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22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia

[Greek concept of fulfilment/happiness/flourishing]

15 ideas
Socrates was the first to put 'eudaimonia' at the centre of ethics [Socrates, by Vlastos]
     Full Idea: Socrates' true place in the development of Greek thought is that he is the first to establish the eudaimonist foundation of ethical theory, which became the foundation of the schools which sprang up around him.
     From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.10
     A reaction: I suspect that he was the first to fully articulate a widely held Greek belief. The only ethical question that they asked was about the nature of a good human life.
Happiness is secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful [Plato]
     Full Idea: By happy you mean in secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful? - Certainly.
     From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 202c)
     A reaction: We seem to have lost track of the idea that beauty might be an essential ingredient of happiness.
Eudaimonia is said to only have final value, where reason and virtue are also useful [Aristotle, by Orsi]
     Full Idea: For Aristotle, what sets eudaimonia apart from things like reason and virtue is that it is exclusively finally valuable; ...reason and virtue are valuable also for contributing to other things, such as happiness.
     From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 2.2
     A reaction: This makes it sound as if eudaimonia is a super-value, and superior to virtue, but I don't think that is right. Eudaimonia just seems to be success in the areas that matter.
Does Aristotle say eudaimonia is the aim, or that it ought to be? [McDowell on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: We can distinguish at least two possible interpretations of Aristotle's thesis that eudaimonia is the chief good: either eudaimonia is that for the sake of which all action IS undertaken, or that for which all action OUGHT to be undertaken.
     From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097b22) by John McDowell - Role of Eudaimonia in Aristotle's Ethics §1
     A reaction: It seems to me Aristotle is describing how people DO behave (they all want ot flourish), and then goes on to describe how they OUGHT to behave to achieve the end they all want. His theory does not describe convention, which mostly concerns pleasure.
Some good and evil can happen to the dead, just as the living may be unaware of a disaster [Aristotle]
     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.
     From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1100a17)
     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.
Critolaus redefined Aristotle's moral aim as fulfilment instead of happiness [Critolaus, by White,SA]
     Full Idea: Critolaus reformulated Aristotelian theory by defining happiness as a 'fulfilment' (sumplêrôma) of psychic, physical, and external goods, where virtue vastly outweighs the rest.
     From: report of Critolaus (fragments/reports [c.170 BCE]) by Stephen A. White - Critolaus
     A reaction: The sounds more like an attempt at clarification than a real change of Peripatetic doctrine. Occasionally 'fulfilment' is offered as a translation for eudaimonia. Maybe we should just take up Critolaus' suggestion when we are discussing Aristotle.
Life is like a play - it is the quality that matters, not the length [Seneca]
     Full Idea: As it is with a play, so it is with life - what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is.
     From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077)
     A reaction: A very nice epigram, culminating the wonderful Letter 77 on the subject of death. A play needs to be a decent length if it is to exhibit its qualities. It would be heartbreaking if all of Shakespeare's plays were just 20-minute sketches.
'Eudaimonia' means 'having a good demon', implying supreme good fortune [Taylor,R]
     Full Idea: The word 'eudaimonia' means literally 'having a good demon', which is apt, because it suggests some kind of supreme good fortune, of the sort which might be thought of as a bestowal.
     From: Richard Taylor (Virtue Ethics: an Introduction [2002], Ch.5)
     A reaction: Beware of etymology. This implies that eudaimonia is almost entirely beyond a person's control, but Aristotle doesn't think that. A combination of education and effort can build on some natural gifts to create a fully successful life.
What counts as 'flourishing' must be relative to various sets of values [Harman]
     Full Idea: If we base our ethics on human flourishing, one implication would seem to be moral relativism, since what counts as 'flourishing' seems inevitably relative to one or other set of values.
     From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.1)
     A reaction: This remark seems to make the relativist assumption that all value systems are equal. For Aristotle, flourishing is no more relative than health is. No one can assert that illness has an intrinsically high value in human life.
'Happiness' is a bad translation of 'eudaimonia', which includes both behaving and faring well [MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: The name 'eudaimonia' is badly but inevitably translated by 'happiness', badly because it includes both the notion of behaving well and the notion of faring well.
     From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 7)
     A reaction: This seems to imply that it does not include the notion of feeling good. Aristotle, however, concludes that pleasure is part of eudaimonia. I take our 'happiness' to be an internal notion, while the Greek word is an external notion.
Philosophers after Aristotle endorsed the medical analogy for eudaimonia [Nussbaum, by Flanagan]
     Full Idea: Nussbaum says the post-Aristotelian philosophers did much more than simply advancing and refining Aristotle's ethics. They advanced eudaimonics by explicitly endorsing the medical analogy.
     From: report of Martha Nussbaum (The Therapy of Desire [1994]) by Owen Flanagan - The Really Hard Problem 4 'Eudaimoncs'
     A reaction: Since Aristotle is all about the successful functioning of the psuche, this idea is obviously implicit in his original texts. It needs a positive concept of mental health, and not a mere absence of mental illness. See the Mindapples campaign.
We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: It would be nice if I could advance the case for Eudaimonics - empirical enquiry into the nature, causes, and constituents of flourishing, …and the case for some ways of living and being as better than others.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 4 'Normative')
     A reaction: Things seem to be moving in that direction. Lots of statistics about happiness have been appearing.
Nowadays we doubt the Greek view that the flourishing of individuals and communities are linked [Zagzebski]
     Full Idea: Modern moral philosophers have been considerably more skeptical than were the ancient Greeks about the close association between the flourishing of the individual and that of the community.
     From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.2)
     A reaction: I presume this is not just a change in fashion, but a reflection of how different the two societies are. In a close community with almost no privacy, flourishing individuals are good citizens. In the isolations of modern liberalism they may be irrelevant.
Animals and plants can 'flourish', but only rational beings can have eudaimonia [Hursthouse]
     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.
     From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Intro)
     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.
With a broad concept of flourishing, it might be possible without the virtues [Statman]
     Full Idea: In a rich conception of human flourishing, both individuals and societies seem to be able to flourish without the virtues.
     From: Daniel Statman (Introduction to Virtue Ethics [1997], §5)
     A reaction: I can see Aristotle clutching his head in despair at this thought. It might look like flourishing, but it couldn't be the real thing. It is Aristotle's fault, though, for including external goods. Money and pleasure offer a kind of flourishing.