Aristotle’s idea of virtue and happiness

Introduction

            Aristotle was a philosopher who dealt with both practical and theories while trying to bring out difference. He was a great philosopher whose practical of philosophy had two great attractions. First, the image it presents to the people’s excellence and secondly is the notion that a theoretical philosophy of logic, nature and of being which is great in its influence and magnitude. The theoretical projector is now tarnished regardless of the image of the ethical still being bright. His account of nature has been contradicted by modern heroes like Russell and Epicureans. There has been replacement of his logics, deconstructions of his metaphors and his theoretical philosophy has been discredited.

            Aristotle’s point of happiness is that nothing can make someone happier if he or she is already happy. This is because happiness is good and unconditionally complete in itself hence if someone is happy it is impossible to improve the state of happiness. According to Aristotle, once someone reaches happiness there is no additional happiness. The ultimate good of happiness is built in lesser goods. He says that there are several stoppers of happiness, that is, certain ideas, thoughts or actions that can hinder someone from doing something right for the right person at the right time. These include misunderstanding of the nature of happiness, overdependence on emotions, over-emphasize on materials, honors and success, failure to think what  is too much or what is not enough when deciding the choice of action to take among others.( Madvin, 21). Aristotle claims that someone must control their emotions if they want to optimize their chances of living happily by considering the following line of thinking.

• There is a reason for intelligence.
• Excellence requires intelligence.
• Excellence is similar to virtue.
• Happiness requires virtuous activities.

This means that there is the need to think rationally before doing thing in certain circumstances. Happiness comes about when someone stops basing important life decisions on emotions and bases them on reason and this way it is impossible to encounter stoppers of happiness.

            The modern philosophers have rejected the approach of happiness to pertain the whole life. Epicureans, Stoics and Plotinus insist that happiness depends on the state of individual at a certain time but not temporal structure of life (Rabbås, 11). They agreed that despite the differences of the meaning of happiness, it is a stable state.

            Aristotle point of virtue is that intellect and character develop well or badly and that the difference is on our hands. According to Aristotle, talking about virtue is talking about what happens when the development goes well in order to know what it takes so that our lives may be better. He does not offer any theory of how one gets better with respect of virtues but only talks about how to get better in ones intellect and character (Snow, 18).  Aristotle offers this theory of virtue acquisition because he thinks that it is easy to understand how virtues are acquired. However, he thinks of the process of acquiring the virtue as something done by people always through training and practice. That is why he says that acquiring a virtue is similar to acquiring a skill like learning how to play to construct a building. Aristotle’s idea of virtues is that someone begins with the study of skills acquisition in order to get the best study of the nature of virtues. Russell sketches on research program for virtue development by Aristotle and tries to show that Aristotle thinks that acquisition of virtues is part of people’s lives and also the normal ways through which people try to make their lives better.

             Russell’s point of virtues is that through studying on how skills are acquired there can be better understanding of how virtues are acquired. He argues that there are two respects in psychology through which the emphasis of skills acquisition meshes well (Snow, 2). To begin with, it is important to understand the distinction between path-dependent and path-independent. The first one specifies moral ideal and ways of acquiring g it .Russell argues that the Aristotle’s idea of virtue is a path-dependent approach. The second respect is on skills in which acquisition of virtue by Aristotle meshes well with psychology. The fact that Aristotle did not clearly the competencies needed in virtue he can be viewed as a philosopher whose work left gaps of research to be carried out by later generations.

Conclusion

            Aristotle point of happiness argues that when someone is happy there is nothing that can be done to make them happier. He says that happiness is already stable by itself. Someone needs to control their emotions in order to optimize their level of happiness. He also claims that in order to live a virtuous life one need to understand that intellect and character can either develop well or badly. He thinks that the virtue acquisition process of training and practice. He feels that someone acquires skills then ends up acquiring the virtues. However, modern researchers think differently from his ideas and have rejected them. Epicureans, Stoics and Plotinus insist that happiness depends on the individual’s state at a given time but does not take the whole life as Aristotle claims. Russell’s idea of virtue is that through studying the skills acquisition is a better way of acquiring the virtues contrary to Aristotle’s argument who claims that virtue acquisition is part of life and acquiring skills is similar to acquiring virtues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work cited

Knight, Kelvin. Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to Macintyre. New     York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Internet resource.

Snow, Nancy E. Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology. ,   2015. Print.

Madvin, Gary. Finding Happiness with Aristotle As Your Guide: Action Strategies Based on 10   Timeless Ideas. Place of publication not identified: iUniverse Com,

Rabbås, Øyvind, Kjalar E. Eyjólfur, Hallvard Fossheim, and Miira Tuominen. The Quest for the Good Life: Ancient Philosophers on Happiness. , 2015. Print.