Highest good aristotle

What is the highest good

Happiness (Eudaimonia)

Eudaimonia

the best

Why is happiness the highest good

It is final and complete

Happiness as final and complete

one end everything else serves

lacks nothing

Things that feed into happiness

Honor

pleasure

wealth

virtue

Why not honor

superficial, depends on who bestows it, the good should be one’s own

Pleasure

choice of the many

wealth

only useful for something else

virtue

incomplete since one could have it while suffering terribly

Lacks nothing

self-sufficiency, happiness by itself makes life choiceworthy and lacking nothing

caveat for self-sufficiency

it does not mean solitary, we are political by nature and need family friends, and peers

How does Telos factor in

Does four jobs:

there must be a final end

supplies test the highest good must pass

fixes what the end is for humans

explains why ethics matter

There must be a final end

every choice, action, and art aims at some good. If everything were an instrumental end then the chain regresses and desire would be empty

Telos supplies the test

The complete thing is always chosen for itself and never for something else

How does Telos fix what the end is for humans

Through human function, ergon

How does Ergon fix the problem what the end is for humans

happiness is different for everyone so it moves to the function of humans

human function shows what human end is

Function of humans

Highest good is activity of the soul in accord with virtue in a complete life

How telos shows Why ethics matters

Rejects a separate universal Good sicne this cannot be acted upon, Telos makes the highest good both final and achievable