Aristotle's Introduction to the Problem of Happiness: On Book I of the "Nicomachean Ethics"

Author(s): Robert C. Bartlett

Source: American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 2008), pp. 677-687
Published by: Midwest Political Science Association
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to the Problem

Introduction

Aristotle's

I of the Nicomachean

On Book

Robert C. Bartlett

of Happiness:

Ethics

EmoryUniversity

The study of Book I of theNicomachean Ethics is useful today in part because it deals with a question?the nature of
human happiness?whose relevance is obvious. But in dealing with that question, Book I compels us to raise difficulties
for ourselves that,far from being obvious, are in danger of being forgotten. Chief among these difficulties are,first, the true
character of our hope for happiness and, ultimately, the necessity of there being a kind of divine providence if that hope is to
be realized. Inasmuch as we still longfor happiness, we must still undergo thepull ofthat necessity, however distant itmay
appear to us to be. In bringing out our deepest concern in thisway, the study of thefirst book of the Ethics also prepares us
to become serious students ofAristotle's "philosophy of human matters" as a whole, which is concerned with the reality of
providence because it is concerned with thepossibility ofphilosophy as a way of life.

first book

The

of the Nicomachean

is the

Ethics

to begin one's study of Aristotle's

political philosophy. This is somost obviously be
cause it serves as the introduction
to the whole of his po
proper

place

litical philosophy, which he sets forth chiefly in the Ethics

and Politics taken together. But Book I demands our at
tention above all on account of its analysis of our longing
for happiness1 or of what precisely we mean when we give
voice to our deepest hope for happiness, together with the
remarkable way in which it sketches the serious alterna
to us in our attempts to attain happiness.
in order to grasp the most important arguments of
Aristotle's "philosophy of human matters"?for
example,
tives available

And

happiness in Book I?but a solution that is, as he knew it to

be, finally inadequate to meet the challenge as he himself
sets it out. This admittedly strange procedure can be de
fended on the following grounds: by offering an alluring
answer to what proves to be
but ultimately unsatisfactory
the human problem, Aristotle at once comforts those who
this

accept

answer

and

those

encourages

cannot

who

ac

cept it to think through for themselves the difficulty in all

its gravity. He thereby encourages these latter also to con
sider the principal alternatives to resolving the problem of
happiness, alternatives that, however attractive they may
be, have, each of them, their shortcomings or costs.

to understand
to moral
be

the ground of the superiority of intellectual

virtue?such
reflection on happiness proves to

Aristotle's

I is noteworthy

Aristotle

exercises

there

for

the great

in accomplishing

also

these

caution
tasks,

born of the sensitivity or delicacy characteristic

of anyone who sees the significance of the difficulties
at
hand. As I hope to demonstrate, Aristotle offers an "offi
caution

cial" and profoundly

Robert

C. Bartlett

I am grateful

attractive

is professor

of political

to Peter Ahrensdorf,

to the problem

solution

science,

Christopher

Emory
Bruell,

ofWriting

in Book I

crucial.

Book

Manner

of

University,
Eric

Buzzetti,

thesis implies that Aristotle's manner of writing is un

is
usually complex and subtle. That Aristotle's procedure

My

at the least marked

by peculiarities,
including everything
from apparently needless repetition and digression to out
is clear even from a glance at the
right self-contradiction,

1555 Dickey
Susan

Drive,

Collins,

Atlanta,

and Devin

GA

30322

Stauffer

(rcbartl@emory.edu).

for their helpful

comments

and

suggestions.
II have consistently
translated
eudaimonia
because
it is in my view the closest
to the state
in English
by "happiness,"
principally
equivalent
as Aristotle
in question
himself
describes
it. "Human well-being,"
suffer from the
(and other,
formulations)
"flourishing"
comparable
fact that, unlike
and as such are foreign
locutions
to everyday
eudaimonia,
of the
they are strictly academic
speech. For an able defense
see Kraut
translation
followed
also by Devereux
n. 4). Ackrill
(1979, especially
to
167-70),
"happiness,"
(1981, 248-49,
strongly
objects
the translation
but his suggestion?"'the
best possible
to be the decisive
of the
"happiness,"
life'"(1974,
349) begs what
proves
question
of realizing
eudaimonia.
Bostock
to translate
the term at all.
(2000,
possibility
11-12) declines
American

Journal

of Political

Science,

Vol.

52, No.

?2008, Midwest Political Science Association

3, July 2008,

Pp. 677-687

ISSN 0092-5853
677

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6/8

ROBERTC BARTLETT

a fact already indicative of a grave

to community,
claim to have identified
with
every community's
difficulty
most
that Aristotle can do, and
correctly the good. The

three occasions, for example, and at

some length, Aristotle reminds us of the necessary limits
to the precision to be demanded of the arguments in ques

munity

tion (1094M1-27;
he twice sketches

is bow to the supreme au

what he does do ostentatiously,
so appearing to accept
and
of
politics by repeating
thority
the premise on which all communities
agree: to secure and
or
is
"nobler and more
preserve the good of the nation
city

text of Book

I.2 On

1095a30-1095bl4;
1098a20-1098b8);
the argument that all our actions and
choices necessarily aim at some good, going so far as to
indicate that he is repeating himself ( 1097a24 and context;
consider also 1098a26 and context, which refers back to
and in little more than 20 pages, Aristotle
1094bll-25);

offers three explicit digressions that stray apparently quite

far from his stated purpose (consider 1095al4, 1095bl4,
1097al5, and contexts). He also contradicts himself by
in 1.4, for example, that it is certain of "the many"
(hoi polloi) who hold honor to be the human good we
in the next chapter, that it is "the
seek, only to maintain,
so
refined" who do
(compare 1095a20-23 with 1095b22
stating,

