Aristotle Critique of His Dismissal of Pleasure in Nicomachean Ethics Essay

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perceive as Aristotle's best work known work on ethics, Nichomachean Ethics, sheds light on what Aristotle believed was happiness. "…happiness would seem to need this sort of prosperity added also; that is why some people identify happiness with good fortune, while others <

eacting from one extreme to the other> identify it with virtue" (Aristotle, Irwin, & Fine, p. 360). His perception of what is happiness implies:

that it itself is desired, that is not based on anything else's sake, that it satisfies all desire and is not mixed with any evil, incorruptible,

It is stable.

However, happiness as defined by these aspects are not all of what may comprise the complete meaning of happiness at least in Aristotle's eyes. He believed the life of gratification: comfort, pleasure, the life of money-making, the life of action, and the philosophical life, such as study or contemplation helped to comprise a more complete version of happiness or pleasantness.

Aristotle is known to dismiss the life of pleasure as it is known in society. (I.e. A life that the wants and desires of the body such as sex, food, etc.) But, in his Nicomachean Ethics, his various claims of happiness and therefore pleasure, are different and should be selected based on virtue. He believed the virtuous man finds moderation pleasurable, in accordance with proper reason. Aristotle defined a virtuous individual as deriving pleasure from virtuous acts. The pursuit of virtue to him is a form of pleasure. In a way, Aristotle advocates a life of pleasure, just in moderation and with select activities.

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"For pleasure is shared with animals, and implied by every object of choice, since what is divine and what is expedient appear pleasant as well" (Aristotle, Irwin, & Fine, p. 369). In the Nicomachean Ethics the work offers Aristotle's resurgence of analysis into happiness where his discourse of it began earlier. In prior works he defined a view of happiness as being "inclusive" that involved varied activities in which philosophical thought is just one of many "Wisdom," he writes in the book 1 chapter 13, "wisdom is also virtue" (Aristotle, Irwin, & Fine, p. 365). In this later thoughts on the same matter of both happiness and wisdom, he speaks in favor of an exclusive view.

Happiness or the pursuit of pleasure, however it may be seen, involves analysis of what people find themselves desiring. Happiness after all, includes the attainment of some or set of external goods (i.e. Wealth, love, friends, and fame) that will have a person "live well." A second, goods of the body (i.e. Life, good looks, good health, athleticism, etc.) enables a person to enjoy their success or life. A third, goods of the soul, (i.e. virtue, knowledge, education, friendship, etc.) allows for spiritual happiness.

Aristotle viewed specific goods such as life and health as being basic preconditions for happiness where something like wealth could be add-ons or embellishments that enable one to have an easier life at being virtuous. Aristotle believed virtue or the practice of virtue, was the core essential element of happiness. In his eyes, the virtuous person was the only….....

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