Preview

What is Eudomnia

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
357 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What is Eudomnia
What is Eudemonia?

According to Wikipedia, Eudaimonia is...

"A Greek word commonly translated as happiness or welfare; however, "human flourishing" has been proposed as a more accurate translation. Etymologically, it consists of the words "eu" ("good") and "daimōn" ("spirit")."

Although Wikipedia gives us a good building block to understanding the Eudaimonian concept, I believe that like anything, Eudaimonian is simply what you believe it is, and what you make of it.
For me, Eudaimonia means to live my life to the fullest, to put myself in a position to truly experience what happiness means. Eudaimonia means living a virtuous, and moral life, according to my beliefs. Finding happiness in daily existence and experiencing joy in the simplest of situations.

Are you happy? This question is asked of people by friends, parents and psychiatrists alike. What happiness consists of for each person seems, at first glance, to be entirely subjective in that is it up to each individual person to define what the happy-making ingredients of her life are. This dissertation centrally involves an interpretation of Aristotle’s eudaimonia, often translated as ‘happiness’. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is an inquiry into the chief good for human beings, and according to Aristotle everyone agrees that this chief good is ‘happiness’, however there is major disagreement about what ‘happiness’ consists of. What follows critically interprets Aristotle’s eudaimonia through a close reading of his arguments. Once Aristotle’s eudaimonia is explicated, it is used to question the supposedly subjective conception of happiness that the happiness literature argues is pervasive. Finally, Aristotle’s eudaimonia is defended as a theory of well-being against a charge of perfectionism. It is argued that Aristotle’s eudaimonia commits its adherents to maximising virtuous activity at all times, that is, to perfect themselves. It is this interpretation of Aristotle that seeks to undermine

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Aristotle’s eudaimonia (happiness) is living well and doing well in the affairs of the world. Happiness is life’s aim which like I stated before, involves both moral and intellectual arête. Aristotle states that “The happy life for a man is a life of the conscious following of a rule”. So to elaborate, a person must use their moral and intellect virtues to use good judgment to know what the right rule is, then they must follow and obey the rule even if they don’t understand the rule. So in order for us to do this we must possess moral goodness and goodness of intellect.…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Aristotle's Ethics

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The term “happiness” as used by Aristotle is “eudaemonia ” and can be translated many ways. More directly translated it can mean “good spirit” or “good demon.” It is commonly translated as happiness or welfare but “human flourishing” has been proposed as a more accurate translation. For every action a human makes there is a purpose or a goal. For every goal there is an end to that goal and for every end, another end. Therefore Aristotle proposes that “eudamonia” is the ultimate end of all ends and goal of all goals. He calls it the the ultimate or highest “good” and the end toward which all human activity is directed. The highest good has three characteristics. It is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.…

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    PHI2000 The Good Life

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Aristotle believes that one’s accomplishments in being happy are the driving force to a “Good Life”. The good life creates a happiness that relates to one functioning well and reason. Aristotle believes that it takes time, hard work and restraint to get to the employ the habits of reasoning and according to him everything has a purpose (Rachels and Rachels, pg 54). Aristotle states that “Good” has rightly been defined as “that at which all things aim” and that people identify happiness with living well or doing well (Sommers & Sommers, 2010).…

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Antigone - 13

    • 1735 Words
    • 7 Pages

    happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are…

    • 1735 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Aristotle’s ethics focuses on virtues of character and good habits. His big term he uses is eudemonia, which means happiness.…

    • 514 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Aristotle

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Aristotle believes that there is only one goal, one ultimate end for every individual—that is eudaimonia, translated as happiness, not as a feeling but happiness as the highest human good or a life full of activity. He claims that a person should live a way of life distinct from the lives of animals, where they only live for the sake of living or pleasure.1 As human beings, people should use their power of speech to communicate and make rational decisions within a polity, striving to live their lives up to their full potential and to their full capacity for a happy life.2 The life of politics, the via activa, is thus the key to the chief good or the best life for humans; however, the life of action must be of certain type of quality, in accordance with reason, since different actions may lead to the good or the bad life. In other words, a person’s actions must be in line with arête, with virtue or excellence.3…

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In this section I will explain Aristotle’s definition of eudaimonia and its relationship to happiness, morality and the virtues. Aristotle defines eudaimonia in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics as “virtuous activity in accordance with reason” and that this is the highest good for human beings. For Aristotle, eudaimonia can be translated into a “human life of flourishing” since it occurs throughout a person’s life. This lifelong happiness is complete and sufficient in itself, meaning that a person lives it as an end in itself and not for anything else beyond it. An important aspect of reaching our own eudaimonia is to function well as human beings. Aristotle presents his concept of the human function by stating that what makes human function so distinct is not just to obtain nutrition and to grow because that aspect of life is shared with plants and it is also not perception because that is something shared with animals. Our ultimate human function therefore is reason and not just reason alone but to act in accordance to reason.…

