Eudemian Ethics
Aristotle (384–322 BC)
Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics in the Greek text edited by Franz Susemihl, with H. Rackham's English translation.
Book 1
Section 1.1
Section 1.2
Section 1.3
Section 1.4
Most of the points debated and the difficulties raised will be clear if it be satisfactorily determined what the proper conception of happiness is—does it consist merely in a person’s possessing some particular quality of spirit, as some of the sages and the older thinkers held, or although a particular personal character is indeed an indispensable condition, is a particular quality of conduct even more necessary?
There are various different modes of life, and some do not lay any claim to well-being of the kind under consideration, but are pursued merely for the sake of things necessary—for instance the lives devoted to the vulgar and mechanic arts and those dealing with business (by vulgar arts I mean those pursued only for reputation, by mechanic the sedentary and wage-earning pursuits, and by arts of business those concerned with market purchase and retail selling); but on the other hand, the things related to the happy conduct of life being three, the things already mentioned as the greatest possible goods for men—goodness, wisdom and pleasure, we see that there are also three ways of life in which those to whom fortune gives opportunity invariably choose to live, the life of politics, the life of philosophy, and the life of enjoyment.
Of these the philosophic life denotes being concerned with the contemplation of truth, the political life means being occupied with honorable activities (and these are the activities that spring from goodness), and the life of enjoyment is concerned with the pleasures of the body.
Owing to this, different people give the name of happy to different persons, as was said before too; and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae when asked Who is the happiest man? said None of those whom you think, but he would seem to you an odd sort of person. But Anaxagoras answered in that way because he saw that the man who put the question supposed it to be impossible to receive the appellation happy without being great and beautiful or rich, whereas he himself perhaps thought that the person who humanly speaking enjoys bliss is he that lives by the standard of justice without pain and in purity, or participates in some form of divine contemplation.