Aristotle

(384–322 BCE)

handout f:

 

Step–By-Step

 The ultimate end of human action = Eudaimonia

 (often translated as “happiness”, but better thought of as “fully functioning well-being”) 

Eudaimonia = “activity of the soul (psyche)

in accordance with virtue (arête) in a complete life”.

  

The psyche has three levels, each distinguished by its distinctive functions:  

   

Arete = “a state of character concerned with choice lying in the mean relative to us”.  

The Golden Mean = that which is neither defective nor excessive; neither too much nor too little, relative to us.  

Against the intellectualism of Socrates and Plato, Aristotle defended the reality of “akrasia” = “weakness of the will”.  

Aristotle distinguished the “intellectual virtues” (consisting in the excellent functioning of the “Active Intellect”, which commands by contemplating theoretical principles) from the “moral virtues” (consisting in the excellent functioning of the “Passive Intellect”, which obeys by directing practice and production to rational ends).  

Thus, eudaimonia consists in the “life of reason” which can be established as the ultimate good for man by showing that it, and it alone, has all the following traits: 

 a) Finality

b) Self-Sufficiency

c) Attainability

d) Actuality

e) Perdurance  

 

Aristotle held man to be “rationcinative desire” or “desiderative reason”.

Thus, Aristotle brings Plato “back to earth”.

Does he?