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NICHOMACHEAN ETHICS BOOK I AND II ARISTOTLE

Humans have always sought for numerous things in life. The most significant of all and that all human beings seek is happiness. Aristotle based his sinks deeper in his works to explain several aspects of happiness. Such elements defined by Aristotle are the constituents of happiness and how people acquire it. This article analyzes the work of Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics Book 1.

Aristotle begins by stating that states that the human behavior is always motivated towards the attainment of pleasure and utility in all pursuits and undertakings. The practices involved are sometimes the desired results. Aristotle gives numerous examples of several pursuits, arts, and sciences. For example, the end of the science of medicine is health. What constitutes happiness is disputable. Different philosophers give different accounts. Ordinarily, people identify happiness with the obvious and visible good such as wealth or honor among others. Just like the philosophers, men also have different definitions of happiness. This definition changes in a person from time to time depending on the circumstances. For instance, when one is sick, they think that health is happiness. When they are poor, they think that happiness is wealth. At other times, people think that other people are happier than they are. That is despite our good at present, we still believe that there exists another good somewhere else being enjoyed by some other people. Therefore, considering the diversity of happiness it is difficult to review all the different opinions of happiness because different lives have different definitions.However, there is a theory of the universal good. This theory defines two types of good things- things that are good in themselves and things that are good as a means. These good things are described in terms of how they bring happiness. Those that bring happiness in the course of practicing them are a representation of good as a means. Those that bring happiness in the end are the good things in themselves. For example, a well-finished table may bring happiness in the carpenter who made it. The happiness in his case is only after the table is completed. The table is a good thing in itself because it will bring happiness to the carpenter. According to Aristotle, happiness also constitutes in virtue. There are two kinds of virtue- moral and intellectual virtue. The moral virtue is a product of habits whereas the intellectual virtue is produced and multiplied by instruction. Therefore, intellectual virtue requires experience and time. According to Aristotle, happiness is not derived from the hierarchy of good things (virtues); it simply is the state of mind.Nature gives us the capacity to receive the virtues, and this capacity matures by habit. The virtues are also acquired by practicing them just like the arts. These are our patterns, which form our virtues; we are not born virtuous but they learn through practice. A generous man has to practice generosity by giving away things; a thrifty man has to learn to not spend excessively. Habit forming is an influenced activity, and Aristotle firmly believes that men are most gullible in childhood, like the mold at high temperatures. Being virtuous is also about being in harmony with it. If a person despises being generous, then he is not virtuous. Virtue should bring joy since that is the only way that provides happiness. It is through the nurturing of good virtues that man can attain the highest good.

Aristotle talks about happiness, as he believes that the perfect form of happiness comes from reason. Those who know are happier than those who seek because wisdom is the best kind of happiness. He thinks that philosophers have the best kind of happiness. As further proof of wisdom being the best kind of happiness, Gods contemplate and think. Contemplation and thinking are the best types of happiness. The superior kind of happiness is the bliss that is connected to the best virtue.Reasoning is the best kind of virtue and since philosophers are better at reaching reason than others they are happier.

Aristotles vision of a good life can be perceived as a precursor and a contributor to development ethics perspective for a good society. He believed that the highest good of human life is eudemonia or happiness. He was a student of Platos and treated his philosophy as a foil compared to his view on ethics. His ethics backs to Greece over 2000 years ago on the social and political issues.

According to the text, as a Greek philosopher Aristotle argues that the goal of life is happiness, which can be achieved by leading a virtuous life in accordance with the reason. Some of these virtues include honor, loyalty, courage, integrity, and forthrightness (NE I.1, 1094a1). He believed that happiness is the activity of the soul. We fulfill goals of being happy by living a virtuous life, a life in accordance with reason. We can demonstrate these virtue characteristics through voluntary actions.

His approach is that if life is worth living, then it must surely be your sake. One popular concept of the highest human good is the pleasure. Anyone can have the pleasure from a variety of things such as sex, food, and alcohol consumption. The next one is in political life for human nature. The third one is the scientific contemplation. Humans should have a duty to be individuals. They should think of themselves as plants within reason of the moral and intellectual.

