Single Idea 5136

[catalogued under 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / a. Nature of happiness]

Full Idea

Candidates for the required constituents of happiness are said to be virtue, or practical reason, or wisdom; others say it is these with the addition of pleasure, and others include favourable external conditions.

Gist of Idea

Happiness seems to involve virtue, or practical reason, or wisdom, or pleasure, or external goods

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098b21)

Book Reference

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.78


A Reaction

Characteristic of Aristotle to start from what both ordinary people and philosophers have previously said. By the end of his book (remarkably) wisdom is the only one of these which is excluded from normal human happiness. Wisdom transcends life.