Aristotle explains eudaimonia Assignment | Custom Assignment Help

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Please provide responses to students

Student Responses

Student 1: Jessica

Reflect on yourself:
Aristotle explains eudaimonia to be a happy life or a flourishing life. A flourishing life is to live life with a purpose. Performing well in life and feeling good about your characteristics can bring true happiness to someone. If I had a chance to permanently be hooked up to an experiment machine, I do not think I would do it. I would not do it because I do not know where my state of mind would be permanently, even happiness was promised to me. My children are the main reason I would not take a chance to be hooked up. I love being a mother to my four children. They truly bring happiness and reassurance to my life. I feel complete when I have my children around me. What if I did decide to be hooked up, how much happier could I be? Would I be in another state of mind not having any children and still being happy? Having characteristics of a caring mom gives me a sense of fulfillment and peace. Knowing I can make my children feel happy and safe gives a large sense of gratification.

Reflect on human life:
Being happy and feeling happy can differentiate a little, in my opinion. Living a flourishing life and having great characteristics can contribute to someone being happy. Feeling happy can come in waves just like being grouchy, sad, or tired. It comes and goes. But to live a life that has meaning, and purpose can contribute to someone being happy. I do not think people can be wrong about happiness. Happiness is felt differently by many people for many different reasons. Humans have endorphins which are hormones that are naturally secreted when you are happy. For example, enjoying someone’s company and laughing releases endorphins, working out and dancing. I think morals is also related to being happy and living a flourishing life.

Student 2: Lidia

Engaging with the text:

Aristotle defines eudaimonia a flourishing life or as a “happy life” or. According to chapter 5, he poses the following observation and question: “If . . . there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life.Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right? . . . Most people say that it is happiness, and identify living well and faring well with being happy. (1094a, 1095a)”

However,  according to Hursthouse, R., & Pettigrove, G. (2016, December 8) eudaimonia has a  misunderstanding of eudaimonia as an unmoralized concept leads some critics to suppose that the neo-Aristotelians are attempting to ground their claims in a scientific account of human nature and what counts, for a human being, as flourishing. Others assume that, if this is not what they are doing, they cannot be validating their claims that, for example, justice, charity, courage, and generosity are virtues. Either they are illegitimately helping themselves to Aristotle’s discredited natural teleology (Williams 1985) or producing mere rationalizations of their own personal or culturally inculcated values.

Based solely on Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, I would say that Aristotle would consider someone hooked up to the experience machine as “happy”.

Reflecting on yourself:

The question of being permanently being hooked up to the experience machine reminds me a bit, not fully, of the movie Avatar. The sense of being a machine that would make all dreams and good come true yet still be fake, I look as just that a movie. I think just like one of the main characters of the movie, the moment you would be off the machine, you would feel the need to be back on. The only kind of goods that I could say would be gone are positive dreams of fulfillment and possibly improved self-esteem.

Reflecting on human life:

Based on the aspects of teleological, I think it does apply to most people. I think there is a difference between being happy and feeling happy. I think the different ways of being happy can be mistaken. Julia Annas states in the audio from her interview by M. Teichman, that virtue “is the way you are. Your traits. Doing it for the right reasons and having a good feeling about it.” This is an outstanding way to look at happiness and to me, can be seen as being happy and feeling happy combined.

Student 3: Cubie

Who am I? What am I? Why am I here, and where am I going? My father asked me these questions, and he said when you could honestly answer them that I would be on the path to living a full life. Eudaimonia is summarized in my father’s questions; a flourishing life includes so much more than feeling good (Thames, 2018). No human being is an island unto themselves, and the uninhibited pursuit of feeling good will become unchecked hedonism, and the consequences are disastrous.

None of us are born mature, and with maturity should come the understanding of our connection to everything around us and the fulfillment of life. When I think of moments in my life where I made choices that were driven by the pleasure principle and nothing else, I find that I abandoned my soul’s maxim. The end result was the opposite of happiness and pleasure, not just for me, but for those within my social circle.

I would not want to be plugged into the machine because I believe that I would miss the activities required for fulfillment. The scenario paints happiness as an inner experience, but there are outward connections that must be made that may not center on me as the priority. The function of humanity is an activity of the soul  (Aristotle, 1931, 1094a). Removing the connection/activity is isolation, and there is no fulfillment there.