Aristotles philosophy is noteworthy because virtue is the golden mean of all the numerous priorities in life. He believed that practice makes perfect, and this comes through experience. The moral portion of a person versus the utilitarianism and deontology focuses on the virtue ethics. We all have a variety of character traits that developed within each person as we mature. He believed that if we can understand and identify with virtues we can arrange them through the features of their life.

Virtues acquired through human qualities, the excellences of character, which enable a person to achieve the good life for humans. His approach to business ethics is focused on the role and responsibilities of the individual within a corporate community with collective goals and a stated mission (NE II.2, 1103a1). Greek philosophers believed that happiness meant much more than to experience pleasure or satisfaction. They thought virtues were qualities that made a persons life excellent and did not stop their thinking at the moral virtues. They included other virtues such as wisdom in their philosophies.

Virtues are a characteristic that has a state in purpose and action. The moral virtue is an example of a good purpose. It chooses a median between too much and too little. They are means between a passion and action. There is no right amount in anything such as murder. He believes that some kinds of actions that are morally wrong in principle.

According to Aristotle, excellence is a condition, which is frequently determined by the decisions made by human beings. On the other hand, reason shapes excellence and marks the manner in which people build their wisdom. For this reason, virtuous actions require that a regular or popular behaviors be observed, which implies following reason. Aristotle continues to explain that an accurate reason is very imperative in this exactness. There ought to be genuine logos. To him, the ethical decision that is correct includes picking logos that is directly through a procedure of consultation, which thus is a right choice. A proper logo is depicted as one that is goal-oriented. It identifies with the conditions and circumstances that encompass the operators (NE I.2, 1095b1).

Reasonability is considered to have a fundamental part of the entire methodology of the right decision as indicated by Aristotle. In the sensible perspective, a human seeks for origination that is judicious in the life of an individual. Aristotle suggests that this angle involves little merchandise including the completion of the scholarly and good abilities of a person. Man is mindful of the way that the essential good is a righteous movement, which is indispensable in the commitment towards his own particular great. The specialists are in a position to focus the distinction thoughts in the ethical values. They want to create the circumstances that present a chance of practicing a particular ethicalness. The operators are additionally mindful of the way that there is a prerequisite by the general temperance. Any decision should be made concerning a way and there should be a judgment of that way. This entire idea adds up to the ethics postulated by Aristotle.

According to the text, Aristotles central question was; what is a good life and how can I live it? The answer to this changed over the time to imply that distinction and happiness were criteria of a good life. Virtue ethics leads to self-interest not just self-serving fulfillment. He believed that virtue allowed a person to make a reasonable decision. Possessing a virtue is a matter of a degree.

He suggests that virtue involves the choice between two extremes: the vice of excess and the deficiency. Aristotle argues that, the excellence of character and intelligence cannot be separated. Aristotelian virtues are that we establish practices as a foundation in which we exhibit virtues. Nicomachean Ethics, began by posing a question why humans act, every skill, and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice thought to aim at some good; and so the good been described as that at which everything aims? (NE II.2, 1103b1). It implies doing just actions and making just choices. Aristotle believes that we acquire the moral virtue by habituation, meaning that in order to become just or the moral we have to perform the same type of actions. This second type of virtue is the intellectual virtue. It is excellence in reasoning in thought. Unlike the moral virtue, Aristotle believed that the intellectual virtue is not acquired through habituation. Instead, he thinks that the intellectual virtue is obtained through instruction. So, while all it takes to have the moral virtue just to perform acts (within a certain set of parameters), in order to have intellectual virtue we should be taught the intellectual virtue. It is this type of virtue, the one that must be taught; that Aristotle believes is the most important in living the good life. Aristotle does not suppose that a balanced mix of the moral and the intellectual virtue is the best way to live ones life, he considers that the life, which is focused on the intellectual virtue, is the best. Aristotle postulates that virtues are the mean between two extreme vices. Bravery is a virtue, nestled between cowardliness and foolhardiness. By acting in the mean, man can escape both vices and attain actual virtue. Aristotle is careful to note though, that this mean is hardly an independent function. Different situations call for a different mean. While numerical means are invariable, mean action will depend on circumstance. This principle of Aristotle is quite revolutionary, and ties in quite well with modern philosophy. It makes sense for humans to have strong feelings, to be depressed or to be nihilistic. Intuitively, we, humans, are always aiming for that mean, although very seldom do we attain it. Hence, eternal happiness is difficult to accomplish.

