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Single Idea 5143

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia ]

Full Idea

It is popularly believed that some good and evil, such as honours, or disasters of children, can happen to a dead man, inasmuch as they can happen to a live one without his being aware of them.

Gist of Idea

Some good and evil can happen to the dead, just as the living may be unaware of a disaster

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1100a17)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.82

A Reaction

This suggests 'internalist' and 'externalist' accounts of happiness, with eudaimonia being the externalist view. If an architect designs a spectacular building, and it collapses the day after they die, that has to be a disaster for the architect.

The 15 ideas with the same theme [Greek concept of fulfilment/happiness/flourishing]:

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]