Eudaimonia

Aristotle thought that the aim of human life was to achieve Eudaimonia, which is often translated as happiness or flourishing. He thought that education should help people to achieve Eudaimonia.

Aristotle imagined that there was a hierarchy of goals. E.g. someone might think that we go to school so that they can get qualifications, so that they can go to University, so that they can get the job they want etc… At the top of this hierarchy is Eudaimonia.

Therefore, Eudaimonia, he thought, had to be something that we do for its own sake, something that was an end in itself.

Characteristic powers and characteristic activities: The ‘function’ argument

In the last section (Aristotle: On the Soul) we looked at Aristotle's concept of Psyche and how different living things had different characteristic powers. These characteristic powers are related to characteristic activities. 

Aristotle was very keen on describing things in terms of their characteristic activities, and in trying to work out what they do and why they do it. For example, if we were to describe the heart, we might say it’s the organ that pumps blood around the body. This is its characteristic activity, what we might expect it to do. And something that was carrying out its characteristic activity well was flourishing.

A characteristic activity is not what defines something, but what you might expect of it – and if it can’t do that thing, then you might consider it broken or not working. A pen that has run out of ink is still a pen, despite it not being able to carry out its characteristic activity.

We call these kinds of descriptions or explanations teleological, from telos – purpose. Of course, as we have seen, he explained things without referring to their telos too. Aristotle famously described three other types of explanations alongside the teleological one.

We can hear echoes of Aristotle in schools today. Another word for a characteristic power is a potentiality. How often do we hear teachers saying, 'they're not reaching they're potential'. Aristotle's function argument is all about how a good life is one where we turn our potentialities into actualities.

We can summarise his argument like this:

1. All living things have characteristic powers (potentialities).

2. Those powers give rise to characteristic activities (actualities). 

   • The ancient greek word for this is energeia (ενέργεια) - from which we get the word energy. It comes from two words: en (at) ergon (work/function).

3. Something is flourishing when it is carrying out its characteristic activities well.

4. To do something well is to do it virtuously - i.e. in accordance with the virtues.

5. The characteristic power of a human being is reason.

6. ∴ A human being is flourishing (is achieving eudaimonia) when they are using their minds/reasoning in accordance with the virtues.

What is a virtue?

1. We shouldn’t confuse virtue with emotions, because emotions can be good or bad, but virtues are always good.

2. We shouldn’t confuse virtues with powers, because we can have powers but not demonstrate them, but we can’t have virtues without showing them - we can’t call ourselves kind if we’re never kind.

3. Virtues are dispositions, tendencies to respond in certain ways.

Learning to be good

We have to practise to develop virtues like we develop skills - e.g. to become brave, we need to practise by responding to situations in which we are afraid. 

• First we will copy someone who we think is a good example, 

• Then we will repeatedly practise acting in that way until it becomes a habit. 

• Finally, we will develop our own sensibility - our own ability to make good judgements.