In the July/August issue of Philosophy Now Matthew Pianalto helpfully summarises some of Aristotle’s thinking on virtue and happiness. Aristotle, along with other Greek philosophers, maintained that happiness involved the cultivation of moral and intellectual virtues. When it came to moral education Aristotle did not believe people could learn how to live virtuously in a classroom situation but only through practice. As Pianalto summarises,
Good arguments might be necessary for justifying our actions or for understanding why our actions are right, but they are certainly not sufficient to transform us into moral people.
Aristotle, along with other Greek philosphers, was not concerned with subjective well-being, that is, relative or subjective happiness. Aristotle sought to identify the objective features of a truly happy life. The word “virtue” for Aristotle meant “excellence”, so that for him the happiest and best life was the most excellent life. For Aristotle the ultimate state of eudaimonia is often simplistically thought of as being “happiness”, but actually means “flourishing”. When people attain this state their whole life flourishes or prospers with subjective happiness only being a subset of this and not the be all and end all. It follows from this that to ask an Australian how happy she is and to ask Aristotle how eudaimon he is involves asking two entirely different questions. We would be asking the Australian to reflect on how she feels about her life, whereas we would be asking Aristotle to make an objective moral evaluation of his life.
Think of a person in a coma who might be feeling completely okay or “happy”. It is foolish to think such a person has attained the ultimate state. If that was the case then we would all be doing each other a favour by putting one another into such a comatose condition. For Aristotle a person can only attain the ultimate state of flourishing through activity.
Aristotle’s concept of virtue and eudaimonia resonates with much of biblical thinking. Aristotle’s problem, however, is that his whole approach is thoroughly humanistic and, therefore, depends on the ability of humans to be able to control their lives. In real life material circumstances can intervene, e.g. torture and other forms of violence at the hands of others, excruciating pain through disease and tragic experiences.
By contrast, for Christians the ultimate state of flourishing is something endowed by God, as I pointed out in my blog of 21/8/08. But this does not mean we are passive recipients. Peter teaches:
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:3-8).
The ultimate state is that of participation in the divine nature - not our divinisation, but our conformity to the likeness of Christ (Romans 8:29). This is the ultimate state of flourishing or fruitfulness. The process by which we get there involves strenuous exertion, combinining moral and intellectual qualities.
Posted August 25, 2008
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