Wealth and Poverty, Part II

Reading Response: Aristotle on Happiness - The Supreme Worth of Contemplation - selections from Nicomachean Ethics

Many people would agree that the "highest good attainable by action" is happiness. When people try to define what happiness is, however, it gets a little fuzzy. A sick person would say health is happiness, while a poor person might say wealth is happiness. Do excellence or honor bring happiness? Is happiness even the goal?

Perhaps happiness, according to Aristotle, is living out your function in life. But what is our function as humans? Is it simply to live? Aristotle believed that the function of humans was to live a certain kind of life, a "complete life"- one filled with good and proper actions, excellence, and virtue. He said, "But we must add 'in a complete life.' For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one sunny day." Even though this sounds like a great proposition, if one were to think it through, he would realize that Aristotle has not really told him anything he did not already know. Isn't it reasonable to think that "a good life" will lead to happiness...even if you don't exactly know what a "good life" entails?

Aristotle then comes to another conclusion - "if intelligence is divine in comparison with man, then a life guided by intelligence is divine in comparison with human life." So he determined that the best action for a person is contemplation, because it is the only action that is worthy in and of itself. For example, wealth is only beneficial because it allows it's owner to have other things - wealth in and of itself is worthless. Contemplation, or the cultivation of the mind, is the only thing that has intrinsic value.