Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Midwest Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
American Journal of Political Science.
http://www.jstor.org
to the Problem
Introduction
Aristotle's
I of the Nicomachean
On Book
Robert C. Bartlett
of Happiness:
Ethics
EmoryUniversity
The study of Book I of theNicomachean Ethics is useful today in part because it deals with a question?the nature of
human happiness?whose relevance is obvious. But in dealing with that question, Book I compels us to raise difficulties
for ourselves that,far from being obvious, are in danger of being forgotten. Chief among these difficulties are,first, the true
character of our hope for happiness and, ultimately, the necessity of there being a kind of divine providence if that hope is to
be realized. Inasmuch as we still longfor happiness, we must still undergo thepull ofthat necessity, however distant itmay
appear to us to be. In bringing out our deepest concern in thisway, the study of thefirst book of the Ethics also prepares us
to become serious students ofAristotle's "philosophy of human matters" as a whole, which is concerned with the reality of
providence because it is concerned with thepossibility ofphilosophy as a way of life.
first book
The
of the Nicomachean
is the
Ethics
place
And
accept
answer
and
those
encourages
cannot
who
ac
to understand
to moral
be
Aristotle's
I is noteworthy
Aristotle
exercises
there
for
the great
in accomplishing
also
these
caution
tasks,
C. Bartlett
I am grateful
attractive
is professor
of political
to Peter Ahrensdorf,
to the problem
solution
science,
Christopher
Emory
Bruell,
ofWriting
in Book I
crucial.
Book
Manner
of
University,
Eric
Buzzetti,
My
by peculiarities,
including everything
from apparently needless repetition and digression to out
is clear even from a glance at the
right self-contradiction,
1555 Dickey
Susan
Drive,
Collins,
Atlanta,
and Devin
GA
30322
Stauffer
(rcbartl@emory.edu).
comments
and
suggestions.
II have consistently
translated
eudaimonia
because
it is in my view the closest
to the state
in English
by "happiness,"
principally
equivalent
as Aristotle
in question
himself
describes
it. "Human well-being,"
suffer from the
(and other,
formulations)
"flourishing"
comparable
fact that, unlike
and as such are foreign
locutions
to everyday
eudaimonia,
of the
they are strictly academic
speech. For an able defense
see Kraut
translation
followed
also by Devereux
n. 4). Ackrill
(1979, especially
to
167-70),
"happiness,"
(1981, 248-49,
strongly
objects
the translation
but his suggestion?"'the
best possible
to be the decisive
of the
"happiness,"
life'"(1974,
349) begs what
proves
question
of realizing
eudaimonia.
Bostock
to translate
the term at all.
(2000,
possibility
11-12) declines
American
Journal
of Political
Science,
Vol.
52, No.
3, July 2008,
Pp. 677-687
ISSN 0092-5853
677
6/8
ROBERTC BARTLETT
munity
tion (1094M1-27;
he twice sketches
text of Book
I.2 On
1095a30-1095bl4;
1098a20-1098b8);
the argument that all our actions and
choices necessarily aim at some good, going so far as to
indicate that he is repeating himself ( 1097a24 and context;
consider also 1098a26 and context, which refers back to
and in little more than 20 pages, Aristotle
1094bll-25);
cause in ques
arguing they amount to. The most obvious
Immedi
tion is the authority of the political community.
some
there
of
good
being
ately after sketching the necessity
in which all our strivings culminate and which thereby
the bridle produced by the lowly art
justifies them?as
is ultimately for the sake of the good of
of bridle-making
art?
victory in war, under the guidance of the general's
to
a
held"
Aristotle
good "might be
suggests that such
architec
belong to the "most authoritative and especially
tonic" science or power. And what "appears," at least, to be
such a thing, tomake clear to us the good, i.e., "the human
1094a 18-28): even the general's
good," is politics (politik?:
art is subordinate to the science or power of politics. The
one might say, tries to answer with
community,
the good life for a human being
of
the
question
finality
and hence of the best human type. Every community not
on the verge of collapse teaches or habituates itsmembers
political
of the Nicomachean
edition
21 have used Ingram Bywater's
edition of the Politics
1894) and Alois Dreizehnter's
(Aristotle
are my own.
