There are many different theories as to how a person should lead his or her life. One of the first and most important philosophers to have thought about this in the Western tradition was Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics. In this text, he proposes an ethical theory based on virtues that a person should cultivate in order to be happy, or under a state of flourishment. For him, virtues are habits that one should establish in the mean of two excesses. For example, the virtue of temperance should be developed as a midpoint between pain and pleasure in order to not fall into the excess of self-indulgence. Therefore, habits would be important, as the person should constantly choose the mean until this becomes something that he does without reflection. This would lead him to the state of happiness, or flourishing, that would be the goal of life as seen through ethical action.
For Aristotle, virtues are always located between two excesses. He finds two instances or states that oppose each other and establishes the middle as the place where one should try to place one’s self. The two extremes would thus interact with each other in a rational way in order to lead man to his or her true calling; he thinks of this as happiness, or flourishing, in the sense that this state would lead the person to exploit his or her full potential.
For example, between pleasure and pain, Aristotle contemplates temperance. Even though many contemporary people would regard pleasure as always being good, for this philosopher, it is not the virtue that one should seek, as it leads to an excess; specifically, pleasure would be the excess that is contrary to pain, both of which should enter into a dialectical relationship in order to find a mean that would be de virtue. Especially, in this case, Aristotle states that pleasure is what one should attempt to avoid in essence, as “Persons deficient with regard to the pleasures are not often found” (Aristotle, 29). Against this, he proposes that “the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence” (Aristotle, 29). In this sense, the amount of pleasure or pain that one seeks and receives should always be controlled, to keep it at a manageable, medium level.
As one can see, Aristotle believes that ethics should be handled at the level of habits, with actions becoming an almost integrated part of the person’s personality. For him, there should be a constant search for these virtues until the person does them in a natural fashion. As the human is a rational animal, he or she must learn to dominate the more instinctive aspects of his or her personality in order to be virtues and lead a happy life. All the actions in a person’s life should be directed towards achieving this state of happiness. In this sense, he or she should logically consider what the best course of action is, with rationality being the most important aspect of humans for this philosopher. Therefore, this leads him to propose a tempered state of nature, where the intellect controls the passions, be they through excess or deficiency.
In this sense, happiness, or flourishing, would be a state, the way of being that corresponds to the person doing that which is in accordance to the different virtues. For Aristotle, this state is only achievable when the person chooses to shy away from the different excesses, in order to be in tune with the medium. Therefore, it would not be a feeling or a tendency, but a description of the way a person is, behaves or perceives his or her acts. Habits would change the way a person feels by reaching this state, in order to produce appropriate feelings. As a consequence, according to Aristotle, people should constantly try to limit themselves in this fashion so as to obtain happiness.
Works Cited
Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. PDF.
