Happy Lives and the Highest Good
An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
ARISTOTLE INVITES US to conceive of the human good as a special kind of
end (telos). In the very first line of the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) he
says, "Every craft and every inquiry, and likewise every action and every
choice, seem to aim at some good; for which reason people have rightly
(kalos) concluded that the good is that at which all things aim"
(1094a1-3, my emphasis). He calls this ultimate goal of the successful
life eudaimonia, or happiness (1097a28-34). Just as an archer aims at a
target, so, Aristotle thinks, the happy person aims at the human good in
everything he does (1094a22-24). In effect, he proposes that we think of
happiness not as the property of being happy-a certain feeling of
contentment or satisfaction-but as the goal or end for the sake of which
the happy person acts. Aristotle's investigation into happiness is thus
decidedly practical. Not only does he want to arrive at a theory of
happine ... read full excerpt from Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" ebook