totle 1970). Translations
throughout
con
than to do so for the individual (1094b7-10;
The political community
sider also 1097b8-ll).
regards
and wishes to have regarded as settled not only the specific
it the life of
character of the good life for its citizens?be
divine"
dinary
science
exercised
influence
makes
ical community
the
Aristotle will later raise as an open question whether
virtue of the good citizen is ever the same as that of the
answer to it?that
the two
good human being, and his
one
case
in
who
of
shares
coincide only in the
ruling in
that the virtue of the citizen in
the best regime?implies
short of human virtue or ex
falls
every existing regime
Politics 1276bl6-1277b32;
cellence simply (1130b26-29;
and context). Because of the awesome
1278a40-1278b5
Ethics
(Aris
3Consider,
e.g., epi tosouton
atl097al4andll01a21.
ON HAPPINESS 679
ARISTOTLE
to admit; each of the three accounts follows the
raising of a "sensitive" issue and amounts to a retreat from
it. In the present context Aristotle discourages his audi
Here
chooses
mary
audience
directly
self in the inquiry. Aristotle makes clear that that audi
ence ismade up of those who are no longer immature
in character (1094b27-1095a8)
because they have been
needed
subject to and hence shaped by the habituation
to effect good rearing (1095b3-6;
In the
1104M1-13).
second and therefore central of his statements concern
needed
so to act is habituation
rather
with
in Book
good
is not the knowledge of this of great weight, and would
we not, like archers possessing a target, be more inclined
to hit upon what is needed?" (1094a22-24;
consider also
1095al0-l
1). And when Aristotle turns in 1.7 to "repeat,"
not,
or not
only,
the
subject
matter:
the
geome
Aristotle must
consequences
in us deeply
4
Consider
the political
inmathemat
political phi
if only for the
losophy too susceptible of such knowledge,
from the
equivalent of the "geometer" as distinguished
"carpenter"?
also
community's
equation
of "the human
good" with "the noble things and the just things," as is implied by
1094b7
in conjunction
with
14-15.
680
we cannot
know
in at least one
dience
do not, both
as they
respect: he understands,
the fact and the cause?the
"that" and the
their "knowledge"; he
the limits attending
"why"?of
makes precise the necessity dictating a certain impreci
sion. In fact he goes further. He occasionally
indicates
in Book I the possibility
of proceeding
in the manner
of a geometer, that is, as an observer ("contemplator")
of the truth (1098a31-32):
deference to the authority of
others is indeed good, but "altogether best" is he who
ROBERTC BARTLETT
and
(compare 1095a23 with 1095b22-1096a4
is
For
The
reasonable.
honor
context).
change
although
seems to be the core of the political life, those who are
serious about honor in fact want to be honored for their
virtue,
to discuss
pelled
the Nicomachean
Ethics. Most
denies
tive throughout
life, and, in addition to these, to suffer
And nobody
and
badly
undergo the greatest misfortunes.
a
in
is
would say that person living
this way
happy, unless
"himself
understands
Although
of virtue,
it clear enough that the practice of virtue
he has made
in no way guarantees the happiness of the virtuous. And
finally, since Aristotle declines to speak at present about
Aristotle
The Problem
of Happiness
Aristotle's
our happiness,
and honor. To this he adds a list
to pleasure, Aristotle
is extraordi
to
sake
live for the
of pleasure is to
narily harsh toward it:
live a slavish life suitable only for fatted cattle ( 1095b 14
16). The harshness of this dismissal is indicative not only
with what
who
loves moral
pleasure,
5
The
best
audience
virtue
in Books VII
to sketch
the complex
attempt
or audiences
in the Nicomachean
character
Ethics
of Aristotle's
is Tessitore
(1996).
cannot
be the
end we seek.
By the end of 1.4-5, then, Aristotle has brought us to a
dead end. All the most popular opinions about happiness,
refined, lead nowhere, and if "the contemplative
refuses to tell
life" holds the key to happiness, Aristotle
us as much.
