EUDAIMONIA

Strictly speaking, the term "eudaimonia" is a transliteration of the Greek word for prosperity, good fortune, wealth, or happiness. In philosophical contexts the Greek word "eudaimonia" has traditionally been translated simply as "happiness," but a number of contemporary scholars and translators have tried to avoid this rendering on the grounds that it can suggest unhelpful connotations in the mind of the uncritical reader. (For example, it does not refer to an affective state, nor is it coextensive with the classical utilitarian conception of happiness, though both of these notions may, in some thinkers, count as aspects of eudaimonia.) Since the word is a compound of the prefix "eu-" (well) and the noun "daimōn" (spirit), phrases such as "living well" or "flourishing" have been proposed as possible alternatives. But the consensus appears to be that "happiness" is adequate if the term is properly understood within the philosophical context of antiquity.

Aristotle wrote that all agree that eudaimonia is the chief good for humans, but that there is considerable difference of opinion as to what eudaimonia consists in (Nicomachean Ethics I.2, 1095a15–30). The portrait of Socrates presented in Plato's early, Socratic dialogues has Socrates endorsing the view that eudaimonia consists in living a just life, which requires knowledge in the form of a kind of foresight (see especially Gorgias ). In his later works (for example, the Republic ), Plato continued to argue that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and that nonmoral goods do not add to eudaimonia (the so-called sufficiency thesis).

As is well known, Aristotle agreed that virtue is a necessary condition for eudaimonia but held that it is not sufficient (the so-called necessity thesis). On his account, "eudaimonia" is most properly applied not to any particular moment of a person's life, but to an entire life that has been well lived. While virtue is necessary for such a life, Aristotle argued that certain nonmoral goods can contribute to eudaimonia or detract from it by their absence. There is some controversy among scholars as to how Aristotle finally characterized the happy life, the life marked by eudaimonia. Throughout the first nine books of the Nicomachean Ethics, he appears to think that a happy life is a life that centrally involves civic activity. The virtues that mark the happy person are themselves defined as states of the soul that arise out of certain interactions taking place in social relations. But in book X, Aristotle's argument appears to be that a life of contemplating the theoretical (theoria ) is the happiest sort of life, and that civic involvement can actually detract from this sort of activity (though the private life of contemplation appears to presuppose the public life, since without the public life to produce goods and services, the philosopher is incapable of living in isolation).

Where Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle agreed was in the objective nature of eudaimonia, which set them sharply apart from the popular morality of their day. In a famous passage from the Gorgias (468e–476a), Socrates shocks Polus by arguing that a wrongdoer is actually worse off than the person whom he wrongs, and that any wrongdoer is bound to be unhappy until he is punished. The person who has been wronged, by contrast, may be happy in spite of whatever physical suffering he may undergo at the hands of the wrongdoer. The Gorgias concludes with a myth about the fate of the human soul after death that makes it clear that only the state of the soul, not the physical state of the body, determines whether one is happy or unhappy.

Although Aristotle did not agree that happiness cannot be diminished at all by physical suffering, it is not because he thought that feelings are decisive for happiness. On the contrary, he argued for an objective standard of human happiness grounded in his metaphysical realism. In Nicomachean Ethics (I.7), he argued that human excellence ought to be construed in terms of what ordinarily characterizes human life (the so-called function or ergon argument). This argument is clearly grounded in his doctrine of causation, according to which any member of a natural kind is characterized by four causes: a formal cause, a material cause, an efficient cause, and a final cause. The final cause is inextricable from the formal cause: To be a certain kind of thing is just to function in a certain way, and to have a certain sort of function is just to be a certain kind of thing. The human function (ergon ) is to be found in the activity of our rational faculties, particularly practical wisdom (phronēsis ) and learning (sophia ). Since the activity of both of these faculties is ordered not by subjective considerations but by the formal constraints of reason itself, human excellence is objectively determined: To live well is to live a life characterized by the excellent use of one's rational faculties, and this excellence is marked by successfully applying general rules for virtuous living to particular situations calling for moral deliberation.

Aristotle rejected alternative accounts of happiness as falling short of his ideal in some way (Nicomachean Ethics I.5, 1095b14–1096a10). The life of political honor, for example, reduces happiness to the degree to which one is esteemed by others, thus disconnecting happiness from the operation of one's own proper function. A more popularly held view equated happiness with pleasure, a view that Aristotle quickly dismissed as failing to distinguish humans as a natural kind from other animals that also feel pleasure and that rely on it as a motivating force in their daily quest for survival. For Aristotle, as for Plato before him, the hedonistic view overlooks the essential function of human rationality: to order and control human appetites and desires, channeling them into activities that, in the long run, best ensure human flourishing. Indeed, it is this very order and control that distinguishes human society from all other forms of life, so that there is an intimate connection between human excellence and the political life. This connection is subject to a certain tension, however, since both Plato, in the Republic, and Aristotle, in his life of theoretical contemplation, make social order a necessary condition for human excellence while simultaneously arguing that personal happiness in some sense involves disconnecting oneself from the community at large.

The Stoics agreed that happiness is our ultimate end, for which all else is done, and they defined this as consistently living in accordance with nature. By this they meant not only human nature but the nature of the entire universe, of which we are a part, and the rational order that both exhibit. Practical reason thus requires an understanding of the world and our place in it, along with our resolute acceptance of that role. Following nature in this way is a life of virtue and results in a "good flow of life," with peace and tranquility.

The Epicureans also took eudaimonia to be the end for humans, but they defined "eudaimonia" in terms of pleasure. Yet many of the things we take pleasure in have unpleasurable consequences, which on balance disrupt our lives, and so do not provide us with the freedom from concerns (ataraxia ) and the absence of physical pain (aponia ) that characterize true happiness. These traits, they believed, must be secured through the exercise of moderation, prudence, and the other virtues, yet they are not valued for their own sakes but as instrumental means to a life of pleasure and happiness.

This form of hedonistic eudaemonism is to be contrasted with the hedonism of the Cyrenaics, the main exception to Aristotle's statement that all agree that the highest good is eudaimonia. Sketchy accounts of the elder Aristippus suggest that his hedonism involved giving free reign to sensual desires (Xenophon, Memorabilia 11.1.1–34), so as always to be capable of enjoying the moment, making use of what was available (Diogenes Laertius 11.66). Later Cyrenaics refined this position as seeking to enjoy sensual pleasure to the full without sacrificing autonomy or rationality. Their conception of pleasure emphasized bodily pleasures, understood as either a kind of movement (kinēsis ) or the supervening state of the soul (pathos ). Because they regarded such transient states as the highest good, the Cyrenaics rejected the view that eudaimonia, a comprehensive and long-term type of fulfillment, is the end that should govern all our choices.

See also Aristotle; Cyrenaics; Epicurus; Phronêsis; Plato; Socrates; Sophia; Stoicism.

Bibliography

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Annas, Julia. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Broadie, Sarah. Ethics with Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. See especially chapter 1, "Happiness, the Supreme End," and chapter 7, "Aristotle's Values."

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Xenophon. Memorabilia. Translated by Amy L. Bonnette. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Scott Carson (2005)