23); he identifies as "strange" or "absurd" the idea that

the dead can be happy, but subsequently accepts that very
idea and adds to it that nothing can overturn their hap
(compare llOOall?14 with, e.g., 1101b5-9); and,
(gn?sis)
finally, he both asserts and denies that knowledge
of the good is essential to our lives, amatter of obviously
to his argument as a whole
(compare
great importance
1094a22-24 with 1095a5-6).
could perhaps be dismissed as ei
These peculiarities
ther textual glitches or even inadvertent lapses, were they
their use?to
not traceable to a cause or causes demanding
a cause or causes, that is, justifying the indirect manner of
piness

cause in ques
arguing they amount to. The most obvious
Immedi
tion is the authority of the political community.
some
there
of
good
being
ately after sketching the necessity
in which all our strivings culminate and which thereby
the bridle produced by the lowly art
justifies them?as
is ultimately for the sake of the good of
of bridle-making
art?
victory in war, under the guidance of the general's
to
a
held"
Aristotle
good "might be
suggests that such
architec
belong to the "most authoritative and especially
tonic" science or power. And what "appears," at least, to be
such a thing, tomake clear to us the good, i.e., "the human
1094a 18-28): even the general's
good," is politics (politik?:
art is subordinate to the science or power of politics. The
one might say, tries to answer with
community,
the good life for a human being
of
the
question
finality
and hence of the best human type. Every community not
on the verge of collapse teaches or habituates itsmembers
political

to accept the ordering of goods it holds to and embodies

(consider, e.g., 1099b30-32).
Aristotle cannot specify "the human good" in ques
tion because the conception of it varies widely from com

of the Nicomachean
edition
21 have used Ingram Bywater's
edition of the Politics
1894) and Alois Dreizehnter's
(Aristotle
are my own.
totle 1970). Translations
throughout

con
than to do so for the individual (1094b7-10;
The political community
sider also 1097b8-ll).
regards
and wishes to have regarded as settled not only the specific
it the life of
character of the good life for its citizens?be

divine"

commerce, piety, or martial courage, for example?but

to that
also the superiority of the good of the community
of any private good.
In the present context, Aristotle stresses the extraor
or
by politics on knowledge
:
what
sciences
that
"ordains
it
is
(epistlme)
politics
there ought to be in the cities and what kinds each [citizen]
it
in turn ought to learn and up towhat point_Because

dinary
science

exercised

influence

use of the remaining sciences and, further, because

it legislates what one ought to do and what to abstain
from, its end would encompass those of the others, with
the result that this would be the human good" ( 1094a28

makes

1094b7). And yet, since Aristotle's own inquiry into the

human good is a necessary one, he in fact refuses to accept
identifica
what the community wishes to be a definitive
good"; his own inquiry, too, then, is "a
inquiry ( 1094b 11), which is to say that it
with the comparable efforts of the polit
(consider also 1152b 1-3). For example,

tion of "the human

sort of political"
is in competition

ical community
the
Aristotle will later raise as an open question whether
virtue of the good citizen is ever the same as that of the
answer to it?that
the two
good human being, and his
one
case
in
who
of
shares
coincide only in the
ruling in
that the virtue of the citizen in
the best regime?implies
short of human virtue or ex
falls
every existing regime
Politics 1276bl6-1277b32;
cellence simply (1130b26-29;
and context). Because of the awesome
1278a40-1278b5

power of the political community, which he here describes

and defers to, Aristotle is compelled to exercise great cau
of the human good, a
the question
tion in exploring
of his
in evidence at the beginning
caution that ismost
inquiry.
It is not surprising, then, that the first of Aristotle's
three accounts of the apparently necessary limits attend
his declaration
ing his inquiry follows immediately upon
of the political character of that inquiry (1094b 11 and
are largely (though not entirely)
following). These limits
in
to say that the subject matter
is
which
self-imposed,3
here
Aristotle
than
much
of
admits
greater clarity
question

Ethics
(Aris

3Consider,
e.g., epi tosouton
atl097al4andll01a21.

["up to this point"

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or "to this extent"]

ON HAPPINESS 679
ARISTOTLE
to admit; each of the three accounts follows the
raising of a "sensitive" issue and amounts to a retreat from
it. In the present context Aristotle discourages his audi

Here

chooses

mary

the question of the character of Aristotle's pri

arises, for, as we have just seen, it bears
on the precision that Aristotle will permit him

audience

ence from pressing for precise arguments on the grounds

that "the noble things and the just things," which politics
inquires into, admit of much dispute and variability such

directly
self in the inquiry. Aristotle makes clear that that audi
ence ismade up of those who are no longer immature
in character (1094b27-1095a8)
because they have been

that they are held by some to exist by convention

(nomos)
alone rather than by nature; indeed, even the good things
are strikingly variable: wealth and courage are sometimes

needed
subject to and hence shaped by the habituation
to effect good rearing (1095b3-6;
In the
1104M1-13).
second and therefore central of his statements concern

good, sometimes ruinous. In the same spirit, Aristotle here

states that "the end is not knowledge but action" (1095a5

indicates that such

ing the limits of his inquiry, Aristotle
to
will
"listen"
and
noble
people
things
just, or to politi
cal matters
in general, "in an adequate manner,"
that is,

6), and although thismight seem from the context to apply

only to the young or immature, he will subsequently state
an investiga
in his own name that "we are conducting
tion not so that we may know what virtue is, but so that
we may become good" ( 1103b27-28): not knowledge but
noble action is our goal, and since the means to inculcate
the characteristic

needed

so to act is habituation

rather

than teaching (1095b3-6,

it seems possible
1103al4-18),
we
or
no
to
be
in the
need
little
that,
good,
knowledge
strict sense (consider also 1105b2-3).
These arguments are striking for several reasons. For
example, in order to parry any expectation of precision
in the present argument, Aristotle here stresses the vari
ability of things noble and just?a quality they share even
the good things?and
alludes to the controversy con
what
is
whether
and just?as distinguished
noble
cerning
from what is good?exists
merely by convention. But this

with

very allusion can serve to remind us that the just things, at

least, do admit of more precision than the merely conven
tional may allow: there is according to Aristotle the just by
nature

