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Full Idea
The trouble with 'flourishing' as a translation of 'eudaimonia' is that animals and even plants can flourish, but eudaimonia is possible only for rational beings.
Clarification
'Eudaimonia' is something like 'happiness' or 'successful living'
Gist of Idea
Animals and plants can 'flourish', but only rational beings can have eudaimonia
Source
Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Intro)
Book Ref
Hursthouse,Rosalind: 'On Virtue Ethics' [OUP 2001], p.9
A Reaction
'Flourishing' still seems better than 'happy', which is centrally used now to refer to a state of mind, not a situation. 'Well being' seems good, and plants are usually permitted that.
| 1646 | Socrates was the first to put 'eudaimonia' at the centre of ethics [Socrates, by Vlastos] |
| 14178 | Happiness is secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful [Plato] |
| 18673 | Eudaimonia is said to only have final value, where reason and virtue are also useful [Aristotle, by Orsi] |
| 5127 | Does Aristotle say eudaimonia is the aim, or that it ought to be? [McDowell on Aristotle] |
| 5143 | Some good and evil can happen to the dead, just as the living may be unaware of a disaster [Aristotle] |
| 5996 | Critolaus redefined Aristotle's moral aim as fulfilment instead of happiness [Critolaus, by White,SA] |
| 13302 | Life is like a play - it is the quality that matters, not the length [Seneca] |
| 5068 | 'Eudaimonia' means 'having a good demon', implying supreme good fortune [Taylor,R] |
| 5120 | What counts as 'flourishing' must be relative to various sets of values [Harman] |
| 8005 | 'Happiness' is a bad translation of 'eudaimonia', which includes both behaving and faring well [MacIntyre] |
| 21836 | Philosophers after Aristotle endorsed the medical analogy for eudaimonia [Nussbaum, by Flanagan] |
| 21835 | We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish [Flanagan] |
| 20199 | Nowadays we doubt the Greek view that the flourishing of individuals and communities are linked [Zagzebski] |
| 4324 | Animals and plants can 'flourish', but only rational beings can have eudaimonia [Hursthouse] |
| 7099 | With a broad concept of flourishing, it might be possible without the virtues [Statman] |