Lily Chang

Aristotle on Happiness Lily Chang

I explicate and defend Aristotle's conception of happiness. It is significant, not only because most of us desire happiness, but also, it plays an important role in ethics. Happiness, the highest good, he points out, is not identical to pleasure, although a happy person feels pleasure. Rather, it is a complex notion involving the characteristic function of human beings. I explain how contemplating, acting virtuously, and engaging in virtuous friendships are each individually a part of the nature of happiness and how external goods - specifically wealth, power, health, good children, and beauty - are necessary for happiness. Moreover, I address various objections that not only intellectual activity but also virtuous activity and friendships are a part of the nature of happiness. In the latter part of the book, I compare Aristotle and Confucius on the importance of virtue ethics in living the good life. Both philosophers define virtue in terms of a mean between extremes, emphasize the importance of activity in learning to be virtuous, claim that people must be taught to recognize what is virtuous and how an act is virtuous, and maintain that laws must be used to encourage people to be virtuous.