From this, we can conclude that happiness, the good life, is the exercise of virtue. However, in order to exercise virtue, says Aristotle, we must have certain internal and external goods. Internal goods are things such as talent and ability that are distinct from each different person. Foreign goods, however, can be viewed as the wherewithal to exercise virtue. External goods can be physical, such as books or money, but they can also be things such as honor, fame, or respect. Aristotle believes that luck is the only way we can receive these external goods. For example, in ancient Greek society, social classes were very rigid and if you were not born in a wealthy or powerful family, it would have been very hard to accumulate any wealth or influence. Aristotle goes on to say that, the purpose of a government is to decrease the amount of control that luck, the acquiring of external goods, plays in each quest of individuals to live the good life. The philosopher thinks that society should be organized to tame chance. On this point, Aristotle does not believe that the general happiness of everyone in society should be our goal; he believes that our ultimate end should be individual happiness.

Eudemonia is something complete and independent. Additionally, as per Aristotle, virtue is the thing that matters. This is because for happiness are exercises that are opposite to joy. He expresses that satisfaction is an individual's characteristic of happy life.

He thought only one science can name itself wisdom and that are the one who is searching for the ultimate truths of life (NE I.2, 1097a1). Greek ethics is based on the notion that not free will or will at all but virtue or goodness is within business ethics. Aristotle thinks that virtues are habits and not given to anyone at birth, but we can receive and learn to perfection them. According to him, virtue should be in every business, and the business is for the sake of living well (NE II.3, 1107a1. Profit should not be the companys ultimate goal in business but the people. Aristotle believes that it is impossible for a man to act unjustly toward himself because no one voluntarily wishes for anything that is not good. His belief is that a human does not choose evil before good things.

Aristotle presumed that a virtue is an educated attitude to reason and acting in a particular manner. Virtues are propensities for the brain that moves us towards a decent life. Virtue morals, its most renowned structure from Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, concentrate on what kind of individuals we ought to endeavor to be and not simply those things we ought to do on individual events. Moral predicaments are circumstances in which there are two decisions to make, neither of which determines the status in a morally satisfactory style.

Happiness does not require the additional of external prosperity. That is why some people associate it with good fortune. The virtues are not emotions because people are not pronounced good or bad according to our emotions. Rather we are praised or blamed for our virtues. Therefore, virtue is a settled disposition of the state of the mind determining the choice of actions or emotions. Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics has many translations. His moral hypothesis is teleological as in it contains certain recommendations about the motivation behind a man, his position in the public eye, and what is appropriate for him. Aristotle believed happiness is the final destination toward all actions. His virtues are different and divide the soul of a person. The moral virtue formed through the human habits.

In summary, Aristotle considers that human action is motivated to attain good, but it is only the highest good that matters. To achieve that highest good, we need good virtues, that are inculcated through fair habits. Good virtues lie in the way of extreme vices, and this path varies, depending on the circumstances. If a man can find that varying course and act accordingly then he will find happiness.

References

Allen, Reginald E. 2006. Greek philosophy: Thales to Aristotle Allen, Reginald E. 2006. Greek philosophy: Thales to Aristotle. 1103.

Ibid. 114.

Ibid. 115.

Allen, Reginald E. 2006. Greek philosophy: Thales to Aristotle.1104.

Ibid. 1095.

Allen, Reginald E. 2006. Greek philosophy: Thales to Aristotle. 1103.

Ibid. 1093.

Allen, Reginald E. 2006. Greek philosophy: Thales to Aristotle. 1097.

Ibid. 1093.

Ibid. 1094.