Itmight well seem, it is true, that he takes at
least a step in this direction in the immediately following
chapter (1.6), for he there considers at length the view of
however
if
the Platonists,
friends?presumably
to
which
the
not
Plato
(true)
himself?according
perhaps
not "in" any one thing but
good, the idea of the good, is
separate from the several good things here and now and
certain unnamed
"the many"
become
they wonder
their heads in lofty terms (1095a25-26):
having brought
his audience face to face with the inadequacy of the com
norance,
mon
like
words, renders us susceptible to fantastic doctrines
out
the
holds
which
of
that
the Platonic ideas,
promise
ARISTOTLE
ON HAPPINESS 68l
in a separate or "transcendent" and
of our participating
eternal world that is as such free of the limits marring
this one. To say the least, in his thorough critique of the
idea of the good here, Aristotle throws cold water on any
a demand
nor does one day. And in this way, one day or a short time
does not make one blessed and happy either" ( 1098a 18
20). As becomes clear when he returns to this same cri
especially
over
it inasmuch
as Aristotle
marks
now
makes
so understood.
line of argument,
then,
is not as revealing
as it is
terion
est misfortunes"
(atuchein
have particularly inmind a premature death or the uncer
tain timing of the mortality
fact whose
attending us?a
1097b22
(1095al7-20;
no
one
seems
to
state
but
able
itmight
what
23),
precisely
consist in. Aristotle's
identification
of the leading con
tenders in that respect (pleasure, honor, virtue, money),
and his methodical
rejection of each in turn (1.4-5), is
meant
to
clear that none of these goods is
make
surely
sufficient by itself to be the good that we conceive of with
the mind's eye, however vaguely, and hope to attain. The
first five chapters of Book I at once capture the experience
of the elusiveness
plain
the meaning
Aristotle
the connection
reintroduces
between
and happi
after his blunt
I is indication
lier account
virtue
left behind
"a complete
on the table, Aristotle prompts us to consider the
possi
to virtue has some connection
bility that the dedication
with that desire. In fact, in the next section, Aristotle will
confirm
cation
this possibility
in the strongest terms: the dedi
to virtue will be shown to hold out the
promise of
our
682
ROBERTC. BARTLETT
20), not at all due to chance, for "to entrust the greatest
and noblest thing to chance would be excessively harsh"
(1099b24-25).
1.9 by repeating and even
Yet Aristotle
concludes
strengthening the demand that happiness include "a com
the movement
of the argument
in 1.1-7 as a whole
sug
his indication
secure
to a premature
for ourselves,
not
death. How
an
merely
then
con
ephemeral
The Problem
of Happiness
course to a doctrine
deceased
continues
the
(of
for example). Aristotle here
the lives of his descendants,
insists, however, that only one's own virtuous activities
determine happiness,
that is, the happiness of a virtuous
person cannot be affected even if some of his descen
dants receive in life a lot contrary to what they deserve
Indeed, in the midst of his own troubles
(1100a25-26).
Solved
while
his official
with
plete
last time: "It appears, then, that the friends' faring well
to [the condition of] those
some contribution
who have passed away, as does, similarly, their faring ill,
of such a kind and degree as not to
but a contribution
make
6See
the
to being available
references
to chance
at,
tomany
e.g.,
or most
1099b8
( 1099b 18
Aristotle's
say scornfully.7
Here, then, isAristotle's official answer in Book I of
Ethics to the problem of happiness: ifwe
the Nicomachean
in
the requisite activity of soul that accords with
engage
the
on 1.10-11,
Pritzl
(1983)
argues
against
commentary
here
that Aristotle
and Jolif among others,
stated by Gauthier
a "condescend
on the afterlife with
opinions
speaks of common
that "Aris
to the contrary,
(1970, 2: 86); he contends,
ing smile"
on the dead
in a serious
totle ... does treat the received
opinions
as Aristotle
fashion"
surely does,
(103). But to treat them seriously,
to Pritzl makes
in his response
is not yet to accept
them, as Gooch
clear (1983,112-16).