    • 1773 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Aristotle, it is the attainment of happiness, for it is that alone that we…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    ‘Aristotelianism is defined as happiness as the quality of a whole life time.’ “Happiness is the purpose for which we live. Aristotle concluded that happiness is not a moment to moment experience of pleasurable things but rather a way of characterizing how one’s life is being conducted. Happiness is living and having lived a good life”. (Janaro & Altshuler, 2009)…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many people try to define and consider different definitions of what happiness is, and I think that Plato and Aristotle offer interesting views of happiness and what it means for one to live a good life. Both philosophers agree that happiness is an important factor in one’s life and essentially the essence of how to live a good life. Plato offers many theories and definitions of justice leading to happiness, while Aristotle argues that happiness is the main goal that all humans aim for in their entire life. Plato offers a philosophical view of a happy life for an individual by explaining a just state and what it would entail and also the theory of the forms that one must understand to achieve happiness. After learning about both philosophers, I have come to the conclusion that I agree with Aristotle’s view of happiness more because he gives us a broad outline of what a good life is. Although Plato was Aristotle’s mentor, Aristotle offers a view of happiness that is more plausible and relevant than Plato’s because it places a large emphasis on the idea of the function of a human being. Therefore, in this paper, I will argue that I agree with Aristotle’s view of happiness over Plato’s because of the way Aristotle describes how humans can achieve the greatest good in life: happiness.…

    • 1782 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The definition of happiness is eudemonia, meaning the realization or actualization of unique human capacities. Happiness is a complete and sufficient good, this implies that it is desired for itself, that it is not desired for the sake of anything else and it’s stable.…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People have defined happiness as some kind of good of a human being. In Nicomachean Ethics: Book I, Aristotle defines happiness as the activity of living well, which in the Greek word is called eudaimonia. He tends to think that happiness is how we balance and moderate our lives to seek the highest pleasures, which he calls maintaining the mean. In the following excerpt from Book I, Aristotle talks about how happiness presumably consists in attaining some good or set of goods. “Now goods have been divided into three classes, and some are described as external, others as relating to soul or to body; we call those that relate to soul most properly and truly goods, and psychical actions and activities we class as relating to soul” (Book I pg. 7). He is saying that since happiness consists in attaining some good that there are three different types of goods that you can attain; an external goods, which consists of wealth or honor, goods of the body, which is health or physical strength, and lastly goods of the soul, which consists of knowledge, education, and friendship. Aristotle goes on to say how only certain goods are necessary for happiness. “It is correct also in that we identify the end with certain actions and activities; for thus it falls among goods of the soul and not among external goods. Another belief which harmonizes with our account is that the happy man lives well and does well; for we have practically defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action” (Book I pg. 7). He is saying that only certain goods such as health are the necessary preconditions for happiness and that other goods such as wealth is just something extra that help fill out a good life for a virtuous person, but the possession of virtue or excellence is the element of happiness. Aristotle also adds that humans seek different goods that make them happy compared to animals because humans have a rational capacity that when exercised perfects our natures as human beings.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    ● Happiness is that of the knowledge for betterment of the whole and acting upon it…

    • 528 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plato’s writings on happiness are seen as a representation of Socrate’s view since Plato was his student, and presents his writings on happiness in three dialogues, namely Euthydemus, The Symposium and The Republic. As to necessary conditions for happiness in the Euthydemus, he argues first that happiness is what everybody desires; it is the end or goal of all our activities, unconditional good; secondly, he says that happiness does not depend on external things but rather how those things are used. For instance, one cannot claim that money brings happiness, but rather how money is used is what determines happiness. An ignorant person will waste away the money and end up worse than before, but a wise person will use the money well for his own good, and the same applies to external things, such as looks or even…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When I read this part of the passage in my textbook about being hook to an “experience machine” that would guarantee a constant state of happiness and positive emotion did cross my mind. I thought about what it would be like just to feel the constant emotion of being happy. At first I thought it would be an incredible experience. Never having to worry, or to feel sad, to feel rejected or lonely would be awesome not to feel those emotions anymore. However, to be in a constant state of being happy and always positive could take away the fulfillment of actually living life. Eudaimonic is defined as self-realization, meaning the expression and fulfillment of inner potential. So from this perspective, the good life results from living in accordance with your true self. It’s a process in which our talents, needs, and deeply held values direct the way we conduct our lives. The hedonic view captures a major element of what we mean by happiness in everyday terms: we enjoy life, we are satisfied with how our…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays