Aristotle's and Modern Thought

Aristotle's and Modern Thought

Aristotle's thoughts of ethics conclude that all humans must have a purpose in life in order to be happy. I believe that some of the basics of his ideas still hold true today. This essay points out some of those ideas.

It was Aristotle's belief that everything, including humans, had a telos or goal in life. The end result or goal was said to be happiness or "eudaimonia". He explained that eudaimonia was different for each person, and that each had a different idea of what it meant. Further, he said that people must do things in moderation, but at the same time do enough. The theory, of "the golden mean of moderation" was the basis to Aristotle's idea of the human telos and concluded that living a virtuous life must be the same for all people. Aristotle maintained that the natural human goal to be happy could only be achieved once each individual determined his/her goal. A person's telos is would usually be what that individual alone can do best. Aristotle described the humans as "rational animals" whose telos was to reason. Accordingly, Aristotle thought that in order for humans to be happy, they would have to be able to reason, and to be governed by reason. If a person had difficulty behaving morally or with ethics, he was thought to be "imperfect". Moral virtue, a principle of happiness, was the ability to evade extremes in behavior and further to find the mean between it and adequacy. Aristotle's idea of an ideal state was one where the populous was able to practice ethics and virtue. Therefore, if a person did something to please him or herself, it must also please general public. He said was also important to understand the acts performed towards virtue, because it directly related to the character of the resulting morals. Aristotle felt that fear and pain influenced ethics, as people would avoid that which he/she was scared of and/or that would cause pain. He believe friendships to be vital in order to be a good person, and that it required "reciprocal and explicit goodwill". Aristotle taught that friendships were uncommon, but could be achieved requiring time to build familiarity and trust. He claimed that this perfect virtue must be achieved and maintained for the lifetime.

Aristotle