Happiness and the good life: VCE Philosophy
“Viewpoints and arguments on the nature of happiness and its role in the good life”
For Aristotle, happiness (eudaimonia) is the highest good, the end for which everything else is chosen and which is chosen for itself. It is not a mood but activity of the soul in accordance with virtue over a complete life, with some external goods also needed (a point he makes later in Book I, outside the set extract). He reaches this through the function argument: the human function is rational activity, so the good human life is rational activity done well. Critics say the function argument assumes humans have one function, and that happiness understood this way leaves out ordinary felt contentment. Wolf adds that a life can be good through values other than moral ones.
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What this dot point is asking
Two things: what happiness is, and what part it plays in a good life. The trap is that 'happiness' can mean a pleasant feeling or a flourishing life. Set texts, especially Aristotle, push you to be exact about which is meant.
Aristotle's structure
In Book I, Aristotle notes that every activity aims at some good, and that these aims form a chain. Medicine aims at health, but health is wanted for something else, and so on. If the chain stops, there must be a highest good, wanted for its own sake and not as a means. Almost everyone, he says, names it happiness, but people disagree about what it is: pleasure, honour, wealth. He rejects a life of mere pleasure as suited to grazing animals, honour as depending on those who give it, and wealth as only useful for other things.
The function argument in Book I chapter 7 then runs roughly:
- A good flute player or sculptor is one who performs their function well.
- Humans must also have a function, otherwise they would be idle by nature.
- The human function is not mere growth or perception (shared with plants and animals) but an activity of the rational part of the soul.
- So the human good is activity of the soul in accordance with excellence (virtue), over a complete life.
He adds that a single good day does not make a person happy ('one swallow does not make a summer'). Elsewhere in Book I (outside the set extract) he adds that some external goods (friends, resources, health) are also needed.
Two conceptions of happiness
- Happiness as a feeling: a pleasant mental state, perhaps a long-run level of satisfaction. A person is happy if they feel good about their life.
- Happiness as flourishing: a way of living that actually goes well, whether or not the person feels cheerful on a given day.
The difference matters for an example such as a person who feels content because they are deceived about their relationships. By the feeling view they are happy, by the flourishing view they are not. Aristotle supports the flourishing view.
Other views: the Stoics and Wolf
The ancient schools differed on whether virtue alone is enough for happiness. Aristotle thinks bad luck can spoil a life, while Stoic-influenced writers hold that virtue is enough. Your Cicero extracts are about friendship, so use him on happiness only where your extract supports it. Wolf, in 'Moral Saints', argues from the other side: a life devoted wholly to moral goodness would leave out other things that make a life attractive, such as wit, athletic or artistic achievement and personal projects. So there are non-moral values in a good life. (Wolf's focus is moral goodness rather than happiness as such, so frame her as a challenge to the ideal of moral perfection.)
Evaluation
Strengths of Aristotle: he explains why happiness seems the final goal and why it is not just feeling. His view fits our judgement that a life of real achievement and relationships beats one of passive pleasure.
Objections:
- The function argument seems to move from a fact about what humans do to a claim about what is good for them, and it is not obvious humans have one function.
- Even if rational activity is distinctive, it does not follow it is the best part of a life.
- His account may be too demanding, since it makes happiness depend on luck and resources.
- Flourishing views can seem to ignore the person's own perspective: someone can love a quiet life that Aristotle would rank lower.
Question: Is happiness the same as feeling good? Respond with a reasoned judgement.
Argument for yes: we use 'happy' for cheerful states, and being miserable seems incompatible with a good life.
Argument for no (Aristotle): the highest good must be chosen for itself and be complete over a life, so a passing feeling cannot be it. A deceived person who feels fine is not flourishing.
Judgement: happiness is best understood as more than feeling good, because we would not envy a person whose contentment rested on false beliefs about their life. But feeling must still be part of the picture, since a life of achievement felt only as misery would hardly count as a good one for that person. So happiness is a combination: a flourishing life that the person also experiences as worthwhile.
Practice questions
Outline Aristotle's reason for thinking happiness is the highest good.
Model answer: He argues that of all the goods we pursue, some are wanted only as means to others. The chain must end in something wanted for its own sake and not for anything else. Happiness fits because we choose it for itself and everything else, honour and pleasure included, for the sake of happiness.
Give one objection to Aristotle's function argument.
Model answer: It assumes humans have a single natural function and that doing it well is what is good for the individual. But humans plausibly have many capacities and purposes, and what is good for a person might vary, so the step from function to the good is not secure.
When a question uses the word happiness, state at once whether you mean a feeling or flourishing. Aristotle's eudaimonia is the second, which is why many writers translate it as flourishing.