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Single Idea 2681

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / c. Value of happiness ]

Full Idea

Aristotle shows an indecision between an intellectualist and a comprehensive account of eudaimonia. …It is because he is not sure who we are that he finds it difficult to say unequivocally in what our eudaimonia consists.

Gist of Idea

Aristotle is unsure about eudaimonia because he is unsure what people are

Source

comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Thomas Nagel - Aristotle on Eudaimonia p.8

Book Ref

'Essays on Aristotle's Ethics', ed/tr. Rorty,Amélie Oksenberg [University of California 1980], p.8

A Reaction

Aristotle is quite right to be unsure about what people are, given the fluidity of human nature, in comparison with other animals. He needs a stable core to human nature, and I think that exists.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [how important is happiness?]:

2681 Aristotle is unsure about eudaimonia because he is unsure what people are [Nagel on Aristotle]
5132 Goods like pleasure are chosen partly for happiness, but happiness is chosen just for itself [Aristotle]
30 Happiness is perfect and self-sufficient, the end of all action [Aristotle]
14522 What happens to me if I obtain all my desires, and what if I fail? [Epicurus]
22985 Everyone wants happiness [Augustine]
6210 Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes]
1386 A concern for happiness is the inevitable result of consciousness [Locke]
1454 Morality is not about making ourselves happy, but about being worthy of happiness [Kant]
21061 Duty does not aim at an end, but gives rise to universal happiness as aim of the will [Kant]
2891 Only the English actually strive after happiness [Nietzsche]
4500 It is a sign of degeneration when eudaimonistic values begin to prevail [Nietzsche]
4558 We have no more right to 'happiness' than worms [Nietzsche]
18307 I want my work, not happiness! [Nietzsche]
7983 Good versus evil has been banefully reduced to happiness versus misfortune [Baudrillard]