What Is Happiness?
Happiness is found truly in the journey of life, not in the arriving of some destination, or the end itself. Aristotle completely agrees with that outlook, in his words he describes happiness, or the human good, as the “activity of soul exhibiting excellence?(Nicomachean Ethics I. 7). That “activity of soul exhibiting excellence?is in the journey, but in the journey to what? Happiness is the ultimate end or goal of being completely virtuous, but it is something that is found in the activity of striving for that end. So how does one know if the end they have chosen is something that will bring that happiness? How does one achieve this end? Why are there so many different ideas and definitions from different philosophers on the meaning and method of attaining real happiness? Happiness is the ultimate end. So many people in the world today have different temporal goals, different aspirations, and differences in what they would call the good which brings or is happiness. But “the many do not give the same account as the wise?(I. 4). So if everyone is aiming at some good, which might be in their view the highest or ultimate good, does that mean that it is the ultimate end which Aristotle defines as happiness and which
There are is some ends of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like the archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right (I. 2)? Happiness is for certain something that is unique for each individual, and the attainment of which is a very personal journey, but the method, the means, and the end result are universal. Happiness then, being the journey or activity of the soul in regards to this virtuous end, is something that we are all striving to attain on a daily basis. It isn’t just something that we learn about in a book, think about it for the duration of our lives, and then when all it’s all over receive because we have studied it, and feel like we know what it is. As Aristotle describes it, it is an activity; it requires action, and doing. As we are active in pursuing our ends, that is when happiness, though it is an end in a sense because it is an end goal which we are striving for, can be realized in our every day life. Happiness can be discovered everyday as we improve ourselves, and refine ourselves in order to put us in line with the ultimate goal. That is the activity of the soul; those are the virtuous actions which bring a true attainment of happiness. We all have innate desires and awareness of seeking for the good, but it is when we couple that with a continuous refinement of our actions that brings happiness. Through continuously changing and improving our actions, we become more and more virtuous in those actions until they are developed to be perfectly virtuous, bringing the ultimate goal, or happiness. brings happiness in the pursuit or activity thereof? No, because some peoples actions and goals for which motivates them to take action is not necessarily based on virtuous things, so the end would be something that might be good, but not the ultimate good. Everyone has an innate desire or longing for the end or goal of their actions to be good. As Aristotle put
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Approximate Word count = 1552
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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