What ismore, Aristotle had indicated, earlier

V.7).
(
I, the very great importance of knowledge of the
in order to live well: "with a view to our life, then,

in Book

good
is not the knowledge of this of great weight, and would
we not, like archers possessing a target, be more inclined
to hit upon what is needed?" (1094a22-24;
consider also
1095al0-l
1). And when Aristotle turns in 1.7 to "repeat,"

for the third time, his argument concerning the limits im

posed on him by his subject matter, he adds there awholly
new consideration,
according towhich it is (also) the pur
pose of the inquiry that dictates the level of precision to be
expected,

not,

or not

only,

the

subject

matter:

the

geome

ter and carpenter are equally concerned with a

right angle,
but given their different purposes, only the geometer need
avail himself of precise knowledge of it (1098a26-33).
In
is possible
principle, then, such knowledge
ics. Are the matters dealt with in Aristotle's

to one's father, for example (1103a3)?is

rational only in
a very loose sense;
a
it
is
function of the
strictly speaking,
irrational part of the soul that is characterized by desire
and appetite ( 1102b28-l
103a3). To put the point inmore
general terms, Aristotle's primary audience ismade up of
spoudaioi, of "serious" human beings, who as such ac
(arche) the
cept as their starting point or first principle
supreme goodness of moral virtue and hence noble ac
tion. For them it is enough to yield to the habituation
they
have been subject to from early childhood and so to accept
this first principle ( 1095b2-6; 1098b4; also 1103b23-25).
They need not inquire into the path to that principle but
instead proceed from it as a given: to paraphrase Aristotle,
the first principle or principles of moral action are "known
to them," but not "known
simply," which amounts to say
ing that they do not strictly speaking know the archai at all
Moral virtue, to repeat, is the product
( 1095a30-1095b4).
of habituation
and not of teaching; the morally virtuous,
as a result, do not know in the strict sense the
principles
or starting points of moral virtue.
In this important respect, then, Aristotle's
insistence
on the imprecise character of his
inquiry is fully justified,
for he cannot make precise what is not known, to those
by whom it is not known, at least not without at the same
time transforming their understanding
of their principles
and hence

of themselves. And this means,

in turn, that
to some extent defer in his
inquiry not only
to the power of the political
but also to the
community

Aristotle must

consequences
in us deeply

of that power, for the community

instills
held opinions about the human good that

4
Consider

the political

inmathemat

political phi
if only for the
losophy too susceptible of such knowledge,
from the
equivalent of the "geometer" as distinguished
"carpenter"?

they will accept the goodness of justice and nobility as

self-evident:
they accept the "that" without needing the
in
At the end of Book I,
addition
(1095b4-8).4
"why"
Aristotle indicates that this capacity to listen and obey?

also

community's

equation

of "the human

good" with "the noble things and the just things," as is implied by
1094b7

in conjunction

with

14-15.

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680
we cannot

rationally explain or defend because we do not

the matters with which they deal.
As this implies, Aristotle differs from his primary au

know

in at least one

dience

do not, both

as they
respect: he understands,
the fact and the cause?the
"that" and the

their "knowledge"; he
the limits attending
"why"?of
makes precise the necessity dictating a certain impreci
sion. In fact he goes further. He occasionally
indicates
in Book I the possibility
of proceeding
in the manner
of a geometer, that is, as an observer ("contemplator")
of the truth (1098a31-32):
deference to the authority of
others is indeed good, but "altogether best" is he who

ROBERTC BARTLETT

analysis, in the course of which it is not always clear that

he denies it pride of place (consider, e.g., 1153b25-26
and
context).
By taking up honor next, Aristotle violates the or
der in which he had originally listed it but thereby makes
it central

and
(compare 1095a23 with 1095b22-1096a4
is
For
The
reasonable.
honor
context).
change
although
seems to be the core of the political life, those who are
serious about honor in fact want to be honored for their
virtue,

and in this way Aristotle is first permitted or com

virtue, the subject of the great bulk of

to discuss

pelled
the Nicomachean

Ethics. Most
denies

striking here is the firmness

that virtue can be the goal of

all things" (1095bl0-13,

quoting
Works
and
Hesiod,
Days 293, 295-97). For the right kind
of person, at least, "knowing about these things would be
Aristotle's primary audi
of great profit" (1095al0-ll).

with which Aristotle

in their inclination simply to

ence, whom he encourages
take some things for granted, is not necessarily his sole
audience, and his subsequent analysis of the problem of
happiness must be read in the light of this possibility.5

tive throughout
life, and, in addition to these, to suffer
And nobody
and
badly
undergo the greatest misfortunes.
a
in
is
would say that person living
this way
happy, unless

"himself

understands

our striving and hence equivalent to happiness:

"even it
to
to
it
is
be
rather
for
held
be
appears
possible
incomplete,
for one to possess virtue even while asleep or being inac

he were defending a thesis" (1095b30-1096a2).

now abruptly cuts off the discussion

Although
of virtue,
it clear enough that the practice of virtue
he has made
in no way guarantees the happiness of the virtuous. And
finally, since Aristotle declines to speak at present about

Aristotle

The Problem

of Happiness

analysis of the problem of happiness unfolds

He
begins, in 1.4-5, with a survey of opinions
gradually.
chief of the goods bound up with action,
the
concerning

Aristotle's

the good aimed at by politics or the political art: if it is

agreed to by most that this good is "happiness," nonethe
less there is a variety of views as to what might constitute
it.More precisely, Aristotle speaks of three things, the pos
session of which

could secure or constitute

our happiness,
and honor. To this he adds a list

namely pleasure, wealth,

of three possible ways of life whose connection to the three
goods indicated is not entirely clear: the life of pleasure
life.
the political life, and the contemplative
(hedonism),

to pleasure, Aristotle
is extraordi
to
sake
live for the
of pleasure is to
narily harsh toward it:
live a slavish life suitable only for fatted cattle ( 1095b 14
16). The harshness of this dismissal is indicative not only

As for the life devoted

of the character of his primary audience, for whom hedo

nism is beneath contempt because it obviously conflicts
is noble and good (consider again 1095b4-6),
but also of the preliminary character of this discussion. For
Aristotle will to some extent rehabilitate pleasure even in
of the life of one
Book I?it is a necessary accompaniment

with what

who

loves moral

pleasure,
5
The

best

audience

virtue

in Books VII

( 1099a7-21 )?and he will subject

and X, to a subtle and lengthy

to sketch
the complex
attempt
or audiences
in the Nicomachean

character
Ethics

of Aristotle's

is Tessitore

(1996).

or theoretical life, he turns to dismiss

the contemplative
the only life remaining, that of money making. He does
so briefly but powerfully by arguing that money
is always
for the sake of something

else and hence

cannot

be the

end we seek.
By the end of 1.4-5, then, Aristotle has brought us to a
dead end. All the most popular opinions about happiness,
refined, lead nowhere, and if "the contemplative
refuses to tell
life" holds the key to happiness, Aristotle
us as much.
Itmight well seem, it is true, that he takes at
least a step in this direction in the immediately following
chapter (1.6), for he there considers at length the view of

however

if
the Platonists,
friends?presumably
to
which
the
not
Plato
(true)
himself?according
perhaps
not "in" any one thing but
good, the idea of the good, is
separate from the several good things here and now and
certain unnamed

In fact, the exploration of

responsible for their goodness.
this sophisticated view has less to do with the contempla
tive life than it does with Aristotle's observation, made in
1.4, that when

aware of their own ig

at or admire those who speak over

"the many"

become

they wonder
their heads in lofty terms (1095a25-26):
having brought
his audience face to face with the inadequacy of the com

norance,

conceptions of happiness, Aristotle puts before them

the kind of doctrine which becomes appealing as a result.
in other
Awareness of the elusive character of happiness,

mon

like
words, renders us susceptible to fantastic doctrines
out
the
holds
which
of
that
the Platonic ideas,
promise

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ARISTOTLE
ON HAPPINESS 68l
in a separate or "transcendent" and
of our participating
eternal world that is as such free of the limits marring
this one. To say the least, in his thorough critique of the
idea of the good here, Aristotle throws cold water on any

taken to be. What ismore, he adds very briefly

or qualification
that he will wrestle with for
the remainder of Book I: a happy life must be also "a
complete life. For one swallow does not make a spring,
sometimes

a demand

hope of this kind. He even adopts, in 1.6, the point of view

that may be said to be the contrary of the one that proba
bly guides "the many" in their attraction to the idea of the

nor does one day. And in this way, one day or a short time
does not make one blessed and happy either" ( 1098a 18
20). As becomes clear when he returns to this same cri

that an eternal good would

good: Aristotle here maintains
be no more good than a good lasting a day (1096b3-5).
Aristotle begins again in 1.7. To do so, he explicitly re

(1100a4-9), Aristotle here alludes to the problem

of fortune or chance (tuch?). It is true that he had already

peats a line of argument seen in 1.1-2, according to which

all arts aim at some good. But rather than state immedi
ately, as a given or premise, that "happiness" is the greatest
good aimed at, Aristotle instead speaks of happiness only
at the conclusion of a fairly lengthy, two-part argument
(compare 1095al8 and context with 1097al5-1097b21,
1097a34 and 1097M5-16).
"repetition" of the earlier argument

especially
over

it inasmuch

as Aristotle

In other words, the

an advance

marks

now

explores the idea of

so
first
happiness
by making explicit our
or
convictions
it. "We say" that
guiding hopes
concerning
what is pursued for its own sake is more complete or
itself. He does

perfect than what is pursued for the sake of something

else, and, following out the logic of this, the most com
plete or perfect such good "is held" to be happiness above
"we suppose" that happiness
is a state of
a
so
great that "it by it
self-sufficiency,
self-sufficiency
in
renders
life
and
need of nothing"
self
choiceworthy
"So
(1097M4-15,
emphasis added).
happiness appears to
be something complete [perfect] and self-sufficient,
it be
an
end of the actions" (1097b20-21).
Aristotle here
ing
all. Moreover,

explicit what we are content to leavemostly implicit

or unstated but which guides our lives in fact: we suppose
that, by acting in certain ways, we can come to possess
for ourselves a good that will truly complete us and so

makes

render us in need of "nothing" else. "Happiness,"

then,
a
to
be
of
kind
for
oneself
appears
perfect self-sufficiency,
and of course one's immediate family (1097b8?11). The
expression of this deepest hope or wish is a turning point
inAristotle's argument, and the rest of Book I is a cautious
exploration of this hope for happiness
In the immediate sequel, Aristotle

so understood.

further refines the

idea of happiness by asking what the "work" proper to a
human being must be, the completion of which will pre
sumably be equivalent to happiness. And although the ar
in the famous definition
gument that follows culminates
that the "work" of a human being is "an activity of soul
in accord with virtue," Aristotle fails to identify
precisely
either the activity in question (consider 1099a30) or?the
character of the virtue being dependent on the nature of
the activity?the
relevant virtue (consider 1098al7-18).
This

line of argument,

then,

is not as revealing

as it is

terion

spoken of chance in his account,

of virtue to secure our happiness

in 1.5, of the impotence

in the face of "the great
ta megista); here he seems to

est misfortunes"
(atuchein
have particularly inmind a premature death or the uncer
tain timing of the mortality
fact whose
attending us?a

prompts him to state his third account of

the limits he will adhere to in his inquiry, in the manner
of a carpenter (1098a20 and following).
introduction

above all to fleshing out our convic

tions concerning happiness. The idea of happiness
is sur
to
can
hard
for
almost
down,
everyone
agree
pin
prisingly
1.1-7 is devoted

that it is this that we most want

1097b22
(1095al7-20;
no
one
seems
to
state
but
able
itmight
what
23),
precisely
consist in. Aristotle's
identification
of the leading con
tenders in that respect (pleasure, honor, virtue, money),
and his methodical
rejection of each in turn (1.4-5), is
meant
to
clear that none of these goods is
make
surely
sufficient by itself to be the good that we conceive of with
the mind's eye, however vaguely, and hope to attain. The
first five chapters of Book I at once capture the experience
of the elusiveness

of happiness and begin, at least, to ex

it. From 1.7, however, it appears that we have taken

plain
the meaning

of "happiness" too much for granted, and

there equates happiness with a perfect or com
and
plete good that would render our lives self-sufficient
hence "in need of nothing." The most promising path
to such happiness now appears to be a certain "work"
of the soul "in accord with virtue." In this way Aristotle

Aristotle

the connection

reintroduces

between

ness, which he had apparently

statement of the insufficiency
dedication

and happi
after his blunt

of virtue in 1.5. That our

to virtue will form the core of the rest of Book

I is indication
lier account

virtue

left behind

enough of the inadequacy of Aristotle's ear

of virtue. And by introducing our desire for
life," immediately after he has put virtue back

"a complete
on the table, Aristotle prompts us to consider the
possi
to virtue has some connection
bility that the dedication
with that desire. In fact, in the next section, Aristotle will
confirm
cation

this possibility
in the strongest terms: the dedi
to virtue will be shown to hold out the
promise of

our

attaining precisely "a complete life," and "a complete

life," in turn, proves to require not only a bulwark against
chance but the overcoming
of death itself. At all events,

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682

ROBERTC. BARTLETT

gests that an adequate analysis of happiness must begin

from the concern for virtue?and
not, for example, from
an
whose dismissal
doctrine
selfish
hedonism,
inherently
in 1.4-5 Aristotle saw to immediately.