There is something within humanity that understands the need for connectivity, even if it is buried under the heap of self. Darth Vader is a classic example; even though he was immersed in the darkness, there was a light deep within, and that light eventually came through. The example of the inebriated man acting bravely exemplifies this. Something inside of him connected, and he acted in a selfless way that was beyond consciousness (Thames, 2018). Understanding growth and the need to adjust is a sign of moral and ethical understanding.

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Hey class,

Engaging with the Text

The readings this week on the concept of happiness have been engaging and eye-opening. Conventionally, people understand happiness only as a feeling where their inner pleasures are met and satisfied. However, Aristotle (1931), in Nicomachean Ethics, attributes happiness to more personal, short-lived happiness but to eudaimonia, the greater flourishing aim of human life. He says; “if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else, clearly this must be the good and the chief good” (Aristotle, 1931, 1094a). Aristotle’s idea of happiness is that of the “chief good” where the entirety of human goal to, and that is the ability to achieve greater fulfilment as opposed to short-term feelings of pleasure. By striving to attain this chief good, we are comparable to “archers” who have successfully aimed their target.  Without a doubt, there is a lot to ponder of Aristotle’s idea of chief good but ultimately, it offers a more holistic perception to being happy. I believe in Aristotle’s idea of happiness as it is deeper and worthy pursuing cementing the virtue-based ethical theory that good choices are those that are characteristic of a fulfilling human life.

Reflection on Self

Then, there is the hypothetical case of the experience machine as proposed by Robert Nozick in 1974. If I were given the choice of getting into the experience machine, I would immediately decline. While the machine would offer euphoric experiences of ultimate pleasures and fantasies, even though they would feel as real, I believe that these experiences are predetermined. Since the psychologist and novels have a well-written plan of what I desire, being in the tank would be like a scripted movie where fate is already drawn. As a rational being, I desire freedom not just to experience pleasure moments but also natural circumstances such as life’s challenges. Bottom-line, my reason is that I would not choose to enjoy pleasure for the sake of pleasure, but I rather live a natural environment with the freedom to choose all situations and challenges life can throw at me. In natural life, I get to meet bad, worse, natural and happy situations and these mold my identity and how I rationally relate with others. These, for me, are irreplaceable, and I would not overlook them to pursue endless pleasure just for my wellbeing.

Reflection on Human Life

I strongly believe that Aristotle’s telos are of great relevance to modern life. Thanes define telos as “the end, purpose, or function of a person’s life, or what kind of person one should be” and this means that understand a happy life starts from understanding the specific telos (Thanes, 2018, p. 186). The proper understanding of telos would map what choices one need to make to have an enriching life full of eudaimonia. For instance, a chronic drug user has a couple of telos; get into rehab or get the pleasure-giving shot of his favorite drug. If such a user chooses the latter, it would have a wrong idea of happiness, as his pleasure will run out soon. Conversely, going into a rehab center is a real pain, as he would be treated and taught to adjust to a drug-free life. However, this is the choice that has fuller and long-term happiness to himself, his family and his job among other dimensions (goal of eudaimonia). Once he is successful out of rehab, he has a chance to put his life together and make better choices about his body. Also, utilitarianism which advocates for maximum happiness fails to capture ways to have flourishing life and how it is different from self-pleasures (Mills, 2008). Therefore, the Aristotelian teachings of telos and eudaimonia make great sense, guiding an individual to refrain from narrow, short-lived happiness and making better choices to ensure an all-round, flourishing life.

References

Aristotle. (1931). Nicomachean ethics, (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

Mill, J. S. (2008). Utilitarianism, In J. Bennett (Ed. & Rev.) Early Modern Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/mill1863.pdf

Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, state, and utopia. New York: Basic Books.

Thames, B. (2018). How should one live? Introduction to ethics and moral reasoning (3rd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.

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YesterdayMay 13 at 9:03pm

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Teacher’s response :

Chris,

I must confess that I fell in love with this discipline because of this philosopher. I was totally captured by the idea that a life that is worth living is one in which we work to self-actualize (flourish). Though beautifully rendered, this idea can be foreign to most. Indeed, most of us look for instant gratifications and conflate forms of fleeting pleasures for true happiness.

Aristotle explored the importance of acquiring and practicing virtues in order to conduct a Eudaimonic existence. Why are virtues so important in his philosophical framework? Can we be happy without them?