concept of desire as his point of departure, his ethics becomes a theory of the good—or more precisely, the best—life, which, however, contains a genuine moral. The customs of one’s own community only play a subordinate role. In the search for a well-defined concept, Aristotle refutes both the too-small happiness, in the sense of “being fortunate” (EN I 10, 1099b10 ff.; Pol. VII 1, 1323b26 f.), and the excessive happiness, the bliss (makariotês) reserved to the deity (EN X 8, 1178b21 f.). Unlike the happiness of yearning, the happiness that one does not await passively and that one neither owes to a gift of the gods but is to be striven for actively, the happiness of desire, consists in a perfection inherent in life (eu zên) and action (eu prattein). The term eudaimonia—literally, being animated by a good spirit—contains some echoes of the presence of blessing and salvation . While the concept of happiness has been suffering from great uncertainty since Kant’s epistemological objection (Grundlegung, Akad. Ausg. IV 418), Aristotle succeeds in giving a well-defined and also objective definition. 147 Forms of life. The Rhetoric (I 5, 1360b19–24) answers the question in what happiness consists with a long list: “noble lineage, the affection of many and righteous friends, wealth, well-bred and numerous children, a happy old age, physical advantages such as health, beauty, strength and aptitude for physical exercise, as well as a good reputation, renown, the favour of fate (eutychia) and finally virtue with its parts such as prudence, courage, justice and temperance.” The Ethics takes up practically all these elements common in Greek thought, at the same time emphasizing them in a characteristic way. First, it discusses happiness along the lines of bioi (I 3 and X 6–9). What this means is alternative forms of leading one’s life overall, as well as definite ways of being human. This beginning already contains three statements. First, it hints at the well-known difficulty that everyone strives for happiness, but cannot intend it directly, given that it is transmitted via forms of life. The utterance attributed to Voltaire—“therefore I decided to become happy”—is as impossible as the attempt, undertaken by the Utilitarian Bentham, to calculate happiness by a “hedonistic calculus.” The question for happiness calls for an answer comprising at least three steps: 1) look for a strategy of life appropriate for happiness; 2) within its framework develop certain fundamental attitudes (“virtues”) or rules of action of the second degree, principles; 3) it is only by taking the latter as a point of departure that concrete actions can be determined. Second, given that the form of life is chosen, as Aristotle suggests (EN I 3, 1095b20; cf. Metaph. IV 2, 1004b24 f.), man owes his happiness not so much to external powers as to himself. To use the analogy of music, the instrument—here external goods—matters, but the ability to play it is more important (Pol. VII 12, 1332a25–27). Finally, happiness must be equated neither with a (transitory) state of the highest well-being nor with an outstanding single achievement, such as the heroic deeds of an Achilles or an...