20), not at all due to chance, for "to entrust the greatest
and noblest thing to chance would be excessively harsh"
(1099b24-25).
1.9 by repeating and even
Yet Aristotle
concludes
strengthening the demand that happiness include "a com

Still, as important as the analysis of our hope for hap

relevance of virtue surely are,
piness and the continuing
as
we
have seen, to identify the virtuous
Aristotle declines,
"activity of soul" peculiar to human beings. What ismore,

life" (1100a4-5; compare 1098al8), this time refer

to
the legendary sorrows of virtuous Priam. In this
ring
he
indicates
that nothing he has said thus far deals ade
way
quately with the shadow cast on our happiness by chance.

of the obstacles to fulfilling the promise held

out by virtuous activity cannot be dismissed or forgotten:
the virtuous too may be made wretched by misfortune,

The deepest purpose of the immediately

following dis
one
can
as
to
in
whether
1.10,
cussion,
reasonably call a
man happy only after he has died, is to make clear the
means to solve this problem of chance: one must have re

the movement

of the argument

in 1.1-7 as a whole

sug

his indication

and they too are exposed

can we

secure

to a premature

for ourselves,

not

death. How
an

merely

then
con

ephemeral

that is lasting and secure and

tentedness, but a happiness
in short, deserving of the name?
happiness,
complete?a
In the next section, Aristotle will offer a solution to these
difficulties.

The Problem

of Happiness

course to a doctrine
deceased

continues

of the afterlife, according towhich

to enjoy at least some awareness

the

(of
for example). Aristotle here
the lives of his descendants,
insists, however, that only one's own virtuous activities
determine happiness,
that is, the happiness of a virtuous
person cannot be affected even if some of his descen
dants receive in life a lot contrary to what they deserve
Indeed, in the midst of his own troubles
(1100a25-26).

Solved

alive, the virtuous person will bear up "altogether

nobly and properly in every way," and itwill be in just such
that his "nobility shines through." It seems
circumstances
that nothing is so solid or lasting as the virtue and there

while

The next four chapters (1.8-11 ) clearly form a unit meant

in general and that of
to treat the problem of happiness
in particular.6 Aristotle first defends
chance or misfortune
an activity of soul in accord
logos ("happiness is
a
on
the
virtue")
grounds that it is sanctioned by

his official
with

plete

fore the happiness of the virtuous. Yet, as powerful and

attractive as this is,Aristotle immediately backs away from
it in one respect, for he now (1.11) characterizes as "ex

range of august opinions

linking happiness with (among
other things) some sort of virtue. Moreover,
happiness,
is attainable by engaging in "the best activities,"
which
will be best and most pleasant and noblest, and the active

cessively opposed to friendship" (or excessively "hateful":

aphilon) and "contrary to the opinions" (110 la22-24) the
view that how the living descendants fare in no way affects
the deceased. Aristotle therefore revises his position one

life of virtue will not fall short even in point of pleasure,

to say nothing of its goodness and nobility (1099a7-21).
But none of this deals with the problem of chance,
1099a31
as Aristotle makes perfectly
clear (consider

last time: "It appears, then, that the friends' faring well
to [the condition of] those
some contribution
who have passed away, as does, similarly, their faring ill,
of such a kind and degree as not to
but a contribution

he turns, in 1.9, to consider how

1099b8). Accordingly,
extreme possi
happiness may be acquired, including the
to
bility that it is due finally to chance. Aristotle contends,
is either a god-given thing or
the contrary, that happiness
at least among the most divine things. He thus introduces,
for the first time, the question of the existence of gods and

make

their concern for our happiness, and he here leaves open

the possibility that happiness is not due to chance because
is
it is due to the intercession of gods. For now, Aristotle
is,
content to argue on his own authority that happiness
in addition

6See

the

to being available

references

to chance

at,

tomany

e.g.,

or most

1099b8

( 1099b 18

Aristotle's

the happy unhappy or anything else of that sort"

a
(1101b5-9).
By the end of 1.11, Aristotle has adopted
tone quite different from that seen in 1.6, where he had
not to
treated the concern for eternity unsympathetically,

say scornfully.7
Here, then, isAristotle's official answer in Book I of
Ethics to the problem of happiness: ifwe
the Nicomachean
in
the requisite activity of soul that accords with
engage

the
on 1.10-11,
Pritzl
(1983)
argues
against
commentary
here
that Aristotle
and Jolif among others,
stated by Gauthier
a "condescend
on the afterlife with
opinions
speaks of common
that "Aris
to the contrary,
(1970, 2: 86); he contends,
ing smile"
on the dead
in a serious
totle ... does treat the received
opinions
as Aristotle
fashion"
surely does,
(103). But to treat them seriously,
to Pritzl makes
in his response
is not yet to accept
them, as Gooch
clear (1983,112-16).
In his

view,

(the

end

of

1.8),

1099bll (the beginning of 1.9), 1100al7 (1.10), and 1101a22 (the

beginning
of a new

does make

the start
indicates
of 1.12 clearly
of 1.11); the beginning
to
serves as the preface
which
to
of
1.13,
say nothing
topic,
virtue.
into moral
extended
inquiry

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ARISTOTLE
ON HAPPINESS 683
(the best) virtue, we will secure for ourselves here and
now a life that is at once best, noblest, and most pleasant,
and we will enjoy this lifemost continuously. We will also

basis of the hunch

nothing, not even

the awareness we will have of the fate of our descendants,
disturb the happiness
good or bad, can fundamentally
we will enjoy there. Of the two responses to the problem
of happiness
that Aristotle had sketched at the end of

correct

earn for ourselves

an afterlife

inwhich

is (merely) good
hold either that happiness
1.8, then?to
or
to
that
it
is
virtue
fortune,
(1099b7-8)?
equivalent
Aristotle here clearly rejects the former because he holds
is not due to chance because

to the latter. Happiness

evidently

governed

by the practice

it is

of virtue.

