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Single Idea 5868
[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / a. Nature of happiness
]
Full Idea
No horse or bird or fish is happy, nor any other thing that there is which does not have a share by its nature in the divine.
Clarification
Happy is the Greek word 'eudaimon', also translated as 'flourishing'
Gist of Idea
Horses, birds and fish are not happy, lacking a divine aspect to their natures
Source
Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1217a26)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Eudemian Ethics I,II and VIII', ed/tr. Woods,Michael [OUP 1992], p.8
A Reaction
Pet owners will all feel their beloved companions have been insulted, but I agree with this. 'Happy' does not here mean 'in a state of pleasure'. A fully successful bird does little more than the four f's (feed, fornicate, flee, fight).
The
18 ideas
with the same theme
[what is the intrinsic nature of happiness?]:
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25
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You can be good while asleep, or passive, or in pain
[Aristotle]
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5136
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Happiness seems to involve virtue, or practical reason, or wisdom, or pleasure, or external goods
[Aristotle]
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5868
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Horses, birds and fish are not happy, lacking a divine aspect to their natures
[Aristotle]
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22753
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Happiness for the Stoics was an equable flow of life
[Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
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13303
|
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is
[Seneca]
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13550
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To be always happy is to lack knowledge of one half of nature
[Seneca]
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6922
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Ecstasy is for the neo-Platonist the highest psychological state of man
[Plotinus, by Feuerbach]
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5756
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Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired
[Boethius]
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12927
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Happiness is advancement towards perfection
[Leibniz]
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6252
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Happiness is a pleasant sensation, or continued state of such sensations
[Hutcheson]
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6193
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Our happiness is all that matters, not as a sensation, but as satisfaction with our whole existence
[Kant]
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1452
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Happiness is the condition of a rational being for whom everything goes as they wish
[Kant]
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23274
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World history has no room for happiness
[Hegel]
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4172
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Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire
[Schopenhauer]
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7168
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Modest people express happiness as 'Not bad'
[Nietzsche]
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22497
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Deep happiness usually comes from the basic things in life
[Foot]
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22498
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Happiness is enjoying the pursuit and attainment of right ends
[Foot]
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5079
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Pleasure can have a location, and be momentary, and come and go - but happiness can't
[Taylor,R]
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