ARISTOTLE: Happiness and Virtue

Review Questions

1.   

WWhat is happiness, according to Aristotle? How is it related to virtue? How is it related to pleasure?

2.    How does Aristotle explain moral virtue? Give some examples

3.    Is it possible for everyone in our society to be happy, as Aristotle explains it? If not, who cannot be happy?

Answers:

1.    Happiness

                        According to Aristotle, Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue. He also said that happiness is not a pleasure, honor, or wealth. It’s a continuous looking for a soul’s potential for virtue. One can achieve happiness by being virtuous.

2.    Moral Virtue

As Aristotle explained, Moral Virtue comes from training and habit, and generally is a state of character that is a mean between the vices of excess and deficiency. Here, it says that this cannot be achieved by nature or it’s not something that arises by nature. It is like a habit. Person has to do something in order to get something. It’s like a habit which you will learn through a process. One example of this is reading books and writing. We definitely don’t know how to read books and write when we were babies. But time passed, we will able to learn and practice it. We need to train first in order for us to achieve this.

3.    There’s always a way were people can be happy. Everyone can be happy as long as they do things accordingly or in a right manner. People have their own definition for happiness. They find the true meaning of happiness and by doing something.    

Discussion Questions

1.    Aristotle characterizes a life as suitable for beasts. But what, if anything, is wrong with a life of pleasure?

There’s nothing wrong when sometimes people wants to have or to get into the life of pleasures. Pleasures are not bad as long as we are in the right track or we know how to deal with it in a right manner. The life of pleasure seems to be challenging for us. In people’s mind, pleasures have two sides. One is good and the other is its pposite. Pleasures would only be bad if people or the one who wants pleasure is making or using it bad.

2.    Aristotle claims that the philosopher will be happier than everyone else. Why is this? Do you agree or not?

Philosophers have their own mind and have their own perspectives. They tend to be happier than anyone else because they’ve done something or they achieve what they want to achieve, they get what they want, they learn something new, or maybe they prove something. One of the things why philosophers are being happy is that they get something. Philosophers are happier because of the wisdom they shared or they find something interesting for them.