that "it is reasonable

that neither

of

these two [i.e., the ancients and the few of high repute]
be completely wrong in all respects?rather
that they be
in some

one

respect,

at

least,

or

even

in most

re

(1098b28-29).
Similarly, he rejects the view that
on the basis of two conditional
to
is
due
chance
happiness
spects"

and the thought that to hold oth

(1099b20-23)
erwise would be "excessively harsh" (1099b24-25),
just
as he accepts that the dead must be aware of the lives

clauses

of their surviving descendents

them
(and hence must
selves be alive after death) on the grounds that it would
to friendship" and "contrary to
be "excessively opposed
to deny it?as if we could be certain that
the opinions"
important truths accord with our opinions and
the
considera
preserve
things dear to us, subphilosophic
tions if ever there were any. Aristotle's striking deference
the most

"Blessed Human
The tension at the heart of Aristotle's
now

clear.

the one

On

hand,

virtue

Beings"
argument
simply

tee the happiness of the virtuous because

them from grave misfortune?witness

cannot

in Book I is
guaran

it cannot protect
Priam (1100a8,

to these opinions, and above all to the hopes they reveal,

is evidence enough of their great power; no adequate ac
count of happiness could proceed without acknowledging
the existence

of these opinions,
the denial of which is in
It is not only the political community's
great
in
then, that guide Aristotle
power and its consequences,
us
his exposition, but also the powerful hope in each of
to
deed harsh.

on the other hand, precisely virtue be

1101a8)?and,
stows on those who practice it, probably in this life and
certainly in the next, a happiness that can never be trans
formed into its contrary.

attain happiness. If the political community habituates us

to accept the view that the preservation of its
good is "no
bler and more divine" than the attainment of our own,

To resolve this tension, we might be tempted to sup

indicated ismerely a prelimi
pose that the first position
a
statement
of
the
nary one,
problem, and that the latter
position, which is after all set forth at far greater length,

are creatures peculiarly open to

such habituation; we are by nature "political animals" in
part because we can be deeply moved by considerations
of what is noble and divine, which is to say that we are

final answer to it. And yet, attractive though

this
be,
suggestion cannot stand. It is crucial to
to
see,
begin with, that Aristotle himself vouches for al
most none of the positions he offers in 1.8-11 in response
isAristotle's

it may

to the problem of happiness. For example, the whole of

the argument is begun by his turn away from "premises"
and

"conclusions,"

i.e.,

from

arguments

ing, and to "the things said about

opinions ( 1098b9-l 1 ).The opinions

properly

speak

i.e., to
[happiness],"
that are permitted to

exercise most

influence there belong to "the ancients" and

those of "high repute," in contrast to "those who philos
ophize" (compare 1098M2-22 with 1098b22-31, where
"the few of high repute" take the place of the philoso
does not fail to report a certain
contrary opinion conveyed by no less than an inscription
at Delos (1099a27-28),
perhaps from the very temple of
must
he
select from among the august but con
Leto,8
phers). And

tradictory

since Aristotle

opinions

available

to him. He does

so on the

53).

be said that we

creatures capable of conceiving of "happiness."9

Once we strip 1.8-11 of the assertions that are, if not
then grounded
in something other than ra
groundless,
tional argument, we are permitted to see with greater clar
ity Aristotle's occasional frankness here. For example, he
raises as a rhetorical question whether it is not altogether
"absurd" (atopon) to hold that the dead can be happy, es
that happiness
is depen
pecially for those who maintain
dent on activity: the dead as such cannot be active, still
less happy (1100al2-14).
Even in the course of sketching
the apparent solution to every problem attending hap
insists on repeating those problems and
piness, Aristotle
in effect strengthening
the force of them. For example,
the problem
dependence

of chance includes that of our necessary

on "external
goods" or "equipment," under

a
indicates
and perhaps
the
between,
kinship
and "the god," these being
the only things
of, "happiness"
in reference
to some stan
i.e., they are not praised
rightly honored,
dard higher
than they (1101b27?30).
Each is an expression
of the
9In

1.12, Aristotle

identity

8SeeBurnet (1973) aswell as Gauthier and Jolif (1970, ad loc). In

his commentary
lecture 13, sec.

itmust

on the Ethics, St. Thomas

Aquinas
speaks (Book I,
161) of "Apollo's
(= Aquinas
1993,
temple at Delos"

with
superlative
good conceivable
as a
starting point or first principle
pare 1095a30-1095bl).

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the mind's
eye,
for us (consider

and

each

1102a2-4;

serves
com

ROBERTC. BARTLETT

684
heading he now discusses the premature death of
friends and children (1.8: 1099a31-1099b7)10
and he re
as
we
a
have
of
the
seen,
peats,
requirement
"complete life"

which

in his impressive struggle

ismore,
(1.9: 1100a4-9). What
our
to chance, Aristotle re
with the fact of
exposedness
sorts to a non sequitur: we may grant that those who are
"Toursquare, without blame'" will bear fortunes "most
nobly"?they
and always

[do] what

"in a becoming way

given the circumstances"

all fortunes

deal with

is noblest

we need to know that

(1.10:1100b30-31,1101al-3)?but
such human beings will also be, not merely not wretched
but happy as a result of their superla
(1100b34,1101a6),

or complete

that as such conveys to its possessor a

or freedom from need. In his
self-sufficiency
good

thorough
first formulation

of this premise, Aristotle notes that in

fact only "most" agree to it: it is clearly joined in by "the
(hoi polloi) and "the refined," but not so clearly
many"
wise
the
by
(compare 1095al8-20 with 21). (The appar
Aristotle draws between the many and the
line
ently sharp
refined vanishes when

either

is compared

the view that honor is the greatest good, characteristic

of the refined, is really a view of the many,
if not the
most vulgar of them [compare 1095bl6 and 22-23 with
is the wise.] )
1095a22-23, where the point of comparison
as we have seen, "those who philosophize"
are not

tive nobility or virtue (compare 1100b9-10 with 20-22,

e.g.). This Aristotle finally declines to affirm (1101a6-8).
It is impossible to maintain,
then, that Aristotle himself

And,

and the reputable who hold various

what
about
opinions
happiness consists in (compare again
1098b 12-22 with 1098b22-31 ). Finally, itmay make sense
to say of the gods that they are happy and blessed, but
the ancients

among

is, after all, a most

equates happiness with virtue?what
extreme position because it denies to chance any empire

even the "most divine" of human

whatever.