In his
view,
(the
end
of
1.8),
does make
the start
indicates
of 1.12 clearly
of 1.11); the beginning
to
serves as the preface
which
to
of
1.13,
say nothing
topic,
virtue.
into moral
extended
inquiry
ARISTOTLE
ON HAPPINESS 683
(the best) virtue, we will secure for ourselves here and
now a life that is at once best, noblest, and most pleasant,
and we will enjoy this lifemost continuously. We will also
correct
an afterlife
inwhich
is (merely) good
hold either that happiness
1.8, then?to
or
to
that
it
is
virtue
fortune,
(1099b7-8)?
equivalent
Aristotle here clearly rejects the former because he holds
is not due to chance because
governed
by the practice
it is
of virtue.
that neither
of
these two [i.e., the ancients and the few of high repute]
be completely wrong in all respects?rather
that they be
in some
one
respect,
at
least,
or
even
in most
re
(1098b28-29).
Similarly, he rejects the view that
on the basis of two conditional
to
is
due
chance
happiness
spects"
clauses
"Blessed Human
The tension at the heart of Aristotle's
now
clear.
the one
On
hand,
virtue
Beings"
argument
simply
cannot
in Book I is
guaran
it cannot protect
Priam (1100a8,
of these opinions,
the denial of which is in
It is not only the political community's
great
in
then, that guide Aristotle
power and its consequences,
us
his exposition, but also the powerful hope in each of
to
deed harsh.
it may
"conclusions,"
i.e.,
from
arguments
properly
speak
i.e., to
[happiness],"
that are permitted to
exercise most
tradictory
since Aristotle
opinions
available
to him. He does
so on the
53).
be said that we
a
indicates
and perhaps
the
between,
kinship
and "the god," these being
the only things
of, "happiness"
in reference
to some stan
i.e., they are not praised
rightly honored,
dard higher
than they (1101b27?30).
Each is an expression
of the
9In
1.12, Aristotle
identity
itmust
with
superlative
good conceivable
as a
starting point or first principle
pare 1095a30-1095bl).
the mind's
eye,
for us (consider
and
each
1102a2-4;
serves
com
ROBERTC. BARTLETT
684
heading he now discusses the premature death of
friends and children (1.8: 1099a31-1099b7)10
and he re
as
we
a
have
of
the
seen,
peats,
requirement
"complete life"
which
[do] what
all fortunes
deal with
is noblest
(1.10:1100b30-31,1101al-3)?but
such human beings will also be, not merely not wretched
but happy as a result of their superla
(1100b34,1101a6),
or complete
thorough
first formulation
either
is compared
And,
among
whatever.
of someone
But what
who
is active
in accord with
be said to be happy
ing of the MSS.).11
fundamental
"the human
is not
able. Aristotle's
this all-important
fact that Aristotle
from
the
gin
that "the future is immanifest
understand
blessed?but
an
extended
goods
discussion
to happiness,
is understood
qualification, we must be
here reminds us of, namely
with
to "the wise":
of Aristotle
see Cooper
on
(1985).
the
importance
of
good"
as it ought
is that
indeed happiness,
if that term
to be. The good that we cannot
be one
in which
we
can have
of Book
some
The
relation
question
of whether
praised or among
amounts to this: everything praised is inferior to the "good
and serious" thing to which our praise refers, whereas
is honored because it is perfect or
everything honored
the perfect or com
happiness,
complete. Accordingly,
(1102al).
plete good, must be among the things honored
But this means that moral virtue in general, and justice
(1101M4 and 26), is to be praised?merely
not honored. The moral virtues, in short,
praised?and
are inferior to happiness. They are praiseworthy
only in
It is as a result very
sofar as they contribute to happiness.
take moral virtue as se
hard to see why anyone would
as
seriously as Aristotle
riously as we typically do?or
in particular
11
"The
of
divine
we deem blessed
and the most
and happy,
gods
Susemihl
deem blessed."
(1880, ad loc.) in his
Following
from the MSS.,
1894, ad loc.) alters
(Aristotle
Bywater
departure
"we deem blessed
the text such that it would
read, in translation:
men
we
and happy
the gods
as well
as the most
divine
of men."
