The Nicomachean Conception Of Happiness

Bibliographic Data

ID23178374
AuthorsAnthony Kenny (corresponding author)
Year1991
Pages67-80
Publication date1991-10-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueAristotle and the later tradition (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780198239659.003.0006
OpenAlexW4388337301
ISBN9780198239659
LanguageEN
Citations received12

At the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics [NE] we meet the following line of argument. The subject-matter of ethics is the good for man, the end of action for the sake of which all else is desired. Most people would agree that this supreme good is happiness, however much they may disagree about what precisely happiness consists in. Aristotle goes on to expand the general view that the supreme good is happiness by outlining the three traditional lives-the life of philosophy, that of virtue, and that of pleasure. He begins his own account by saying that the good we are looking for must be perfect1 by comparison with other ends-that is, it must be something sought always for its own sake and never for the sake of anything else; and it must be self-sufficient-that is, it must be something which taken on its own makes life worthwhile and lacking in nothing.

Action (physics) · Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Form of the Good · Happiness · Nothing · Pleasure · Subject (documents) · The good life · Virtue · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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