of someone

But what

who

is active

in accord with

complete virtue and who is adequately equipped with ex

ternal goods in the course of a complete life?someone,

be said to be happy
ing of the MSS.).11

beings cannot properly

(consider 1101b23-25, with the read
The teaching of Book I of the Ethics

that is at once most

fundamental

that is, who combines virtue with remarkably good for

tune (1101al4?16)?
is surely conceiv
Such a combination

"the human

is not

response to this question is as graceful as

it is brief: "we will say that those among the living who
have and will have available to them the things stated, are
To
blessed human beings" (1101al9?21).
blessed?but

help but seek must

share (1172b34-35).

able. Aristotle's

this all-important
fact that Aristotle
from
the
gin
that "the future is immanifest

understand

chance must cast a shadow on any possible happiness here

and now. One might even say that itmakes happiness, as
from a kind of contentedness,
impossible.
distinguished
Not just the calamity, but the knowledge of the possibility
of it, not just the loss of loved ones, but the knowledge of
the possibility of it, not just, finally and above all, the un
certainty of one's own death but rather the knowledge of
these contribute to rendering
its eventual certainty?all
our hope for happiness unrealizable. We can hope to be
always and merely "blessed human beings,"
the necessary limits attending us as mortals.
It now becomes necessary to revisit a premise guid

blessed?but

ing Book I, according to which the greatest good, "the

as some perfect
human good," is happiness understood
10
For
external

an

extended
goods

discussion

to happiness,

is understood

qualification, we must be
here reminds us of, namely

to us" (1101al8). The dif

our
ignorance of the future helps
ficulty is not only that
render things generally good of uncertain goodness in fact
or in the event (recall 1094b 16-19). The difficulty is also,
and more, that we can never be certain of enjoying (gen
to
uine) goods tomorrow: awareness of our exposedness

with

to "the wise":

of Aristotle
see Cooper

on
(1985).

the

importance

of

good"
as it ought

and least obvious

is that

indeed happiness,
if that term
to be. The good that we cannot

be one

in which

The Final Sections

we

can have

of Book

some

last chapter of Book I that deals with virtue in its

to happiness
(1.12) is a curious appendix not ob
to
what
has preceded it.Aristotle raises the
related
viously

The

relation

question

of whether

happiness belongs among the things

the things honored. The distinction

praised or among
amounts to this: everything praised is inferior to the "good
and serious" thing to which our praise refers, whereas
is honored because it is perfect or
everything honored
the perfect or com
happiness,
complete. Accordingly,
(1102al).
plete good, must be among the things honored
But this means that moral virtue in general, and justice
(1101M4 and 26), is to be praised?merely
not honored. The moral virtues, in short,
praised?and
are inferior to happiness. They are praiseworthy
only in
It is as a result very
sofar as they contribute to happiness.
take moral virtue as se
hard to see why anyone would
as
seriously as Aristotle
riously as we typically do?or
in particular

11
"The

of
divine
we deem blessed
and the most
and happy,
gods
Susemihl
deem blessed."
(1880, ad loc.) in his
Following
from the MSS.,
1894, ad loc.) alters
(Aristotle
Bywater
departure
"we deem blessed
the text such that it would
read, in translation:

men

we

and happy

the gods

as well

as the most

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divine

of men."

ONHAPPINESS 685
ARISTOTLE
For once he makes the transition, effected in
to
moral
virtue, the theme of the next four books
1.13,
of the Ethics, Aristotle more or less consistently
adopts
the view that a truly virtuous act will be undertaken only
or that vir
"for the sake of the noble" (e.g., 1115M2-13)
soon will.

tuous acts are done

"for their own

sakes" (1105a31-32)
a good greater than
to
and not because they contribute
for exam
one's own happiness,
moral virtue itself?to
ple (compare 1097b 1-4). He will for the most part speak,
in other words, as though moral virtue falls among the
things honored.

also the necessary premise of the view that the virtuous

live on after death and know then a happiness that cannot
tracing out the most powerful
and by giving full expression to
opinions
Ethics
our concern for virtue, Book I of the Nicomachean
indicates that the core of our hope for happiness is a long

be undone.12

By carefully
about happiness,

that renders us "in need of nothing."

ing for a completion
is at bottom the longing to be
Our hope for happiness
immortal, a longing that surely only a god could fulfill.
Yet Aristotle himself does not simply accept the view

The

that "the god" or gods are finally responsible for our hap
it
to repeat and hence promote
piness, his willingness
Aristotle does not in fact assert in Book
notwithstanding.

the more

I that our happiness

is god-sent?this
thought rests on
sentence that is compatible
the protasis of a conditional
to human beings
with the gods giving no gifts whatever
the view
entertains
he
1?13)?and
(1099bl
immediately
As we have
is not god-sent (1099M4-15).
that happiness
seen, Aristotle raises the possibility, at least, that the idea
is "altogether absurd." In
of the dead enjoying happiness

reasons to take virtue very seriously evidently

at
the close of Book I. In Book I,Aristotle explains
persist
what "happiness" is and clearly indicates the obstacles to
a path around
achieving it. He also, of course, indicates
them. Those satisfied with Aristotle's account will be all
eager to learn of the specific demands of moral
virtue ( 1102a5-6), for the meeting of them takes on a new
urgency given the risks towhich we are exposed and, above
all, given the reward that awaits us. But even those dissat
there is
isfied with this solution (for which dissatisfaction
also to have up
in the precise sense. They

cannot be assumed

ample justification)
rooted their hope for happiness
if
will therefore remain open to dedicating
themselves,
not tomoral virtue as an end in itself, then to the peak of
virtue as Aristotle presents it, to intellectual virtue, whose
by their nobility and
objects of concern are distinguished
divinity (1177a 15).
Indeed, Aristotle himself will, at the climax of Book X,
make intellectual virtue the basis of what might
loosely
be called divine providence, whose sole function is to se
cure the happiness of the wise (1179a22-32,
consider
at
this
leads
And
tis
1179a24).
epimeleia
ing especially
to the thought that Aristotle's contradictory presentation
in its relation to happiness
in Book I can be
ironed out simply by noting that "virtue" proves to be
an ambiguous
term in the Ethics: it has two species, in
and moral. Indeed, even in the
tellectual (contemplative)
course of Book I,Aristotle points to this ambiguity (con

since Aristotle asserts the impossibility of our

the
future, he must also deny the worth of those
knowing
claims to special access to it, through divination and the
addition,

in Book X of the providence

like. As for his description
too not problematic?
is
the
this
"solution"
wise,
attending
For even if we accept without question the utterly mys
terious operation of this providence, which is introduced
in a conditional
clause, happiness would still be beyond
the reach of almost everyone because intellectual virtue is
available to exceedingly few. And this is a harsh thought
["shared by many"
(compare polukoinon
at
18
and
1099b
context).
many"]

of virtue

sider 1098al6-18
virtue

can

and 1.13). Perhaps,

accomplish

what

moral

then, contemplative

virtue

alone

cannot.