ONHAPPINESS 685
ARISTOTLE
For once he makes the transition, effected in
to
moral
virtue, the theme of the next four books
1.13,
of the Ethics, Aristotle more or less consistently
adopts
the view that a truly virtuous act will be undertaken only
or that vir
"for the sake of the noble" (e.g., 1115M2-13)
soon will.
sakes" (1105a31-32)
a good greater than
to
and not because they contribute
for exam
one's own happiness,
moral virtue itself?to
ple (compare 1097b 1-4). He will for the most part speak,
in other words, as though moral virtue falls among the
things honored.
be undone.12
By carefully
about happiness,
The
that "the god" or gods are finally responsible for our hap
it
to repeat and hence promote
piness, his willingness
Aristotle does not in fact assert in Book
notwithstanding.
the more
cannot be assumed
ample justification)
rooted their hope for happiness
if
will therefore remain open to dedicating
themselves,
not tomoral virtue as an end in itself, then to the peak of
virtue as Aristotle presents it, to intellectual virtue, whose
by their nobility and
objects of concern are distinguished
divinity (1177a 15).
Indeed, Aristotle himself will, at the climax of Book X,
make intellectual virtue the basis of what might
loosely
be called divine providence, whose sole function is to se
cure the happiness of the wise (1179a22-32,
consider
at
this
leads
And
tis
1179a24).
epimeleia
ing especially
to the thought that Aristotle's contradictory presentation
in its relation to happiness
in Book I can be
ironed out simply by noting that "virtue" proves to be
an ambiguous
term in the Ethics: it has two species, in
and moral. Indeed, even in the
tellectual (contemplative)
course of Book I,Aristotle points to this ambiguity (con
of virtue
sider 1098al6-18
virtue
can
accomplish
what
moral
then, contemplative
virtue
alone
cannot.
be adequate
or "common
to
Conclusion
goal or goals, then, govern Aristotle's manifestly
of argument
in the first book of the
complex manner
Ethics! It is generally held today that Aristotle's most pi
What
ous
remarks here,
example,
cannot
those pertaining
be
taken
to be
to the afterlife,
sincere
(see,
e.g.,
for
n.7).
We
already
entific
ROBERTC. BARTLETT
686
to divine
of such pious
the suspicion
to give
audience?he
who wished
a
to
to Athens
sin against philosophy
second
time. Yet Aristotle
indicates a threefold division among
human beings and so among his potential audience: the
sorious
in Aristotle's
about
the divine
no cause
vine,"
many,
nonetheless
respec
readers
to Zeus
life of noble
or self
action brings with it a completeness
unneces
on
the
divine
reliance
that renders
sufficiency
sary? Aristotle's manifest
does demand
it: at a time when
self-knowledge
"happiness" is frequently equated with the experience of
ephemeral pleasure, we need to learn or be reminded of
human
it seeks.
References
Ackrill, J.L. 1974. "Aristotle on Eudaimonia" Proceedings of the
British Academy 60: 339-59.
St. Thomas.
Aquinas,
Ethics.
machean
1993.
Trans.
Commentary
C.
I. Litzinger.
on Aristotle's
Notre
Dame,
Nico
IN:
Dumb Ox Books.
Aristotle.
1894. Ethica
sical Texts.
Aristotle.
Oxford:
Nicomachea.
Ed.
Clarendon
Press.
1970. Aristoteles
nich:Wilhelm
Politica.
I. Bywater.
Ed. Alois
Oxford
Dreizehnter.
Clas
Mu
Fink.
Press.
Press.
Nicomachean
Ethics.
New
York: Arno
Press.
ARISTOTLE
ON HAPPINESS 687
Cooper,
John M.
1985.
on
"Aristotle
the Goods
of
Fortune."
T.
Daniel
In Studies
DC:
1981.
Catholic
"Aristotle
in Aristotle,
University
1979.
Richard.
Kraut,
"Two Conceptions
of Happiness."
Philo
the Essence
ed. Dominic
of America
J.O'Meara.
of Happi
Wash
Press,
247-60.
1. Louvain
2nd ed. Vol.
II, part
Universitaires/Beatrice-Nauwelaerts.
and
Paris:
Pritzl,
Kurt.
1983.
"Aristotle
and Happiness
after Death:
Nico
Leo.
1966.
Socrates
and Aristophanes.
Chicago:
Univer
Franz.
1880.
Aristotelis
Ethica
Nicomachea.
Leipzig:
Teubner.