At all events, only divine providence?whether

it
looks to the moral or to the intellectual virtue of those
it favors?could

be adequate

to the task of fulfilling our

This is so in the first place

deepest hope for happiness.

because only a divine being could guarantee the benig
nity of the fortune to which our hopes for happiness are
necessarily exposed: no conceivable
technological or sci
innovation, for example, will ever be adequate to
this task. The premise that happiness
is a gift from gods
to human beings, then, is the most serious part of Aristo
tle's official response to the problem of happiness, it being

or "common

to

Conclusion
goal or goals, then, govern Aristotle's manifestly
of argument
in the first book of the
complex manner
Ethics! It is generally held today that Aristotle's most pi

What

ous

remarks here,

example,

cannot

those pertaining
be

taken

to be

to the afterlife,

sincere

(see,

e.g.,

for
n.7).

We

agree with this judgment. After all, Aristotle declines

to include piety in the eleven moral virtues analyzed in

the Ethics, and in the Politics he famously declares that

the city comes into being "by nature" and not (as this
of the gods, notwith
implies) by the workings
claim
the
of
ancient
cities to be traceable
many
standing

already

entific

are not found

and perpetuity,
in the present
12"So continuity
which
to the nature of perfect happiness.
Hence
life, belong
perfect happi
ness cannot be had in this life" (St. Thomas
Commentary,
Aquinas,
Book
I, lecture
1993, 43).
10, sec. 129; = Aquinas

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ROBERTC. BARTLETT

686

to divine

law (e.g., Plato Laws 624al-6). The first purpose

statements, tentative as they are, is to lessen
or ire of the most unphilosophic
and cen

of such pious
the suspicion

to give
audience?he
who wished
a
to
to Athens
sin against philosophy
second
time. Yet Aristotle
indicates a threefold division among
human beings and so among his potential audience: the
sorious

in Aristotle's

as they may be, then, Aristotle's

remarks
serve altogether
in Book I nonetheless
serious purposes. And if prudential calculation no longer
demands that we today pay careful attention to "the di
Insincere

about

the divine

no cause

vine,"

the refined, and the philosophic

(or wise). We ten
some
of the refined, properly
tatively suggest that at least
reared and so correctly dedicated to moral virtue, would

the very meaning of "happiness"?of

its deepest root, its
highest hope, and what would have to be true of the world

many,

be among those who see through Aristotle's

apparently pious remarks. More sophisticated than most,
such readers would remain dedicated to virtue while look

nonetheless

or indeed not at all, to gods and

ing only halfheartedly,
to an afterlife to solve the shortcomings
of this life; here
one may think of Laches and Demosthenes,
for example,
as they are presented by Plato and Aristophanes
with a great many of Aristotle's
tively13?together

respec
readers

today. Such readers would not blanch at Aristotle's omis

of the virtues belonging
sion of piety in the enumeration
to a kaloskagathos and would be content to imitate, in the
conduct of their own lives or the life of their commu
nity, the wholly
inward-looking
"activity" of "the god"
to whom Aristotle
appeals briefly in the Politics, a god
bears no resemblance

to Zeus

or, for that matter,

and 1325b28-30).
(1323b21-29
an
an
intended
then
effect, of Aristotle's less
effect,
Might
remarks about the divine here also be to
than-convincing
that the
in
encourage,
just such readers, the conviction
who

to the God of Abraham

life of noble

or self
action brings with it a completeness
unneces
on
the
divine
reliance
that renders

sufficiency
sary? Aristotle's manifest

does demand
it: at a time when
self-knowledge
"happiness" is frequently equated with the experience of
ephemeral pleasure, we need to learn or be reminded of

properly speaking is to be realized.

The study of Book I of the Nicomachean
Ethics is use
nature of
ful today because it deals with a question?the
if happiness

relevance is obvious. But in

happiness?whose
with
that
question, Book I compels us to raise
dealing
difficulties for ourselves that, far from being obvious, are
in danger of being forgotten.
It is with a view to com

human

bating this danger that the present essay has attempted

to explain, and hence been compelled at times to tram
ple on, Aristotle's great delicacy or sensitivity in exploring
our hope for happiness. Chief among these difficulties
are, first, the true character of our hope for happiness
and, ultimately, the necessity of there being a kind of di
vine providence
if that hope is to be realized. Inasmuch
as we still long for happiness, we must still undergo the
pull of that necessity, however distant itmay appear to
us to be. In bringing out our deepest concern in this way,
the study of the first book of the Ethics also prepares us
to become serious students of Aristotle's
"philosophy of
as a whole, which is concerned with the
indicated because it is concerned
of
the
providence
reality
as a way of life.
with the possibility of philosophy
human matters"

distance from simple orthodoxy

character of his own asser
and the obviously conditional
the divine would
tions here concerning
strengthen this
of
moral
virtue
that charac
in
the
confidence
sufficiency
more
refined readers.
terizes his
At the same time, however, Aristotle also points to
character of such confidence.
the ultimately ungrounded
He does so in part by insisting, in Book X, on the deci
sive superiority of theoretical to moral virtue, in part by
in Book I, to the divine and the af
drawing attention,
terlife as involving questions that must at some point be
inclined in his audience,
confronted. The philosophically
on
to
these questions, will be com
reflect
thus prompted
recourse to the divine is not in
pelled to wonder whether
fact necessary to the life of moral virtue, if it is to hope to
attain the completeness
13
Consider

it seeks.

in the Laches (also Bruell

of Laches
Plato's portrait
1999,
in the Knights
Demosthenes
of
and Aristophanes'
depiction
Bruell alerted me to these
1966, 82-83).
(also Strauss
Christopher
and
their
significance.
examples
57-61)

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